Impact of varying wireless channel on the performance of LEO satellite communication system

The impact of varying wireless channel on the performance of handover scheme in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite systems operating in different propagation environments, is analytically presented in this work. Generally LEO mobile satellite systems are adversely affected by diverse impairing factors like shadowing and multipath fading which increases the rate of handover failure and blocking of new connections. In essence, this work proposes to adopt the concept of Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) operating at two different transmission rates that suit the channel states of the network. Furthermore, a study of the performance of LEO satellite network in three different propagation environment is presented. In addition, the effect of channel variation on the overall transmission time for these environments is shown by analytical performance measures. The performance metrics considered for this analysis are the blocking probability of new call attempts (P_bl), handover failure probability due to lack of available resources in the destination cell of the mobile (P_b2), call dropping probability due to an unsuccessful handoff (P_drop,) and unsuccessful call probability (P_ns).