An Error Recovery Technique for a Satellite Channel Assignment System with Distributed Control

A distributed control system for a set of earth stations sharing satellite communication channels is studied. The stations communicate by messages which may be corrupted by errors. A sufficient set of message types are defined to allow stations to enter and leave the system, to arbitrate for communication channels, and to recover from error situations. The errorprocesses assumed are of a transient nature, mainly existing on the interstation control channels. The signaling communication protocols are informally described in a Pascal-like language. The protocols are simulated in Simula and are found to work correctly in all cases studied.