Optimization in VHTS Satellite System Design with Irregular Beam Coverage for Non-Uniform Traffic Distribution

Abstract

Very High Throughput Satellites (VHTS) have a pivotal role in complementing terrestrial networks to increase traffic demand. VHTS systems currently assume a uniform distribution of traffic in the service area, but in a real system, traffic demands are not uniform and are dynamic. A possible solution is to use flexible payloads, but the cost of the design increases considerably. On the other hand, a fixed payload that uses irregular beam coverage depending on traffic demand allows maintaining the cost of a fixed payload while minimizing the error between offered and required capacity. This paper presents a proposal for optimizing irregular beams coverage and beam pattern, minimizing the costs per Gbps in orbit, the Normalized Coverage Error, and Offered Capacity Error per beam. We present the analysis and performance for the case study and compare it with a previous algorithm for a uniform coverage area.