Dynamic Resource Reservation on satellite Communication Links

For several decades, communication satellite resources, namely time, bandwidth and power, have been apportioned among multiple users with various degrees of dynamic allocation: long-term lease, shorter-term reservation, and on-demand. The lack of resource allocation flexibility, both in the commercial and technical sense, often results in a highly inefficient use of expensive satellite resources, especially for new IP based services which exhibit increasing dynamic bandwidth variations, through their packet nature or through the use of variable data rate data compression techniques. DVB-RCS is the first open standard to specify a complete, cost-effective and flexible satellite data network with dynamic resource allocation. The standard is being widely adopted internationally by satellite operators, service providers and equipment manufacturers alike. Yet, it could further benefit from lower-cost hubs (through open-source software) and portable user terminal software (in the form of licensable and portable VHDL core). The main objectives are to perform realtime simulations of various dynamic resource allocation algorithms, and to perform the preliminary design of a dynamically reconfigurable satellite communication network, relying as much as possible on successful standards and new mass-produced commercial integrated circuits, while focusing on two strategic subsystems to facilitate commercialization: user terminal software and network management software.