MEASUREMENTS AND MODELLING OF ERROR PERFORMANCE ON AN EXPERIMENTAL 12/14 GHz SATELLITE LINK.

Results related to characterizing the error performance of an experimental 12/14 GHz satellite link established between Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, and NASA AMES Research Center, California in 1976/77. The results provide information pertaining to the design of satellite links which support continuous synchronous transmission of fixed length frames (composite packets) of statistically multiplexed traffic, with provision for retransmission of such frames received in error, by terrestrial means. The results include measurements of the density of packet error free interval lengths as well as the densities of the number of bits in error and the length of bit error free intervals within packets. It is shown that these densities may be modeled approximately by particular exponential, Poisson and geometric pdf's, respectively. The exponential model is used in an example to illustrate error performance improvement for a satellite link with terrestrial retransmission.