Resource management for ATM-based geostationary satellite networks with on-board processing

This paper deals with medium access control (MAC) and congestion control protocols for ATM-based geostationary satellite networks. where some demand assignment multiple access (DAMA) functionalities are performed onboard. The proposed resource management has been designed for the lower priority ATM traffic categories. which have to adapt themselves to the traffic conditions. The novelties proposed in this paper consist of a resource management strategy based on two levels of aggregations of the virtual channel connections and of a DAMA algorithm for generating the terminal bandwidth requests exploiting control theory concepts. These two innovative features are combined with an existing congestion control algorithm and an existing DAMA algorithm for assigning the capacity based on terminal requests. The resulting resource management achieves the goals of avoiding on-board congestion situations, guaranteeing an efficient use of the satellite resources and limiting the on-board processing complexity. Software simulations have been performed with the OPNET tool. in order to test the effectiveness of the proposed protocols. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.