Channel Allocation in a Communication System

摘要

Methods and systems are described which provide solutions for determining how to allocate terminals to slots in order to maximise communication system performance in the case where there is no feedback channel between a multiuser satellite receiver and terminals within the field of view. Terminals operate independently of each other and choose transmission slots based upon the geographic position of the terminal. Terminals can be programmed with a slot selector to choose slots according to some deterministic or non deterministic function of the current position. A slot plan database may be used to assist in efficient slot selection. Regular and irregular grid based allocation methods are described, that reduce the likelihood that too many terminals transmit using the same slot within the field of view. Satellite induced Doppler effects can be utilised be further increase slot re-use and to improve allocation of slots so that the receiver sees an approximately uniform distribution of frequencies over the frequency band to improve system throughput. The approaches described herein greatly reduce or eliminate the probability of failure at the receiver, which has numerous implementation advantages such as reduced cost, complexity, and power consumption.

主权项

1. A method for allocating a transmission slot to a terminal in a communication system, the method comprising:
obtaining a geographic position of the terminal, wherein the communication system comprising a plurality of terminals and a receiver for receiving transmissions from the plurality of terminals, the receiver having a field of view, wherein the terminal is one of the plurality of terminals; and allocating a transmission slot based upon the obtained geographic position of the terminal, wherein there is no feedback channel from the receiver to the plurality of terminals or a feedback channel from the receiver to the plurality of terminals is present but is not being used for allocation of the transmission slot to the terminal and allocation of the transmission slot is performed independently of the receiver.