IP MULTICASTING IN MESH TDMA SATELLITE NETWORKS

摘要

A system and method for supporting Internet Protocol (IP) Multicast in mesh TDMA satellite networks using a centralized route server architecture, which conserves link bandwidth and minimizes delay. Individual satellite terminals (10, 20) performs forwarding of multicast IP traffic to destination terminals based on information provided by the route server (40). Multicast routing protocols need to be supported only at the route server, thus minimizing the CPU and memory resources required at the end terminals. Channel capacity for multicast traffic can be statically or dynamically assigned and takes full advantage of the broadcast nature of the medium.