| 摘要 |
<p>The present invention provides an uplink frame structure in a satellite communication system, and a method for providing control access to a plurality of user terminals transmitting the inventively structured uplink frames. The uplink frame structure comprises a superframe (200) which includes a predetermined number of individual frames (250). Each individual frame comprises a traffic burst field (202-220) and a control burst field (221-239), where the control burst fields (221-239) may be located at the same position within each frame (250). Each control burst field (221-239) further comprises several individual control time slots (302). The individual control time slots (302) may include, for example, timing probes and orderwire information. The present method includes establishing a superframe comprising a predetermine number of individual frames (402), determining a total number of individual control time slots (404), and establishing a control burst field in each of the individual frames (406). The method further includes distributing the control time slots among the individual frames by subdividing each control burst field into several individual control time slots (408), and allocating the individual control time slots to individual user terminals (410). The method may, for example, subdivide each control burst field into an equal number of individual control time slots. The method may further include the step of transmitting a timing probe and/or orderwire information in at least one of the individual control time slots. <IMAGE></p> |
