Adaptive packing strategy to reduce packing loss in MF-TDMA satellite networks

Abstract

Multi Frequency-Time Division Multiple Access (MF-TDMA) is a multiple access scheme that has widespread use in multimedia satellite networks. A network control center (NCC) receives capacity requests (CRs) from terminals, then it organizes a terminal burst time plan (TBTP) to be distributed efficiently. This plan informs terminals when (timeslots) and where (carrier) to transmit their traffic. Distributing the resource to the terminals is considered to be a bin packing problem. However, sometimes a packing loss may occur when packing the CRs into a TBTP. This means that even if there is sufficient free space, some of the requested cannot be packed. In particular, this occurs more frequently if a total resource is fully requested. If a packing loss occurs, then the terminal whose bit of CRs is lost must transmit the lost part of the initial CRs again. This causes additional time delay for the terminal. This worsens information quality, since the round trip time (RTT) delay is originally large in a satellite network. In this paper, we address the packing loss phenomenon in MF-TDMA for uplinks of satellite networks. We define first packing loss ratio (PLR) and packing loss probability (PLP), then propose an adaptive packing strategy (APS) to reduce packing loss. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.