Research and Development

Dynamic Traffic Management for Broadband Spot Beam Satellites

Program

Space Technologies Development Program (STDP)

Program Element

Technologies for the Enhancement of Industrial Capabilities

Funding Agency

CSA (Canadian Space Agency)

Project Team

Telesat Canada (CDA)
MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Corporation (MDA) (CDA)
 EION Inc. (CDA)

Background

The development and evolution of national broadband communication infrastructure strategies has been a constant theme of government initiatives throughout the world. For Canada, the importance of the “Connecting Canadians” initiative towards building a modern competitive nation has been recognized as potentially having an impact comparable to that of the nineteenth century connecting of Canadians achieved through the construction of cross country railroads. All investigations in this area have identified satellites and space infrastructure as critical elements of this initiative, especially for nations with such geographically widespread population as Canada.

With the successful launch of SpaceMux, and the current CSA demonstration program to operate the experimental On-Board Processor (OBP) for applications using Anik F2 Ka beams in Eastern and Western Canada, it is incumbent on the Canadian space industry to plan for the next platform to offer increased coverage areas and provide innovative and cost effective broadband services. Hub-less technology, with distributed intelligence that is ubiquitous across the country, must prove its commercial viability at an early stage for timely and cost effective consideration in the definition, design and build of upcoming broadband communication satellite systems. This Dynamic Traffic Management project will allow trade off studies to be undertaken at the early stages of system design and development thus mitigating risks associated with several complex problems that must be resolved well ahead of flight mission deadlines.

Project Objective

This project is designed to be a critical spoke in the wheel of activities towards developing a regenerative spot beam payload. It has two objectives:

  • To develop algorithms to manage traffic on a payload with multiple degrees of freedom including spot area coverage, power, bandwidth and throughput while achieving efficient use of limited satellite resources and respecting user service level agreements (SLA).
  • To develop software emulators and test programs to assess performance of the algorithms.

Main Innovations

The techniques proposed address analysis, implementation, verification and simulation of satellite system models. Algorithms using best of breed traffic management protocols adapted to Satcom will be developed and converted into a reference design, representing a realistic software model of the space and ground systems. Defined traffic models will be applied to assess performance of the algorithms and modified higher layer traffic management protocols. Software based emulators will be fully reconfigurable for future work to optimize algorithms of on board processors and ground terminals

There is a legacy of high level protocols to manage traffic according to defined SLAs for terrestrial environment but existing solutions must be modified to work in the high latency and hostile Satcom environments while maintaining cost effective and near error free performance equivalent to, or better than terrestrial alternatives.

Technical Risks & Mitigation

The major technical risk on this program consists of bringing together new and innovative technical solutions from team members to develop a cohesive emulator product capable of evaluating the effectiveness of sophisticated traffic management algorithms envisaged for advanced satellite and ground segments of broadband communication systems. The project is very software intensive and requires a high degree of design skills. The systems engineering team combine the proven expertise and resources of Telesat, MDA and EION.

Proven methodology for developing reference designs and new software products will be applied. Comprehensive verification processes to ensure the emulators are robust and perform according to the planned design goals will be implemented. Traffic profiles based on expected market needs will be developed and used to evaluate performance.

Major Milestones & Deliverables

The project is divided into four phases.

Phase 1 will define the system requirements based on market needs and current OBP architectural activity and traffic management over satellite.

Phase 2 will undertake core algorithm development leading to a reference emulator design. In parallel, an approach to efficient traffic management will also be developed.

Phase 3 will undertake software development activity, followed by rigorous verification and integration of the emulators.

Phase 4 will use the emulator to perform simulation tests and demonstrations using traffic management profile identified at the system definition stage.

Throughout the proposed development, future commercialization aspects of advanced services will be reviewed, culminating with a final commercialization plan.

Expected Main Benefits

The technology developed in this program will be at the leading edge of broadband satellite system definition/operation. Although the technology will be ideally suited for government services and applications in Canada and elsewhere, the enterprise solution will also enable Canadian companies to retain their commercial lead in broadband sales worldwide.

A requirement of the Project is to develop a software based emulator that is fully reconfigurable for future use in optimizing algorithms of on-board processors and ground terminals. The simulation work performed in this program focusing on the high level protocols, will be applicable to other technical networking challenges facing future satellite service providers.

Hub-less technology with distributed intelligence that are ubiquitous across the country have potential, but their cost effectiveness and feature set need to be defined at the early stage, before final designs are too advanced. The service-provider/manufacturer team approach is a proven formula for developing new satellite concepts.

Current Status (Dated: 12 July 2006)

The project work got under way on May 29th 2006. Market needs and feature assessment for the On-Board-Processor work is in progress