Lecture 2.

11
Module 2. AVIATION
TELECOMMUNICATION SYSTEMS
Topic 2.11. MULTISTATION
ACCESS IN SATELLITE
COMUNICATION
 Capacity Allocation
• FDMA
 FAMA-FDMA
 DAMA-FDMA
• TDMA
 Advantages over FDMA
 FDMA
• Satellite frequency is already broken into
bands, and is broken in to smaller channels in
Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA).
• Overall bandwidth within a frequency band is
increased due to frequency reuse (a frequency
is used by two carriers with orthogonal
polarization).
 FDMA (cont.)
• The number of sub-channels is limited by
three factors:
 Thermal noise (too weak a signal will be effected
by background noise).
 Intermodulation noise (too strong a signal will
cause noise).
 Crosstalk (cause by excessive frequency reusing).
 FDMA (cont.)
• FDMA can be performed in two ways:
 Fixed-assignment multiple access (FAMA): The
sub-channel assignments are of a fixed allotment.
Ideal for broadcast satellite communication.
 Demand-assignment multiple access (DAMA):
The sub-channel allotment changes based on
demand. Ideal for point to point communication.
 TDMA
• TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) breaks
a transmission into multiple time slots, each
one dedicated to a different transmitter.
• TDMA is increasingly becoming more
widespread in satellite communication.
• TDMA uses the same techniques (FAMA and
DAMA) as FDMA does.
 TDMA (cont.)
• Advantages of TDMA over FDMA.
 Digital equipment used in time division
multiplexing is increasingly becoming cheaper.
 There are advantages in digital transmission
techniques. Ex: error correction.
 Lack of intermodulation noise means increased
efficiency.
FIXED-ASSIGNED MULTIPLE
ACCESS
Fixed-assigned multiple access
(FAMA) is one of the two main
techniques for allocating channels
to users. In FAMA, each user is
allocated a channel permanently,
whether they use it or not.
Demand Assigned Multiple Access
Demand Assigned Multiple Access (DAMA) is a
technology used to assign a bandwidth to clients that
don't need to use it constantly. DAMA systems assign
communication channels or circuits based on requests
issued from user terminals to a network control
system. When the circuit is no longer in use, the
channels are then returned to the central pool for
reuse by others.
Channels are typically a pair of carrier frequencies (one
for transmit and one for receive), but can be other
fixed bandwidth resources such as timeslots in a TDMA
burst plan. Once allocated to a pair of nodes this
bandwidth is not available to other users in the
network until their session is finished.
It allows utilizing of one channel (frequency band,
timeslot, etc.) by many users at different times. This
technology is mainly used by small clients, as opposed
to PAMA (Permanently Assigned Multiple Access). By
using DAMA technology the amount of users that can
use a limited pool of circuits can be greatly increased.
DAMA and PAMA are related only to bandwidth
assignment and are not to be mixed with the Multiple
access methods intended to divide a bandwidth
between several users at one time, which include
FDMA, TDMA, CDMA and others. These systems
typically allow a more determenistic near real time
allocation of bandwidth based on demands and data
priority.
DAMA is widely used in satellite
communications, especially in VSAT systems. It
is very effective in environments comprising
multiple users each having a low to moderate
usage profile.
DAMA is often used in military environments
due to the relative simplicity of implementation,
ease of modeling, and the fact that military
usage profiles are a very good fit.
ALOHAnet
ALOHAnet, also known as ALOHA, was a
pioneering computer networking system
developed at the University of Hawaii. It was
first deployed in 1970, and while the network
itself is no longer used, one of the core concepts
in the network is the basis for the widely used
Ethernet.
The idea was to use low-cost amateur radio-like systems to
create a computer network linking the far-flung campuses of the
University. The original version of ALOHA used two distinct
frequencies in a hub/star configuration, with the hub machine
broadcasting packets to everyone on the "outbound" channel,
and the various client machines sending data to the hub on the
"inbound" channel. Data received was immediately re-sent,
allowing clients to determine whether or not their data had
been received properly. Any machine noticing corrupted data
would wait a short time and then re-send the packet. This
mechanism was also used to detect and correct for "collisions"
created when two client machines both attempted to send a
packet at the same time.
Like the ARPANET group, ALOHA was important
because it used a shared medium for transmission. This
revealed the need for more modern medium access
control schemes such as CSMA/CD, used by Ethernet.
Unlike the ARPANET where each node could only talk
to a node on the other end of the wire, in ALOHA all
nodes were communicating on the same frequency.
This meant that some sort of system was needed to
control who could talk at what time. ALOHA's situation
was similar to issues faced by Ethernet (non-switched)
and Wi-Fi networks.
This shared transmission medium system
generated interest by others. ALOHA's scheme
was very simple. Because data was sent via a
teletype the data rate usually did not go beyond
80 characters per second. When two stations
tried to talk at the same time, both
transmissions were garbled. Then data had to be
manually resent.
The ALOHA protocol is an OSI layer 2 protocol
for LAN networks with broadcast topology.
The first version of the protocol was basic:
- If you have data to send, send the data
- If the message collides with another
transmission, try resending "later"
Many people have made a study of the protocol.
The critical aspect is the "later" concept. The
quality of the backoff scheme chosen
significantly influences the efficiency of the
protocol, the ultimate channel capacity, and the
predictability of its behavior.
Pure Aloha had a maximum throughput of about
18.4%. This means that about 81.6% of the total
available bandwidth was essentially wasted due to
losses from packet collisions. The basic throughput
calculation involves the assumption that the aggregate
arrival process follows a Poisson distribution with an
average number of arrivals of 2G arrivals per 2X
seconds. Therefore, the lambda parameter in the
Poisson distribution becomes 2G. The mentioned peak
is reached for G = 0.5 resulting in a maximum
throughput of 0.184, i.e. 18.4%.
An improvement to the original Aloha protocol
was Slotted Aloha, which introduced discrete
timeslots and increased the maximum
throughput to 36.8%. A station can send only at
the beginning of a timeslot, and thus collisions
are reduced. In this case, the average number of
aggregate arrivals is G arrivals per 2X seconds.
This leverages the lambda parameter to be G.
The maximum throughput is reached for G = 1.
Because Listen before send (CSMA -
Carrier Sense Multiple Access), as used in
the Ethernet, works much better than
Aloha for all cases where all the stations
can hear each other, Slotted Aloha is used
on low bandwidth tactical Satellite
communications networks by the US
Military, subscriber based Satellite
communications networks, and contactless
RFID technologies.
Description
Prior to ALOHAnet, most computer
communications tended to share similar
features. The data to be sent was turned into an
analog signal using a device similar to a modem,
which would be sent over a known connection
like a telephone line. The connection was point-
to-point, and set up (typically) by manual
control.
In contrast ALOHAnet was a true network. All of the
computers "connected" to ALOHAnet could send data
at any time without operator intervention, and any
number of computers could be involved. Since the
medium was a radio, there were no fixed costs so the
channel was "left open" and could be used at any time.
Using a shared signal in this way leads to an important
problem: If two systems on the network – known as
nodes – send at the same time, both signals will be
ruined. Some sort of mechanism needs to be in place to
avoid this problem. There are a number of ways to do
this.
One would be to use a different radio frequency for every node,
a system known as frequency multiplexing. However this would
require each node added to able to be "tuned in" by all of the
other machines. Soon there would be hundreds of such
frequencies, and radios capable of listening to this number of
frequencies at the same time are very expensive.
Another solution is to have "time slots" into which each node is
allowed to send, known as time division multiplexing. This is
easier to implement because the nodes can continue to share a
single radio frequency. On the downside if a particular node has
nothing to send, their slot goes wasted. This leads to situations
where the available time is largely empty and the one node with
data to send has to do so very slowly just in case one of the
other 100 nodes decides to send something.
ALOHAnet instead utilised a new solution to the
problem, one that has since been developed to become
the standard, carrier sense multiple access. In the Aloha
system nodes which needed to send simply sent out
their frames as soon as they were ready.
Normally this would mean that the first node to start
using the radio would have it for as long as it wanted,
which means the other nodes couldn't "get a word in
edgewise". In order to avoid this problem the
ALOHAnet made the nodes break down their messages
into small packets, and send them one at a time with
gaps between them. This allowed other nodes to send
out their packets in between, so everyone could share
the medium at the same time.
There is one last problem to consider: if two
nodes attempt to start their broadcast at the
same time, you'll have the same sorts of
problems you would with any other system. In
this case ALOHAnet invented a very clever
solution. After sending any packet the nodes
listened to see if their own message was sent
back to them by a central hub. If they got their
message back, they could move on to their next
packet.
If instead they never got their packet back, that would mean
that something prevented it from arriving at the hub – like a
collision with another node's packet. In this case they simply
waited a random time and tried again. Since each node picked a
random time to wait, one of them would be the first to re-try,
and the other nodes would then see that the channel was in use
when they tried. Under most circumstances this would avoid
collisions.
This sort of collision avoidance system has the advantage of
allowing any one node to use the entire network's capability if
no one else is using it. It also requires no "setup"; anyone can be
hooked up and start talking without any additional information
like the frequency or time slot to use.
On the downside, if the network gets busy the
number of collisions can rise dramatically to the
point where every packet will collide. For
ALOHAnet the maximum channel utilisation was
around 18%, and any attempts to drive the
network over this would simply increase
collisions, and the overall data throughput
would actually decrease, a phenomenon known
as congestion collapse.
With Slotted Aloha, a centralised clock sent out small
clock tick packets to the outlying stations. Outlying
stations were only allowed to send their packets
immediately after receiving a clock tick. If there is only
one station with a packet to send, this guarantees that
there will never be a collision for that packet. On the
other hand if there are two stations with packets to
send, this algorithm guarantees that there will be a
collision, and the whole of the slot period up to the
next clock tick is wasted. With some mathematics, it is
possible to demonstrate that this protocol does
improve the overall channel utilisation, by reducing the
probability of collisions by a half.
The ALOHAnet itself was run using 9600 baud radio
modems across Hawaii. The system uses two 100 kHz
"channels" (slices of frequency), one known as the
broadcast channel at 413.475 MHz, and the other the
random access channel at 407.350 MHz. The network
was a star, with a single central computer (a HP 2100)
at the university receiving all messages on the random
access channel, and then re-broadcasting them to all of
the nodes on the broadcast frequency. This setup
reduced the number of collisions possible, there could
be no collisions at all on the broadcast frequency, for
what that was worth. Later upgrades added repeaters
that also acted as hubs, greatly increasing the area and
total capability of the network.
Reservation ALOHA
Reservation ALOHA, or R-ALOHA, is a channel access
method for wireless transmission which allows
uncoordinated users to share a common transmission
resource. Reservation ALOHA (and its parent scheme,
Slotted ALOHA) is a schema or rule set for the division
of transmission resources over fixed time increments,
also known as slots. It is via this rule set or schema
that, if followed, allows the bandwidth users to
cooperatively utilize a shared transmission resource—
in this case, it is the allocation of transmission time.
Reservation ALOHA is an effort to improve the
efficiency of Slotted ALOHA. The improvements
with Reservation ALOHA are markedly shorter
delays and ability to efficiently support higher
levels of utilization. As a contrast of efficiency,
simulations have shown that Reservation ALOHA
exhibits less delay at 80% utilization than Slotted
ALOHA at 20-36% utilization.
The chief difference between Slotted ALOHA and
Reservation ALOHA is that with Slotted ALOHA, any slot
is available for utilization without regards to prior
usage. Under Reservation ALOHA's contention-based
reservation schema, the slot is temporarily considered
"owned" by the station that successfully used it. Also
with Reservation ALOHA, once the station has
completed its transmission, it simply stops sending
data. As a rule, idle slots are considered available to all
stations that may then implicitly reserve (utilize) the
slot on a contention basis.
 
Single channel per carrier
Single channel per carrier (SCPC) refers to using
a single signal at a given frequency and
bandwidth. Most often, this is used on
broadcast satellites to indicate that radio
stations are not multiplexed as subcarriers onto
a single video carrier, but instead independently
share a transponder. It may also be used on
other communications satellites, or occasionally
on non-satellite transmissions.
In an SCPC system, satellite bandwidth is
dedicated to a single source. This makes sense if
it is being used for something like satellite radio,
which broadcasts continuously. Another very
common application is voice, where a small
amount of fixed bandwidth is required.
However, it does not make sense for burst
transmissions like satellite internet access or
telemetry, since a customer would have to pay
for the satellite bandwidth even when they
were not using it.
Where multiple access is concerned, SCPC
is essentially FDMA. Some applications use
SCPC instead of TDMA, because they
require guaranteed, unrestricted
bandwidth. As satellite TDMA technology
improves however, the applications for
SCPC are becoming more limited.
Advantages
- simple and reliable technology
- low-cost equipment
- any bandwidth (up to a full
transponder)
- usually 64 kbit/s to 30 Mbit/s
- easy to add additional receive
sites (earth stations)
Disadvantages
- inefficient use of satellite bandwidth for burst
transmissions, typically encountered with
packet data transmission
- usually requires on-site control
- when used in remote locations, the
transmitting dish must be protected
- a dish which is moved out of alignment can
result in fines as high as $1,100 per minute (as
of 2003) from the satellite operator
MCPC
With multiple channels per carrier (MCPC), several subcarriers
are combined into a single bitstream before being modulated
onto a carrier transmitted from a single location to one or more
remote sites. This uses time-division multiplexing (TDM). It is a
retronym of sorts, as it was the only way radio networks were
transmitted ("piggybacked" on television networks) until SCPC.
In digital radio and digital television, an ensemble or other
multiplex or multichannel stations can be considered MCPC,
though the term is generally only applied to satellites.
The major disadvantage of MCPC is that all of the signals must
be sent to a single place first, then combined for retransmission
— a major reason for using SCPC instead.