Feasibility of a Dynamic Data Rate Satellite Link for Inmarsat
Abstract
Inmarsat is a predominantly commercial satellite system fitted on most United States Navy surface vessels including: frigates, cruisers, destroyers, amphibious ships and mine sweepers. It is primarily used for telephone, fax, email, web browsing, and the Global Command and Control System (GCCS). Inmarsat, however, has a very limited data rate. For ships fitted with the latest modem upgrade, Inmarsat provides a meager 128 kbps for support of its numerous functions. To improve upon Inmarsat's limited data rate, this thesis suggests a potential improvement to Inmarsat communications by integrating a dynamic data rate link that maintains the required probability of bit error without exceeding the allocated bandwidth. The results from this thesis show that link margin provisions from the static data rate design are able to support much greater data rates using advanced modulation and forward error correction techniques. The proposed adaptive dynamic link improves the link by measuring channel conditions to determine the fastest data rate for successful communications. When channel conditions are good, the adaptive dynamic link will communicate at a high data rate, and when channel conditions are poor, the dynamic link will communicate at a lower data rate to maintain a target probability of bit error ceiling.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2007
- Accession Number
- ADA469902
Entities
People
- John F. Boseman
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School