A real-time algorithm for timeslot assignment in multirate return channels of interactive satellite multimedia networks

  • Authors:
  • Ki-Dong Lee;Kun-Nyeong Chang

  • Affiliations:
  • Digital Broadcasting Res. Div., Electron. & Telecommun. Res. Inst., Daejeon, South Korea;-

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

Since the digital video broadcast-return channel via satellite (DVB-RCS) standard was released in 2000, developing an interactive satellite multimedia (ISM) network has become a hot issue. In order to provide high-speed multimedia services using a DVB-RCS system, it is important to efficiently and dynamically assign the timeslots to a number of terminals according to their various demands. Also, it is imperative to improve the degradation of link quality due to rain-fade attenuation in Ka-band satellite communications. As a result, multirate superframe structures should be implemented for a relatively low data rate at the cost of stable connection to terminals in rain-fade regions and a relatively high data rate to terminals in clear-sky regions. Timeslot scheduling in this environment is studied in this paper. We mathematically formulate the timeslot assignment problem as a nonlinear integer programming problem and develop an efficient real-time solution algorithm. Extensive simulation results show that our algorithm successfully finds a feasible solution with optimality gap less than 0.05% within about 5 ms at Pentium III PC. We believe that our algorithm can be utilized as a guideline in developing real-time timeslot assignment algorithms for ISM networks.