The spectacular growth of cellular telephone networks has demonstrated the demand for personal communications. Communication systems based on low Earth orbit (LEO) constellations of satellites seem to be an adequate approach to achieve a worldwide network. When defining the capacity in terms of satellite circuits, the network designer has to take into account the handover traffic. Unfortunately, in a LEO communication network where handover is most often due to the network nodes motion, handover traffic models for terrestrial cellular networks cannot be used. Hence specific models must be developed. This paper proposes an analytical model for the handover in LEO satellite networks. This model is applied to different network configurations and compared to discrete-time simulations. Simulation results agree with those obtained from the analytical model.
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