SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR FLEXIBLE ASSIGNMENT OF BEAMS TO GATEWAYS IN A HIGH THROUGHPUT DIGITAL PAYLOAD SATELLITE NETWORK

摘要

The disclosure provides for the flexible assignment of user beams to gateway beams in digital payload satellite systems. A "virtual beam" - a set of data values associating a physical user satellite beam with a Gateway Earth Station ("GW") and used by the GW to service the physical user satellite beam, may be created or defined each time a physical user satellite beam is assigned to a GW. For one physical user beam, a plurality of virtual beams may be created, where each virtual beam corresponds to a GW. The virtual beams may be used to provide for the flexible assignment of user beams to gateway beams in a variety of applications such as GW expansion, physical user beam reassignment from one GW to another GW, diversity operation of terminals, and GW redundancy.