Wideband Automated Planning Tool (WAPT) Prototype Development

Abstract

Major focus in this software prototype development is the application of automated algorithmic techniques to the planning of communications services on military and commercial satellite systems. The emphasis to date is on priority-based military systems, but the flexibility to accommodate commercial systems with varied service access mechanisms is built in. The overall goal is to decrease scenario planning times from days-to-weeks to minutes on standard, but, capable laptop computers. This level of performance has been met in developmental testing, and will enable resilient operations of satellite networks by supporting fast reallocation of terminal resources. The types of algorithms employed depend on the application. For service planning when terminal endpoints are within antenna beam coverage areas, a deterministic linear programming algorithm is employed. When beam coverage is not provided for new services, i.e., when many uncovered terminal endpoints exist, a probabilistic approach using a genetic algorithm is employed to heuristically search for antenna beam configurations meeting prioritized access requests. Alternatively, when lower volumes of new, uncovered endpoints exist, specialized beam adjustment algorithms are applied. Additionally, a framework has been developed to enable operations in an enterprise environment with automated service access request (SAR) processes, which further advances resilient satellite network operations.