A system simulator for Broadband Global Area Network

Abstract

Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) is a mobile satellite communications service by Inmarsat [1], which is providing reliable, cost-effective global broadband data and voice using compact, lightweight portable terminals. BGAN provides almost global coverage with three geostationary satellites for maritime, enterprise, aviation, and governmental customers. BGAN uses a proprietary Inmarsat Air Interface-2 (IAI-2) protocol stack, which is also the basis of the technical specification of the SL (Satellite Link) family of the Satellite Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (S-UMTS) standard, which was proposed by Inmarsat and published by ETSI as TS 102 744 [2-5]. Unlike IAI-2, S-UMTS Family SL is an open standard. In this paper, a system level simulator that models the S-UMTS Bearer connection and Bearer control layers is presented. In particular, the focus is on the return link scheduling utilizing adaptive modulation and coding scheme (MCS) to balance reliability and efficient bandwidth usage. A custom algorithm was designed for the return link radio resource management (RRM) of the S-UMTS simulator.