Flexibility performance in advanced Ka-band multibeam satellites

Abstract

Multibeam satellite systems are typically designed assuming a uniform traffic demand, while, in reality, the uncertainty of the actual traffic creates load imbalances among different beams. In this case, the global capacity balance yields to a paradox: the system is not able to meet the demand while some of the available capacity is left unused. Multibeam systems can mitigate this effect by embarking flexible payloads that allow to allocate the available resources on demand, depending on the actual traffic conditions.