Performance of a prioritized nonblocking switch under hotspot traffic conditions with head of line resolution

A performance analysis under hotspot traffic conditions on a four-level prioritized nonblocking baseband switch for use onboard a switching multibeam satellite is described. Both finite input and output buffering, as well as speedup, are employed to reduce the loss, which is critical in a satellite application. In order to improve the performance of the two lowest-priority users, a head of line resolution (HLR) technique is implemented. It is shown that, with HLR and the proper adjustment of the switch speedup and the input and output buffers, the loss can be substantially reduced. It is also shown that the dependence on the switch size which is characteristic of the unbuffered discard case is substantially reduced, even in a prioritized environment. This allows larger switches to be implemented.<>