Future low earth orbit (LEO) satellite networks for multimedia will be seamlessly integrated into the environment of terrestrial broadband networks which use the Asynchronous Transfer Mode ATM as transmission and switching protocol for multimedia information. Therefore, the satellite networks have to adopt the ATM transmission scheme and implement ATM switches on-board the satellites. However, compared to communication in fixed networks, satellite communication is characterised by special constraints (signal delay, channel quality, dynamic network topology) requiring the development of new ATM-based communication technology for LEO satellite systems.
The aim of the ATM-Sat project is to complete this technically challenging and strategically important R&D task in a cooperation between DLR's Institute of Communications and Navigation, Oberpfaffenhofen, Fraunhofer FOKUS, Berlin), and Tesat-Spacecom GmbH, Backnang.
Objectives
ATM-Sat developed the concept and the communication technology for a multimedia satellite system with:
The project contained a research-oriented part and a demonstrator part.
The research-oriented part of the project was devoted to the fundamentals of satellite ATM communications and aimed at the development of a system concept, transmission schemes, and protocols for a reference system that could be considered a future commercial system and is called “target system”. This part of the project was mainly treated by the HGF partners. In the demonstrator part of the project the industrial partner Tesat-Spacecom provided a laboratory prototype of an on-board ATM switch, which was modified, and used in a common activity to demonstrate satellite ATM switching and ATM-based protocols for multiple access and resource management. Also, the demonstrator was used to measure the performance of the implemented protocols.
Download
List of Publications ATM-Sat Workshop 2002 (DOWNLOAD)
ATM-Sat was a project financed by the strategy fund of the Hermann von Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres (HGF)
Videokanal des Instituts