On Efficient Reliable Multicast for Satellite Communications

Kurzfassung

Satellite communication is predestined for multicasting data files to many terminals. On the other hand, satellite communication has to cope with limited bandwidth, limited on board power at the satellite, strong shadowing in a mobile environment, and strong rain attenuation at higher frequencies like in Ka- and Ku-band. Therefore, bandwidth- and energy-efficient communication techniques are of paramount importance. Within this work, we present a method for efficiently and reliably multicasting data to several receivers via satellite. Design and implementation challenges are discussed and two laboratory implementations are presented. Moreover, based on numerical results we compare the proposed method to a traditional reliable multicast method, in terms of required retransmissions, illustrating the superiority of the former.