Channel prediction and network coding for smart gateway diversity in terabit satellite networks

This paper explores the network design implications to be taken into account in Smart Gateway Diversity (SGD) satellite systems, where gateway outage events have to be counteracted by efficient handover procedures. In more detail, enabling high data-rate satellite systems in these conditions requires efficient coordination strategies between gateways, upstream routers and Network Control Centre (NCC) to precisely estimate the need of handover and to efficiently manage the satellite resources. To this regard, this paper adopts a simple channel estimation algorithm and applies network coding to cope with packet losses deriving from possible inaccuracies on the prediction of the handover time. The results obtained via simulation confirm the capabilities of network-coding-based approaches and pave the way for further studies in the area of network for SGD satellite systems.