Spectral Efficiency of Mobile VSAT Systems

Satellite communication systems based on very small aperture terminals (VSAT) are important for the military in on-the-move communications applications. The performance of these systems depends on many parameters, including, the transmit and receive antenna aperture sizes and the specific satellite employed in the system. In this paper we will compute the spectral efficiency of the VSAT system for different sets of these parameters. We will consider the commercial Ku-band and all the applicable regulatory issues will be addressed in this analysis. It is demonstrated that these regulatory issues play a significant role in determining the performance of the VSAT system.