Antenna pointing algorithms for the mobile user objective system

The mobile user objective system (MUOS) will provide the next generation of military satellite communications at UHF bands in support of mobile users worldwide. These user terminals will include handhelds that present challenges in the ability to close links with high availability. To enable this capability for disadvantaged terminals, MUOS designs will likely include spot beam antennas to provide higher gains at the space segment. These spot beams, whether electronically or mechanically steered, must be dynamically pointed to regions on the earth to support deployed users. These pointing algorithms would be resident in the control segment of the system and could address a range of optimization objectives such as maximizing the number of terminals covered, simultaneous optimization of beam size and terminal coverage, multiple beam coverage and dynamic coverage for terminal mobility. This paper describes algorithms for MUOS spot beam pointing and applies them to notional reference scenarios.