Analyzing the effects of mobility events on MUOS terminals

The mobile user objective system (MUOS) is a next generation military satellite communication system based on terrestrial 3GPP WCDMA. In any mobile wireless communication system, user terminal movement forces cell and/or beam handovers. In MUOS, the challenge of maintaining system performance in handovers and in the general class of mobility events, potentially becomes more difficult due to requirements for high speed aircraft terminals with velocities up to 900 mph, requirements for group services for point to multi-point communications, and beam movement resulting from non-geostationary satellite orbit. This paper describes the technical approach for analyzing MUOS system performance in mobility events. An example scenario using realistic user terminal characteristics, user terminal population geographic lay-downs, and moving satellite beam footprints is given. The analysis results show that required MUOS system performance is maintained for two types of network topologies. This approach can be used to evaluate performance for other candidate MUOS terminal platforms such as the Joint Strike Fighter, which can reach maximum speeds of 1200 mph.