MUOS System Performance Trade Study

In a trade study of alternative hand-held user-terminal characteristics employing the MUOS (Mobile User Objective System) [1][2] waveform, the impact to system performance is assessed. The primary metrics of MUOS system performance are simultaneously high levels of link availability, system capacity, and data rate service. High fidelity physical channel models and dynamic link layer simulations provide propagation (terrestrial and ionospheric), external interference, WCDMA self-interference, and hardware implementation loss terms. These parameters are used in detailed static link budgets to assess individual link performance, subject to adverse terminal geographic location in satellite antenna patterns. The range of system capability is examined in both highly stressed and optimum channel environments for power limited user terminals, parameterized by EIRP. The advantage of a WCDMA communication system is that performance is not hard limited by frequency bands or time slots. The analysis method and results shown in this paper can be used to examine a WCDMA performance trade space quantitatively for two example capacity levels: rated and extended. Power limited users can have high link availability with higher data rate service in optimum environments or reduced data service in stressed environment when the system is heavily loaded to its rated capacity. The results also show WCDMA user capability in performance scenarios extending beyond typical military baseline system requirements: mission critical applications which demand a high level of availability versus non-critical applications where high data rate service is the priority over availability and capacity.