Channel computation for multibeam frequency re-use maritime mobile satellites

A method for multibeam maritime mobile satellites with reusable frequency technology is presented which converts the number of users per unit coverage area or cell to a 'true' number of channels per cell. The method uses an antenna beam configuration and interbeam isolation characteristics to pool together all of the cell channels. A reduction factor based on Erlang pooling is used to obtain the true number of channels. The method was applied to a three satellite global maritime and aeronautical mobile system with an area of overlapping coverage between two oceans. The traffic projection within the overlap area was varied so that all users could use either of the satellites. The results show that overlap traffic sharing plays an important role in determining the bandwidth required or the ultimate number of users that a system can serve with an available bandwidth.