[amsat-bb] Re: BBsat Call for ideas

[Timothy J. Salo]

Greg D. wrote:
> Ah, but how does one know that a time slot is not being used?
> With many stations on the ground, there is a good chance that
> multiple stations will pick the same "empty" slot to be theirs,
> and we're back to collisions.

For good performance, some sort of media-access control (MAC)
protocol is required.  Time-slotted protocols have a lot to
be said for them, although some have suggested using a CDMA
protocol.  You could create a system that assigns time slots
to active ground stations.  But, if these stations are generating
very bursty traffic, like voice, a lot of the uplink bandwidth
may be wasted.  In general, I think this is what I call a "hard
problem" (i.e., we don't know how to solve it [yet], and
perhaps nobody else does either).

> So, this is what I was talking about when I suggested, as
> essentially you do, to work on a prototype of the ACP messaging
> system that is being proposed for Eagle.

I think this is a great idea.

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, all development work on
the Eagle and the ACP ceased several months ago.  The
Microwave Engineering Project (MEP) is or might become, in
some vague sense, a terrestrial variant of the ACP.

   <http://www.delmarnorth.com/microwave/>

I am hopeful that at least some of the work on the MEP
will be applicable to the ACP.

> There are two significant technical challenges that I see,

Actually. I think there are a quite a few technical challenges
and issues...

> and the protocol used to facilitate fair and resilient access
> to the satellite by all the ground stations it overflies is one.
> ... I haven't checked, but has the Eagle team published their
> protocol for doing this?  ...

The team developing the ACP ground station made pretty much
everything they wrote freely available online.  [What a
concept!}  Unfortunately, they didn't get all that far before
work ceased.  See the ACP ground station Web site:

   <http://www.delmarnorth.com/namaste/>

> The other challenge is the modulation system ...
   ^^^^^^^^^
    Another

You might look at these two documents:

<http://www.delmarnorth.com/microwave/requirements/Microwave_Link_Discussion.pdf>

<http://www.delmarnorth.com/microwave/requirements/Microwave_Link_Analysis.pdf>

-tjs