Flexible Beam-User Mapping for Multibeam Satellites

A non-rigid mapping between satellite beams and users is explored, so that users are not necessarily served by their dominant beams. As baseline cases we consider traditional satellite payloads and flexible bandwidth allocation across beams, along with the development of a simplified optimization algorithm. The explored solutions are tested in a satellite scenario that consists of a chain of beams in a two-color scheme under a common polarization, addressing multiple traffic demand distributions. The flexibility that the beam-free approach brings along provides a better geographic match when facing strongly non-uniform traffic demands. This is translated into a reduction of the unmet capacity, up to 29% on average for the selected asymmetric traffic demand scenarios.