Planning and Analysis Tools for Satellite Communications
Tools for Today’s Satellites
Calian has a suite of Planning Tools and applications designed to operators in managing their satellite network. These include applications for long-term capacity planning, sizing service based on customer requirements, and beam coverage analysis
Product/Solutions
- Capacity Sizing Tool
- Capacity Planning Tool
- Antenna Coverage Tool
Capacity Sizing Tool
The Capacity Sizing Tool (CST) assists satellite capacity planning and sales teams in designing and selling service plans based on aligning QoS needs with satellite performance characteristics across geographic regions. Terminal Service Plans (TSPs) are defined as fleets of fixed and/or mobile terminals, an operating geographic area, required QoS targets, and expected levels of diurnal CIR and MIR. Terminal fleets may be defined to operate over routes, within geographic regions, or within specified beam groups. The CST determines achieved availability, data rate, and a nominal MODCOD for a service plan across the operating geography by considering the satellite performance characteristics and propagation models for link impairments for six different operating scenarios. This information can be used to create custom service plans per customer or standard service plan packages.
The CST allows satellite bandwidth and power resource pools (Group Service Plans) to be defined and Terminal Service Plans to be mapped to resource pools. Contention can be applied to the resource pools. These resource pools help in overall capacity planning and feed into our Capacity Planning Tool used in medium and long term capacity planning. In addition, the resource pools can be useful in assisting with service pricing. The iDirect Pulse service model for the Velocity platform is supported.
The CST provides further support to service-level planning by providing dynamic parameterized coverage map generation. Coverage maps can be generated at a global or regional scale to illustrate achieved availability, highlight or compare terminal type performance, or display achieved MIR or C/No. The coverage displays are customizable and can be viewed online, exported, or printed.
Capacity Planning Tool
The Capacity Planning Tool (CPT) tracks the available and used capacity of a satellite fleet. Designed to scale from one satellite to a global fleet, the system tracks over time, payload configurations (channels/beams), potential and committed service for individual and group services, and network usage statistics. Services are represented by data rates, symbol rates, geoscopes, and time frames, and are augmented by demand and congestion statistics obtained from the ground segment. The loading analysis algorithm analyzes the overall loading by beam and presents results in graphically rich charts and reports. System planners input potential growth scenarios into the CPT and use capacity loading analysis results to create potential satellite network configurations to accommodate growth of the network. Results are ranked in order to help indicate the most desirable courses of action to handle network growth.
The CPT integrates with the Capacity Sizing Tool tool by ingesting potential and modified service plans and allowing a supportability analysis to be performed. The analysis uses collected statistical data and projected usage parameters to determine how the service plans fit into the current satellite network configuration, as well as potential future configurations. This capability allows the potential effects of adding terminals to the network to be analyzed before they have undergone commissioning. The service plan lifecycle management facilities of the CPT additionally allows for centralized management of the stages of a service plan from initial supportability analysis, through commissioning, to the end-of-life of the service plan.
Antenna Coverage Tool
Projects satellite antenna patterns onto 2D and 3D world maps to be able to visualize and analyze beam coverage. Supports Satsoft.
