Satellite Communications Resilience – Service Restoration and Retainment

A network modeling and resilience quantification approach is described for multiple-beam, geosynchronous-orbit satellite communications (SATCOM) systems operating in the millimeter wave (~20-300 GHz) spectral region providing frequency reuse and dual polarization coverage of user terminals (UTs) and gateways. Focus is on the UT service restoration process in face of jamming attacks on multiple beams, including the retainment of service to collaterally affected UTs. The combinatorial optimization approach used to determine alternative pointing of UTs to beams on the attacked satellite, or to beams on satellites in adjacent orbital slots, is a Multiple Knapsack Problem (MKP) formulation. The cascading effect of jamming attacks on connected UTs removed by one or more satellite hops from jammed UTs is addressed and related to the graph theoretical component structure of the UT network; this forms an analytical basis for addressing overall network disruption due to jamming attacks. The MKP formulation is extended to include the case of multiple service provider (SP) sharing of the satellite spectrum, enabling assessment of the effect on competitive SPs due to cooperation in the form of the sharing of beam capacity. The MKP is solved using a constraint programming (CP) technique which allows latitude in the choice of objective functions.