France Telecom

Alcatel Espace

Bernard Coulomb

Regis Lenormand

Gerard Maral

Jean-Pierre Cances

Christian Rigal

Jean-Philippe Marre

Charles Villemur

Michel Tatard

The invention provides a multibeam antenna comprising:

High capacity multibeam antenna with electronic scanning in transmission

The invention concerns a method of allocating a respective free radio beam channel to calling and called stations of a satellite telecommunication network. If there is no free channel on a beam forming the coverage including one given station, the method of the invention looks for free channels in each beam adjacent said beam, and allocates one of the adjacent beam free channels to the given station as soon as in an optimal subset of beams comprising all beams using the same channel as the free channel each level of isolation equal to the ratio of an antenna gain of a main lobe of a respective one of the beams of the optimal subset to the sum of the maximal antenna gains of secondary lobes of the other beams is greater than a given threshold.

Method of allocating a communication channel in a satellite network

A earth station calling another station sends a link setting-up a request to a control station. The control station memorizes in a transformed reference system the contour of a global geographical coverage including all the earth stations together with the earth positions of the latter. Subsequent to the request, the control station simulates the optimum evolution of the radioelectric coverages of the satellite so as to include, both on emitting and receiving, the calling and called stations in respective coverages with guaranteed minimum antenna gains. The total power of the satellite and the positions of the stations are notably considered in this simulation. If the result of simulation is positive, an emission authorization is sent by the control station to the calling station, and satellite antennae are reconfigured by phase shift and power control values emitted by the control station.

Antenna beam coverage reconfiguration

Growing community of inventors

L'Union, France

Bernard Coulomb