Higherground, Inc.

Timothy Reed Cooper

Shmuel Shaffer

Scott A McDermott

Bruce Leonard McKinley

Mark Evan Russell

David Daugherty

In one embodiment, a communicating device (e.g., either a ground station server or a particular distributed module of a satellite communication system) mitigates congestion on a particular return communication path via an intermediate satellite from the plurality of distributed modules to the ground station server. In particular, in response to determining that the level of congestion is above a threshold, then the communication device mitigates the congestion by, e.g., one or both of either a) determining an uncongested return communication path from a particular distributed module to the ground station server, ensuring that the uncongested return communication path would not interfere with any unintended receiver, and then causing the particular distributed module to use the uncongested return communication path, and b) enforcing one or more communication restrictions on a utilized return communication path to reduce the effect of a communication on the overall congestion of the utilized return communication path.

Return path congestion mitigation for satellite communications

In one embodiment, a ground station server of a satellite communication system mitigates congestion on a particular forward communication path via an intermediate satellite from the ground station server to a plurality of distributed modules. In particular, in response to determining that the level of congestion is above a threshold, then the ground station server mitigates the congestion by, e.g., determining uncongested forward communication paths, scheduling a sufficient amount of communication over the uncongested forward communication paths to alleviate congestion on the particular forward communication path without congesting the one or more uncongested forward communication paths, transmitting instructions on the particular forward communication path to corresponding modules of the plurality of distributed modules, the instructions causing the corresponding modules to use a respective uncongested forward communication path, and communicating to the corresponding modules on their respective uncongested forward communication path.

Growing community of inventors

Centreville, VA, United States of America

Timothy Reed Cooper