Evaluation of handover mechanisms in shadowed low earth orbit land mobile satellite systems

This paper presents a quantitative analysis by computer simulation of the active set update (ASU) handover algorithm for a shadowed low earth orbit (LEO) land mobile satellite (LMS) environment. As a precursor to the handover analysis, the mutual visibility statistics for a 66 satellite polar and 48 satellite rosette-type constellation are presented. These results show the statistical nature of the levels of satellite diversity and mobile-to-satellite elevation angles (to the highest satellite) within each network and also indicate the influence of the channel characteristics on the handover strategy. A two-state Markov modulated channel model is assumed in the handover analysis, and this enables the assessment of increased levels of power and time hysteresis on the quality of service and network signalling load in a shadowed land mobile satellite environment. In particular, attention is given to the different modes of ASU operation for hard handover, switch diversity and soft handover.