Resource Management in Satellite Networks

Nowadays, satellites are used for a variety of purposes, including sensors and data collection, weather, maritime navigation and timing, Earth observation, and communications. In particular, satellite transmissions have an important role in telephone communications, television broadcasting, computer com- nications as well as navigation. The use of satellites for communications was a brilliant idea of Arthur C. ClarkewhowroteafamousarticleinOctober1945intheWirelessWorldjo- nal, entitled "Extra Terrestrial Relays - Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Coverage?" that described the use of manned satellites in orbits at 35,800 km altitude, thus having synchronous motion with respect to a point on the Earth. This article was the basis for the use of GEOstationary (GEO) sat- lites for telecommunications. Subsequently, he also proved the usefulness of satellites as compared to transatlantic telephone cables. Satellite communications deserve the special merit to allow connecting people at great distances by using the same (homogeneous) communication system and technology. Other very signi?cant advantages of the satellite - proach are: (i) easy fruition of both broadcast and multicast high bit-rate multimedia services;(ii)provision ofbackupcommunication servicesforusers on a global scale (this feature is very important for emergency scenarios and disaster relief activities); (iii) provision of services in areas that could not be reached by terrestrial infrastructures; (iv) support of high-mobility users.
About the Author: Giovanni Giambene received the Dr. Ing. degree in Electronics from the University of Florence, Italy, in 1993 and the Ph.D. degree in Telecommunications and Informatics from the University of Florence, Italy, in 1997. From 1994 to 1997, he was with the Electronic Engineering Department of the University of Florence, Italy. He was Technical External Secretary of the European Community Project COST 227 Integrated Space/Terrestrial Mobile Networks. He also contributed to the Resource Management activity of the Working Group 3000 within the RACE Project called Satellite Integration in the Future Mobile Network (SAINT, RACE 2117). From 1997 to 1998, he was with OTE of the Marconi Group, Florence, Italy, where he was involved in a GSM development program. In the same period he also contributed to the COST 252 Project (Evolution of Satellite Personal Communications from Second to Future Generation Systems) research activities by studying the performance of PRMA protocols suitable for supporting voice and data transmissions in low earth orbit mobile satellite systems. In 1999 he joined the Information Engineering Department of the University of Siena first as research associate and then as assistant professor. He has contributed to the activities of the Personalised Access to Local Information and services for tOurists (PALIO) IST Project within the fifth Research Framework of the European Commission. Dr. Giovanni Giambene has co-authored a book published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, with the title "Protocols for High-Efficiency Wireless Networks" (November 2002). Giovanni Giambene is author of the recently published book (June 2005) by Springer, entitled "Queuing theory and Telecommunications: Networks and Applications". Recently he has been the General Chair of the IEEE ComSoc-supported event entitled: 2nd International Symposium on Wireless Communications Systems (ISWCS 2005), held in Siena, Italy, September 5-9, 2005. At present he is involved in the SatNEx network of excellence (FP6 programme) in the satellite field as responsible of the work package dealing with OSI layer 2 protocols (WP2430). Dr. Giambene is a reviewer of the following journals: IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Transactions on Networking I and IEE Electronics Letters. Dr. Giambene is member of IEEE, IEICE and the IEEE Communications Society "Satellite and Space Communications Technical Committee". His research interests include third-generation mobile communication systems, medium access control protocols, traffic scheduling algorithms, and queuing theory.