Satellite Data Networks

present day satellites are limited in their ability to provide high data rate communication services due to the limited availability, and high cost of, satellite resources such as power, energy, and frequency bands.
Moreover, present communication satellites were designed almost exclusively for supporting stream traffic such as voice, video or bulk data transfers, and are not efficient for the transmission of “bursty” data traffic such as Internet
traffic. With data traffic constituting an increasing fraction of the demand for communication services, future satellite systems must be designed to effectively support emerging data applications. Doing so requires a paradigm
shift from traditional circuit switched technology, used for voice communication, to packet switched technology, used in data networks. With support from NASA and the Department of Defense my research group in the
Aeronautics and Astronautics Department and the Laboratory of Information and Decision Systems is working to address these important issues. Our research efforts are aimed at significantly increasing the data delivery capacity
www.mit.edu