Different queuing policies for handover requests in low Earth orbit mobile satellite systems

In this paper, a mobility model suitable for low Earth orbit mobile satellite systems (LEO-MSS's) has been presented, and its statistical parameters have been derived in order to evaluate the impact of the mobility on the performance of the fixed channel allocation (FCA) strategy. Moreover, we have foreseen that interbeam handover requests, which do not immediately find service, can be queued to reduce the handover failure rate. Two different queuing disciplines have been assumed: (1) the first-input-first-output (FIFO) scheme and (2) an idealized strategy that requires knowledge of the last useful instant (LUI) within which the handover procedure must be completed in order to rank the queued handover requests. An analytical approach has been developed to compare these queuing techniques, and its results have been validated through simulations.