High Data Rate Meteor-Burst Communications

Abstract

The meteor burst communications channel offers a largely untapped means of communications that can alleviate congestion in many existing communications systems. It also provides some interesting advantages over other beyond-line-of-sight systems, including lower susceptibility to atmospheric perturbations, a limited footprint, and relatively low cost. Past system applications have been quite limited, however, due to the random nature of the meteor burst phenomenon which has resulted in relatively low throughput and lengthy wait-times.This paper presents the results of an experimental study of the meteor burst channel which illustrates its time-varying bursty nature. In addition, the authors describe an innovative approach to data transmission over meteor burst systems, ie, the use of the Feedback Adaptive Variable Rate (FAVR) system which allows the maximum amount of information to be transmitted over each meteor burst channel.For underdense meteor channels the FAVR performance is compared to an optimum system, ie, a system capable of changing its bit rate instantaneously to channel conditions so as to maintain a constant SNR in each bit, and to a constant optimum rate/burst system. It is shown that for such a system FAVR can result in a throughput increase exceeding a factor of 10.