Satellite Router Content Popularity Detection for Bandwidth Efficiency

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative Solutions
Generate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Satellite communication systems face limitations in bandwidth due to increasing multimedia content demand, leading to reduced simultaneous terminal capacity, especially during peak hours, as existing solutions either delay content transmission, increasing latency, or are not applicable to live broadcasts.

Innovation Solution

Implementing intelligent routers upstream and downstream of the satellite link to measure content popularity and adapt transmission modes, storing popular content closer to users, allowing for efficient point-to-multipoint broadcasting without additional latency, and utilizing terrestrial links for less popular content.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of energy

If content transmission is delayed to optimize satellite resource usage, then bandwidth efficiency is improved, but transmission latency increases and quality of service deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvebandwidth efficiencyVSAvoidtransmission latency
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of energyVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary actions by predicting content popularity in advance and pre-positioning content in the buffer memory of satellite terminals before actual user requests arrive. This allows popular content to be ready for immediate transmission without delay, while still optimizing bandwidth by avoiding multiple retransmissions of the same content to multiple terminals.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system dynamically adapts transmission mode based on real-time conditions by monitoring content popularity metrics and adjusting between unicast and multicast modes. The satellite terminal buffer memory size is dynamically configured based on predicted popularity, allowing the system to optimize between latency and bandwidth efficiency depending on current traffic patterns and content demand.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #15Dynamics

2Speed

If popular content is pre-transmitted to all terminals, then access speed is improved, but bandwidth consumption increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecontent access speedVSAvoidbandwidth consumption
Core Design Contradiction:
SpeedVSLoss of energy

Solution Approach 1:

Instead of uniformly pre-transmitting content to all terminals, the system applies local quality by selectively pre-positioning content only in satellite terminals that are geographically or logically relevant to areas with predicted high demand. The buffer memory allocation is customized per terminal based on local popularity predictions, ensuring fast access where needed while avoiding unnecessary bandwidth consumption in areas with low demand.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #3Local quality

3Productivity

If satellite link capacity is increased to serve more terminals simultaneously, then system capacity is improved, but hardware cost and complexity increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvesimultaneous terminal capacityVSAvoidsystem hardware requirements
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system creates copies of popular content in the buffer memory of satellite terminals, allowing multiple terminals to access the same content simultaneously without requiring increased satellite link capacity. This copying mechanism enables the system to serve more terminals at the same time by utilizing local cached copies rather than requiring proportional increases in satellite bandwidth or hardware capacity.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #26Copying

Data Source

PatentEP3054652B1Dynamic adjustment of the transmission mode in a satellite communication system
Publication Date: 2020.06.10 THALES SA
  • EP3054652B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3054652B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP3054652B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

System and method for transmitting a data stream between a server (102) and a user terminal (101), comprising at least one satellite gateway (111) associated with a satellite router (103) communicating with at least one satellite terminal associated with a terminal router (104), wherein: • the terminal router is configured to, when it receives a stream request from a user terminal, search for it in its memory resources and, if applicable, transmit it to the user terminal; • the satellite router is configured to transmit the request to the server, estimate a popularity of the stream and transmit a message matching the stream to broadcast parameters and then convert the stream into a point-to-multipoint stream adapted to the broadcast parameters; • the terminal router is configured to convert point-to-multipoint streams into point-to-point streams and transmit them to the user terminals.