Location Registration and Paging in Mobile Satellite Systems

Mobile satellite systems are a crucial component of the future global telecommunications infrastructure. An important aspect of the future system is to manage the location of both users and satellites. This paper presents a strategy for location registration (update) and paging in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) mobile satellite systems. First, we discuss the tradeoff that exists between four proposed satellite location area designations. Then we introduce a scheme that selects a simple location area design and uses a hierarchical database architecture to reduce the location management signaling delay. The performance of the scheme is analyzed in terms of the paging bandwidth and the location update signaling delay. Finally, we present the numerical results f o r several planned systems, such as Globalstar, ICO, and IRIDIUM.