DVB-RCS goes mobile: Challenges and technical solutions

This article presents an overview of the DVB-RCS system addressing mobile scenarios (DVB-RCS+M). It analyses the challenges linked to the mobility support and it summarises some of the techniques to cope with those challenges. The focus of this article will be on the technical solutions analysed within the framework of ESA studies and contracts. In particular, techniques such as proactive retransmission and Link Layer Forward Error Correction (LLFEC) will be described. Seamless handover mechanisms will be analysed in detail; this analysis will cover a wide range of cases: beam, satellite, gateway and gap-filler handovers.