What if network simulations were an option?

How could a network simulation service help the satellite industry on a regular everyday basis? Thales Alenia Space in France, SES in Luxembourg, and Sateliot in Spain wanted to find out – why? Read here!

Magister’s SimLab service integrates the whole workflow of network simulation into one service – starting from scenario and campaign design, through simulation execution and monitoring, to the analysis of the results. Over the past year, the service has been actively developed with the support of the European Space Agency. Now the service is ready to be tested and demonstrated.

Sateliot, SES Luxembourg and Thales Alenia Space in France have been selected as the SimLab test users. The companies will get to test the simulation service for one month. Only an authentic user experience will ensure the service meets our customers’ diverse simulation needs.

But what kind of simulation needs are these going to be, and what exactly will our customers be expecting us to come up with during the forthcoming demonstration period?

Simulation as a phase of product development

Sateliot aims to offer NB-IoT services from satellites within a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation. They need simulation capabilities to support internal product development and conduct a performance characterization of their services.

– Sateliot’s simulation needs are mainly twofold. The first involves supporting the internal product development of the store and forward NB-IoT solution with eNB on board the satellite that the company is developing. The second need relates to the exact resource and service dimensioning of the network, explains Dr. Ramon Ferrús, professor at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and 5G Strategy and 3GPP Relation Lead in Sateliot CTO group.

Sateliot is also interested in an easy-to-use and easy-to-access simulation platform with powerful visualization features to be used e.g. for promotion and demonstration purposes.

Sateliot expects not only to find the right tool for simulating the scenarios and features that particularly interest them, but also to ensure the usability of the tool in terms of configuration, results extraction and visualization.

– The demonstration phase gives Sateliot a good chance to learn first-hand about every possible feature of the simulation environment that Magister SimLab can offer. We would like to achieve a performance characterization of a representative scenario for NB-IoT service delivery with small satellites and for a LEO constellation at an altitude of 600 km, says Ferrús.

Simulation as a complementary set of capabilities and features

Meanwhile in Luxembourg, SES is interested in understanding the potential of 5G Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN). Working together with Magister, they are looking at a possible set of complementary simulation capabilities and features.

– We want to understand how SimLab could complement our current simulation capabilities. We have in-house simulation capabilities, but it would be essential to learn what benefits could detailed packet-level network simulations provide us, says SES’s Senior Manager and Adaptive Resource Control System Lead, Joel Grotz.

Traditionally, SatCom systems have been based on either proprietary air interface techniques and/or based on ETSI’s DVB-S2x/RCS2 protocols. However, as 5G NTN’s is now being standardized at 3GPP, it would be essential to study its potential performance for broadband SatCom systems, he explains.

Network simulation on hand at all times

Thales Alenia Space in France works closely with simulations, 5G solutions and 3GPP standardization. The demonstration phase offers them a great way to explore and tailor SimLab exactly to their needs:

– We want to get a better understanding of what the service can provide for us and identify the benefits of investing in this type of service to support 5G based network simulation for our internal activities related to 5G NR NTN, says Thales Alenia Space’s Telecom Engineer Baptiste Chamaillard.

As a ready-to-use simulation resource, SimLab provides the agility that product development requires at Thales Alenia Space:

– As I see it, we could really benefit from the flexibility of being able to simulate specific scenarios on our own when needed. The objective for this project is to focus on 3GPP standardization related simulations, especially the 5G NTN adjacent channel coexistence scenarios which are targeted at RAN4, Baptiste adds.

How could SimLab make a difference to your business? Read more about SimLab and get a free demo!