VIRTUAL PATH ASYNCHRONOUS TRANSFER MODE SWITCHING IN A PROCESSING SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM

• Main Authors: MANN, MICHAEL W, WILLIAMS, RHON L, WRIGHT, DAVID A, FALK, AARON D
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French
• Published: 29.03.2001
• Edition: 7
• Subjects: ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; SELECTING; TRANSMISSION; TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHICCOMMUNICATION

The present invention provides a method (100) for virtual path switching of an ASTM cell on a processing communications satellite. The method includes establishing a set of VPIs (104), where each VPI is associated with an output port on the satellite. The method also includes establishing a set of VCIs (106), and assigning one VPI and one VCI to an ATM cell (108). The ATM cell may then be transmitted to, and then received by an input port of the satellite (110). The method also includes determining an associated output port (114), and transferring the ATM cell to that output port (116). The VPI may be divided into a control subfield and a routing subfield, and the associated output port may be determined based on the routing subfield (808). The present invention may also provide for multicast switching (400). For example, the method may include providing at least one multicast routing table (404). The VPI assigned to the ATM cell may be associated with a multicast output port. Thus, the ATM cell may be transferred to that multicast output port (418) and then received at the associated multicast module (420). A multicast group of VPIs may then be determined (422, 424), and the ATM cell may be reproduced several times (426). The reproduced cells may be reassigned with a new VPI from the multicastgroup of VPIs (428), and the reproduced cells are once again presented to and received by an input port of the satellite (430).