Systems and methods for satellite noise and interference calibration using terminal measurements

1. A system, comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more non-transitory computer-readable mediums operatively coupled to at least one of the one or more processors and having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, cause the system to:

receive a plurality of signal to interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) measurements made by a plurality of terminals for a plurality of inroute frequency channels (IFCs);

normalize the SINR measurements for each of the plurality of terminals, wherein normalizing the SINR measurements for each of the plurality of terminals comprises: for each of the plurality of terminals: determining a difference between each of the terminal's IFC SINR measurements and the terminal's maximum IFC SINR measurement, thereby creating normalized SINR offsets for each IFC;

determine one or more clear channels of the plurality of IFC using at least the normalized SINR measurements; and

determine a final calibrated IFC SINR offset for each of the plurality of IFCs.

2. A system, comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more non-transitory computer-readable mediums operatively coupled to at least one of the one or more processors and having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, cause the system to:

compute initial statistics for a plurality of signal to interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) measurements made by a plurality of terminals for a plurality of inroute frequency channels (IFCs);

normalize the SINR measurements for each of the plurality of terminals;

determine one or more clear channels of the plurality of IFC using at least the normalized SINR measurements; and

determine a final calibrated IFC SINR offset for each of the plurality of IFCs, wherein the final calibrated IFC SINR offset for each IFC is determined by Offset ifc =IFC mean +K 6 *IFC std , wherein IFC mean is a mean of the IFC's offset SINR values, IFC std is the standard deviation of the values, and K is a constant between 0 and 5.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, further cause the system to: compute initial statistics for the plurality of SINR measurements made by the plurality of terminals for the plurality IFCs, wherein computing the initial statistics comprises taking an average of SINR measurements made for each of the plurality of IFCs by each of the plurality of terminals.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, further cause the system to: remove outlier SINR measurements for each of the plurality of terminals for each IFC.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein removing outlier SINR measurements for each of the plurality of terminals for each IFC comprises:

determining an average SINR measurement of the IFC by the terminal; and

removing any SINR samples by the terminal that are more than a predetermined number of standard deviations away from the average SINR.

6. The system of claim 1 , further comprising: a satellite gateway configured to receive the plurality of SINR measurements made by the plurality of terminals.

7. A method comprising:

receiving over a communications network a plurality of signal to interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) measurements made by a plurality of terminals for a plurality of inroute frequency channels (IFCs);

normalizing the SINR measurements for each of the plurality of terminals, wherein normalizing the SINR measurements for each of the plurality of terminals comprises: for each of the plurality of terminals: determining a difference between each of the terminal's IFC SINR measurements and the terminal's maximum IFC SINR measurement, thereby creating normalized SINR offsets for each IFC;

determining one or more clear channels of the plurality of IFCs using at least the normalized SINR measurements; and

determining a final calibrated IFC SINR offset for each of the plurality of IFCs.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the final calibrated IFC SINR offset for each of the plurality of IFCs is determined by Offset ifc =IFC mean +K 6 *IFC std , wherein IFC mean is a mean of the IFC's offset SINR values, IFC std is the standard deviation of the values, and K is a constant between 0 and 5.

9. The method of claim 7 , further comprising: computing initial statistics for the plurality of SINR measurements, wherein computing the initial statistics comprises taking an average of SINR measurements made for each of the plurality of IFCs by each of the plurality of terminals.

10. The system of claim 6 , wherein the satellite gateway is configured to determine the clear channels of the plurality of IFC.

11. The system of claim 4 , wherein the instructions when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, further cause the system to: after removing the outlier SINR measurements for each of the plurality of terminals for each IFC, compute an average of SINR measurements made for each of the plurality of IFCs by each of the plurality of terminals without the outlier SINR measurements.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more clear channels are determined using at least the normalized SINR offsets for each IFC.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the one or more clear channels are determined by selecting IFCs with an average SINR offset below a predetermined threshold.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the one or more clear channels are determined by selecting IFCs with an average SINR offset below a predetermined threshold and having at least a minimum number of terminals with SINR measurements on the channel.

15. The system of claim 12 , further comprising: transmitting, to the plurality of terminals, the final calibrated IFC SINR offsets for each of the plurality of IFCs the plurality of terminals operate on.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the final calibrated IFC SINR offsets for each of the plurality of IFCs are transmitted in a calibration table.

17. The system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, further cause the system to: remove from consideration SINR measurements made by each of the plurality of terminals without SINR measurements on at least one of the one or more clear channels.

18. The method of claim 7 , wherein the plurality of SINR measurements made by the plurality of terminals are received by a satellite gateway over the communications network, wherein the satellite gateway determines the final calibrated IFC SINR offset for each of the plurality of IFCs.

19. The method of claim 7 , further comprising: removing outlier SINR measurements for each of the plurality of terminals for each IFC.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein removing outlier SINR measurements for each of the plurality of terminals for each IFC comprises:

determining an average SINR measurement of the IFC by the terminal; and

removing any SINR samples by the terminal that are more than a predetermined number of standard deviations away from the average SINR measurement.

21. The method of claim 20 , further comprising: after removing the outlier SINR measurements for each of the plurality of terminals for each IFC, computing an average of SINR measurements made for each of the plurality of IFCs by each of the plurality of terminals without the outlier SINR measurements.

22. The method of claim 7 wherein the one or more clear channels are determined using at least the normalized SINR offsets for each IFC.

23. The method of claim 22 , wherein the one or more clear channels are determined by selecting IFCs with an average SINR offset below a predetermined threshold.

24. The method of claim 23 , wherein the one or more clear channels are determined by selecting IFCs with an average SINR offset below a predetermined threshold and having at least a minimum number of terminals with SINR measurements on the channel.

25. The method of claim 22 , further comprising: transmitting, to the plurality of terminals, the final calibrated IFC SINR offsets for each of the plurality of IFCs the plurality of terminals operate on.

26. The method of claim 25 , wherein the final calibrated IFC SINR offsets for each of the plurality of IFCs are transmitted in a calibration table.

27. The method of claim 7 , further comprising: removing from consideration SINR measurements made by each of the plurality of terminals without SINR measurements on at least one of the one or more clear channels.

28. A method, comprising:

a satellite gateway instructing a plurality of terminals over an outroute channel to measure a signal to interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) of a plurality of inroute frequency channels (IFCs) corresponding to a satellite network partition;

in response to the instruction, the satellite gateway receiving over an inroute channel a plurality of SINR measurements made by the plurality of terminals for the plurality of IFCs;

the satellite gateway normalizing the SINR measurements for each of the plurality of terminals, wherein normalizing the SINR measurements for each of the plurality of terminals comprises: for each of the plurality of terminals: determining a difference between each of the terminal's IFC SINR measurements and the terminal's maximum IFC SINR measurement, thereby creating normalized SINR offsets for each IFC

the satellite gateway determining a final calibrated IFC SINR offset for each of the plurality of IFCs; and

transmitting, to the plurality of terminals, the final calibrated IFC SINR offsets.