Sponsored by ICST
Technically co-sponsored by Create-Net

Next generation satellite services will cater the demands of personal services by bringing the satellite terminals directly to the hands of the user hence providing satellite personal services directly to the user. Technological advances in satellite communications have made it possible to bring such value added satellite services directly to the user by reducing the overall cost as well as addressing many technological challenges such as supporting mobility, having miniaturized antennas and terminal sizes, and providing high data rate links. With the unique broadcast nature and ubiquitous coverage of satellite networks, the synergy between satellite and terrestrial networks provides immense opportunities for disseminating wideband multimedia services to a wide range of audiences over large numbers of geographically-dispersed people. It is evident that the satellite will play a complementary, but essential, role in delivering multimedia and telecommunication services to infrastructure-less regions where the terrestrial high-bandwidth communication infrastructures are practically unreachable. In such a context, we introduce a new category claimed to be defined as Personal Satellite Services (PSATS), thus identifying communications, multimedia and location identification services. These opportunities are also currently fueling accelerated research in PSATS enabled systems which we cover in this conference. The services enabled by PSATS not only cover the requirements of an ordinary citizen but also provide defense personal services such as tracking, visualization and virtualization in a highly secure communication environment.

The conference will explore such techniques, and aims to serve as a premier international forum for discussions, bringing together academic and industrial researchers, practitioners, and students interested in future techniques relating to the satellite communications, networking, technology, systems, and applications.

The conference will consist of diverse technical tracks:

(For submissions Please go to: http://psats.eu/submission.shtml)

General Track

• Satellite antenna designs
• Modulation and coding
• Synchronization, equalization and channel estimation
• Channel modeling for satellite communications
• MIMO communications for satellites
• Interference detection and mitigation techniques
• DVB and broadband access technologies
• Networking topologies for broadband over satellite links
• IP over satellite and QoS support
• Reliable multicast protocols, transport protocol over satellite
• Onboard switching and processing
• Delay tolerant networking
• Radio resource management and packet scheduling
• Power control, hand-over issues and call admission control
• Cross-layer air interface design and performance
• Emerging standardizations and issues
• Real-time multimedia streaming, broadcast/multicasting
• Security related issues of satellite communications

Satellite Navigation Systems and Services

• Current and forthcoming satellite navigation standards (GPS, GLONASS, GNSS)
• Advanced navigation receiver design and implementation
• Assisted localization techniques
• Location-based services
• Automotive and road-safety applications of satellite navigation

Value added services and future systems

• Voice, broadband Internet, DVB, positioning
• Infrastructure and network management
• IP over satellite and heterogeneous networks
• Quality of Service (QoS) issues
• Ka-band and emerging frequency bands
• Earth observation
• Emergency service assistance

Convergence of Satellite System and Emerging Technologies

• Convergence with Terrestrial, Wireless Access, and Sensor Networks
• Cooperative/distributed network architectures
• Quantum satellite communications
• Convergence with optical networks
• Hybrid Satellite & Terrestrial Networking

Important Dates

Paper Submission Deadline: October 15, 2010

Notification of Acceptance: December 15, 2010

Camera-Ready Deadline: January 12, 2011

Conference Date: February 17 - 18, 2011

Steering Committee

• Prof. Imrich Chlamtac, President, Create-Net, Italy
• Dr. Kandeepan Sithamparanathan, Create-Net, Italy
• Mr. Stefano Agnelli, ESOA/Eutelsat, France
• Prof. Mario Marchese, University of Genoa, Italy

Organizing Committee

• Dr. Claudio Sacchi, University of Trento, Italy
• Dr. Giovanni Giambene, University of Siena, Italy

• Dr. Igor Bisio, University of Genoa, Italy
• Prof. Fun Hu, University of Bradford, UK

• Dr. Lorenzo Mucchi, University of Florence, Italy

• Prof. Mari Carmen Aguayo Torres, University of Malaga, Spain

• Barbara Torok, ICST, Belgium

• Dr. Susanna Spinsante, Universita Politecnica delle Marche, Italy

• Dr. Marco Lucente, Universita di Roma "Tor Vergata", Italy