Variable stayout distance for beamhopping satellite

A non-transient computer-readable storage medium having instructions embodied thereon, the instructions being executable by one or more processors to perform a method for scheduling a variable stayout distance when beam hopping, the method comprising:

• providing an illumination area of a satellite and candidate beam centers disposed in the illumination area;
• measuring a respective scan angle from an antenna boresight to a respective beam center of the candidate beam centers;
• determining a reuse factor k, for each of the candidate beam centers, based on a proportion of the respective scan angle to a maximum scan angle;
• and
• generating a current beam center set by sequentially adding a respective candidate beam center of the candidate beam centers when the respective candidate beam center is outside a respective reuse distance D from each of the candidate beam centers already in the current beam center set.

A beam forming system to schedule using a variable stayout distance when beam hopping, the system comprising:

• a satellite covering an illumination area and candidate beam centers disposed in the illumination area;
• and
• a stayout scheduler to measure a respective scan angle from an antenna boresight to a respective beam center of the candidate beam centers, and to determine a reuse factor k, for each of the candidate beam centers, based on a proportion of the respective scan angle to a maximum scan angle,
• wherein the stayout scheduler sets the reuse factor k for each of the candidate beam centers by choosing either a next smallest reuse factor k1 or a next largest reuse factor k2 from a set of stayout distances based on a probability p.