Method for defining the flexible payload of a telecommunications satellite with low-interference-level beam hopping

A method for distributing the capacity of a communication satellite between the various beams intended to cover a given geographical zone, said zone being divided into a plurality of spots, each spot being irradiated by one given beam emitted by one radiating element of a satellite antenna and requiring a given capacity, said method being wherein it implements:

• a first step of defining, for each beam, the capacity from which the beam must benefit on account of the density of exchanges occurring in the corresponding spot;
• a second step of generating a table indicating, for a power amplifier having various operating bandwidth and power characteristics, the maximum number Pi of beams that the amplifier is able to deliver and the average capacity allocated to each beam, depending on various amplifier sharing schemes;
• a third step of forming groups of beams, each group being characterized by the average value of the capacity of the beams forming the group in question, and determining the number of amplifiers required in each group to deliver all of the beams forming this group;
• a fourth step of allocating available resources, during which step the method distributes the various beams between various amplifiers, the beams assigned to a given amplifier being determined in such a way that the average value of the capacity demanded by these beams is substantially equal to the reference average capacity computed for the group in question.