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In a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite network, handover management across satellite spot beams needs to be addressed to decrease handover times while using network resources efficiently since the speed of LEO satellites is much higher than that of mobile nodes. In this paper, we propose a novel satellite handover strategy based on the potential game for mobile terminals in a LEO satellite communication network. To continue communication with the counterpart, the user has to switch among the covered LEO satellites. In a software-defined satellite network (SDSN) architecture, the satellite handover can be viewed as a bipartite graph. To balance the satellite network workload, we propose a terminal random-access algorithm based on the target of userspace maximization. The simulated handover conducted on a typical LEO satellite network, Iridium, corroborates the effectiveness of the proposed handover strategy. INDEX TERMS LEO satellite network, satellite handover, potential game, the bipartite graph, random access.

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Low earth orbit (LEO) satellite networks are capable of providing global or regional mobile services for a large number of users. Since the user's service duration may be greater than the coverage time of a LEO satellite, the user may be handed over to another visible satellite to prevent interruption of the ongoing communication. On the other hand, a mobile user may be covered by more than one satellite at the instant of connection handover. When the user is about to be handed over to another satellite, the serving satellite minimizing the number of handovers would in general be the one that provides the largest service time which is not necessarily equal to the coverage time of the very satellite. In this paper, we propose a new handover algorithm which exploits both the Global Positioning System (GPS) infrastructure and satellite diversity to provide a simple and real-time handover management in LEO satellite networks. The proposed algorithm not only minimizes the expected number of satellite handover, but is also efficient and easy to be implemented in hand-held devices, thus facilitating the mobile users' access to the satellite networks. Numerical simulations performed for two typical mobile satellite networks, viz. Iridium and Globalstar, corroborate the advantages gained by the proposed algorithm.

Summary The past few years have witnessed the prosperity in the mobile Internet. The increased traffic with diverse QoS requirements calls for a more capable and flexible infrastructure. The satellite systems with global coverage capability can be used as the backbone network to interconnect autonomous systems worldwide. In this context, routing data in the satellite networks is of great importance considering the integration of the satellite networks with the terrestrial Internet protocol networks. This paper provides a systematic routing design in the geostationary orbit/low earth orbit (LEO) hybrid satellite networks. We first give the description of the architecture of the geostationary orbit/LEO satellite networks based on which the user mobility management mechanism is proposed. The core idea of the user mobility management mechanism lies in the division of the earth surface, which results in the separation of the user and the satellite segment along with the separation of the user identifier and locator. We then give an analysis of the division of the earth surface. Based on the separation of the user and the satellite segment, the hop‐constrained adaptive routing mechanism with load balancing capability is proposed. The simulations on an Iridium‐like LEO satellite network further document and confirm the positive characteristics of the proposed routing mechanism. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.