Cross‐layer protocol optimization for satellite communications networks: a survey

Abstract

SUMMARYSatellite links are expected to be one important component of the next-generation Internet. New satellite system architectures are being envisaged to be fully IP based and support digital video broadcasting and return channel protocols (e.g. DVB-S, DVB-S2 and DVB-RCS). To make the upcoming satellite network systems fully realizable, meeting new services and application requirements, a complete system optimization is needed spanning the different layers of the OSI, and TCP/IP protocol stack. This paper deals with the cross-layer approach to be adopted in novel satellite systems and architectures. Different cross-layer techniques will be discussed, addressing the interactions among application, transport, MAC and physical layers. The impacts of these techniques will be investigated and numerical examples dealing with the joint optimization of different transport control schemes and lower layers will be considered referring to a geostationary-based architecture. Our aim is to prove that the interaction of different layers can permit to improve the higher-layer goodput as well as user satisfaction.

Broadband satellite multimedia

“…This cross-layer approach could prevent the occurrence of massive buffer overflows and subsequent TCP repeated timeouts, thus permitting to increase the bandwidth utilization in satellite networks. Such advantages could not be reached with a classical PEP approach [5], [7], [8].…”

“…The NCC can exploit these functionalities by means of a PEP approach that 'splits' the TCP connection by isolating the satellite segment. The cross-layer PEP scheme envisaged here is a transport-layer integrated PEP operated on the NCC side and based on the horizontal cross-layer signalling approach [5]. The PEP makes use of modified transport-layer ACKnowledgments (ACKs), here denoted as ACK* (use of in-band signalling and non-transparent PEP solution).…”

BSM integrated PEP with cross-layer improvements

“…Such advantages could not be reached with a classical PEP approach. For more details about this scheme the interested reader may refer to [11], [12], [13]. On the basis of the cross-layer potentialities described above and the characteristics of the cross-layer PEP, the following recommendations and impacts are considered for the BSM protocol structure and SI-SAP interface definition.…”

Channel-Aware Scheduling algorithms with Channel Prediction for reliable multicast data transmission over geostationary satellite networks

“…However, in the context of reliable transmission, its configuration and management must be accurately analysed, since satellite resources are expensive and link quality degrades significantly during fading. Also, in transmission of multicast data from a satellite direct to N receivers, repeated retransmissions due to bad channel conditions may exhaust the forward link capacity, as reported in [1]. This problem is more pronounced in case of large multicast groups since the performance of the communication depends on the performance of a group of users that are possibly located across the spotbeam, hence experiencing different channel conditions.…”

“…In wireless systems where both radio resources and power are strictly constrained, resource optimisation is needed when such opportunity is not guaranteed by the strictly layered protocol stack. 1 In this paper, we implement cross-layer approach at a channel-aware scheduler in Radio Access Network (RAN). Specifically, Channel State Information (CSI) from physical layer (PHY) of the terminals is reported via return link for the scheduler's utilization which resides in Medium Access Control (MAC) of (RAN).…”