Design of WSN with Relay Nodes Connected Directly with a LEO Nanosatellite

Abstract

Abstract-There have been a few studies in the literature about using a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite as a component of wireless sensor network (WSN). The satellite, as small as a Nanosatellite with a lifetime of three months, requires employment of a very simple payload whereas all the complexity is brought back to the relay nodes (RNs) which are connected directly to the Nanosatellite using a random access protocol. The mainly constraint on the design of this type of RN is its energy consumption which determine the lifetime of the WSN network. In this article, in order to calculate the energy comsumption of each RN, we will establish a mathematical model which takes into account all parameters involved for determining the lifetime of a RN for direct Communication with a LEO Nanosatellite. This model is completted by using discret event simulator. The simulations show that we could reach the maximum number of RNs that can be served by the Nanosatellite by implementing an optimized method of energy-saving on these RNs.Index Terms-LEO satellite, data aggregation, slotted ALOHA, WSN, satellite communication. I. INTRODUCTIONRecent advances in the development of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) [1] reveal a new architecture [2] for WSN network using direct communication between typical RNs and a satellite. In this paper, each RN plays the role of cluster head node which consists of aggregating received data from many sensor nodes into an aggregated data packet and then forwarding the aggregated data packet to the Nanosatellite.The network architecture under consideration consists of SNs, RNs, a satellite and a Central Station (see Fig. 1). SNs located in specified predetermined sensing locations send the gathered physical information to a RN, which in turn forwards the data to the LEO Nanosatellite. Noted that the number of passes per day of the Nanosatellite, with altitude of 650Km, over the same service area on the earth is equal to four [3]. A central station could gather data via the Nano-satellite from worldwide remote sites, where human presence is expensive and difficult to support (montains, deserts, oceans, dams, …). Then the gathered data will be archived to a database and accessed by Internet. In this article, we will focus on the direct communication between the RNs and the Nanosatellite and especially on the energy consumption of a RN which is the key parameter to design such WSN. Manuscript received February 12, 2014; revised April 28, 2014. A. Addaim is with the Ecole Nationale des Sciences Appliqué es (ENSA), Kenitra, B.P 241,.A. Kherras and Z. Guennoun are with the Mohammadia Engineering School, Rabat, B.P 765, Morocco (e-mail: kherras@emi.ac.ma, guennoun@emi.ac.ma). II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION Consider a communication network comprising one LEO Store and forward Cubesat Nanosatellite and a finite number of RNs on the ground. The instantaneous coverage of the satellite depends on the minimum angle of elevation E min under which any RN can be serviced by the Nanosatellite. Because of the spherical shape...

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