Resource-Considerate Data Routing Through Satellite Networks

Abstract

In many envisaged satellite-based networks, such as constellations or federations, there often exists a desire to reduce data latency, increase delivered data volume, or simply exploit unused resources. A strategy is presented that achieves efficient routing of data, in a store-carry-forward fashion, through satellite networks that exhibit delay-and disruption-tolerant network characteristics. This network-layer protocol, termed Spae, exploits information about the schedule of future contacts between network nodes, because satellite motion is deterministic, along with the capacity of these contacts to route data in such a way as to avoid significant overcommitment of data along a resourcelimited journey. Results from simulations of a federated satellite system indicate consistent benefit in terms of network performance over other, less-sophisticated, conventional methods, and comparable performance to a packet-optimal, full-knowledge approach.

Space mission resilience with inter-satellite networking

“…This approach is of course not appropriate for certain systems that demand specific orbital parameters, but it is assumed that for this mission, relative orbital position between each asset is not important. It is considered possible to transfer data between satellites when their respective distance is below some threshold and data routing is carried out using the Spae routing algorithm, described in [24].…”

Identifying Retrofitting Opportunities for Federated Satellite Systems

“…FSS requires the establishment of flexible (ad-hoc) links between satellites, meaning that participants need to have well-established mechanisms to predict location (orbit propagation), estimate benefits from the communications (through an economic model) [14], and establish the link (pointing, hand-shaking, secured data exchange, and acknowledgment protocols) [5,12].…”

“…With an objective to reduce cost and optimize services, the idea of resource sharing through platforms has also reached the space industry. Possible applications of this concept are temporary storage of data in-space, as well as data relay (e.g., store-carry-forward techniques) [5], or multipurpose instrumentation that could be used for different mission objectives. Looking at data relay, it can be observed that data relay satellites appeared in the 1960s [6].…”

“…The paper addresses economic feasibility in this work only insofar the comparison with state-of-the-art solutions. This paper does not address details on modulations, routing protocols, coding techniques, and data security for satellites in federations, as this goes beyond the scope of the paper; some of these topics were already addressed in [5,12,13]. Retrofitting existing satellites so to incorporate them into FSS does not only bring technological challenges; legal and political issues are likely to play a major role as well [12,14].…”

Network coding‐based multi‐path routing algorithm in two‐layered satellite networks

“…Moreover, since the network users on the ground tend to converge in big cities in contrast with remote areas, satellites that covering populated areas receive much higher volume of traffic, which increases the possibility of traffic congestion. To address these challenges, most of the recent work in routing algorithms for satellite networks has focused on coping with time‐variant topology, traffic congestion, possible channel disruption [5] and lossy ISLs [6]. In the research work conducted by Kawamoto [7] et al , a MLSN model is proposed to distribute the flow of packets between different layers to minimise the packet delivery delay.…”