Assessment of Satellite Contacts Using Predictive Algorithms for Autonomous Satellite Networks
Upcoming Low Earth Orbit Satellite Networks will provide low-latency and high downlink capacity necessary for future broadband communications and Earth Observation missions. This architecture was proposed at the beginning of the 90's, although it has just recently re-gained popularity thanks to...
| Autores: | , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2020 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) |
| Repositorio: | DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:digital.csic.es:10261/236256 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10261/236256 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Satellite networks Satellite communications Predictive algorithms Federated satellite systems Internet of Satellites Inter-satellite link |
| Sumario: | Upcoming Low Earth Orbit Satellite Networks will provide low-latency and high downlink capacity necessary for future broadband communications and Earth Observation missions. This architecture was proposed at the beginning of the 90's, although it has just recently re-gained popularity thanks to the so-called Mega-Constellations. This network is composed of satellites that have Inter-Satellite Links (ISL) to communicate between them. Due to the satellite motion, an ISL is a temporal contact between two satellites characterized by a lifetime in which the communication remains feasible. The determination of a route between distant satellites is a challenging problem in this context. However, the satellite follows a well-known deterministic orbit trajectory, being feasible the prediction of its position by propagating a trajectory model over time. The Contact Graph Routing protocol uses this feature to determine the evolution of the routes by pre-computing on-ground a planning of the satellite contacts. This centralized ground-dependent solution cannot be directly applied in the Internet of Satellites paradigm, which proposes the autonomous deployment of heterogeneous satellite networks without pre-assuming any specific satellite system architecture. Following this concept, the present work proposes a distributed algorithm by which a satellite predicts neighbor contacts, and generates a global contact plan without trajectory propagation. To achieve this solution, an ISL has been modeled as a 'close approach' between two satellites, which is characterized by their relative motion. The present work details the predictive algorithm, and evaluates its performance in two scenarios with a hybrid satellite constellation and a mega-constellation. |
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