Distributed On-Demand Routing for LEO Mega-Constellations: A Starlink Case Study
arXiv:2208.02128 · doi:10.1109/ASMS/SPSC55670.2022.9914716
Abstract
The design and launch of large-scale satellite networks create an imminent demand for efficient and delay-minimising routing methods. With the rising number of satellites in such constellations, pre-computing all shortest routes between all satellites and for all times becomes more and more infeasible due to space and time limitations. Even though distributed on-demand routing methods were developed for specific LEO satellite network configurations, they are not suited for increasingly popular mega-constellations based on Walker Delta formations. The contributions of this paper are twofold. First, we introduce a formal model that mathematically captures the time-evolving locations of satellites in a Walker Delta constellation and use it to establish a formula to compute the minimum number of ISL hops between two given satellites. In the second part, we present an on-demand hop-count-based routing algorithm that approximates the optimal path while achieving superior performance compared to classical shortest-path algorithms like Dijkstra.
This is an extended version of a paper published in ASMS/SPSC 2022 containing proofs and further details. This work was part of the MISSION (Models in Space Systems: Integration, Operation, and Networking) project, funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions grant number 101008233