Small Satellite Group Network By The Method Of Study

With the rapid development of Internet, the accessibility to the network anytime andanywhere is more and more desired, which is hard to be achieved by the access technique of theconventional network due to its various limitation. Compared with land-based network, satellitenetwork can provide seamless coverage over the globe with real-time communication. Comparedwith Geosynchronous-Orbit (GEO) satellite communication, Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellitecommunication has many advantages such as low transmission delay and low signal attenuation.To cut the system cost, LEO satellite network often be constituted by many small satellites and isalso called as Small Satellite Network (SSN).As a mobile network, the SSN has a dynamic network topology. But, it will bring high cost ofcomputation and storage due to the limited load of the satellites when using IP routing.Conventional IP routing techniques are designed mainly for the network with a fixed networktopology and thus cannot support mobile network very well. Although studies have been done toimprove the IP routing techniques for mobile network, there is still limitation.In this dissertation, we study the routing methods for random constellation satellite network(RCSN) and develop a general routing method. Designing general routing method for satellitenetwork can not only accumulate techniques but also cut the development cost due to the fact thatusually it requires long research period and large risk in the satellite projects.As the RCSN has no regular constellation structure, satellites are distributed unevenly, whichbrings challenges for its network routing. We develop a general routing method: Agent-based arearouting method, which is based on the area partition and is independent from the satelliteconstellation. The routing is further decomposed to inter-area routing and intra-area routing. Eacharea has a node be selected as the agent that is in charge of inter-area routing and intra-area nodemanagement. The location of area is independent from the satellite's location and the number ofarea is limited and thus is suitable for IP routing techniques.In order to lower the routing load, we propose the concept of limited interconnection that cantransfer some of the routing loads from middle-nodes to end-nodes by using end-nodes tomaintain the relationship of nodes. In the limited interconnection, end-nodes do not need theunlimited capacity of accessing all the network nodes, which improves the SSN's tolerance topartial connectivity.Simulation results have demonstrated the feasibility of applying the area routing method tovarious satellite network systems.The major contribution of our study in this dissertation are: 1) proposing the area routingmethod for RCSN routing problem and thus extending it to the regular constellation satellitenetwork;2) providing a valuable method for LEO Sky-Flying Satellite (SFS) to access thesatellite network and thus facilitating interconnection between multiple SSNs;3) proposing theconcept of limited interconnection to lower the routing load due to the dynamic network topologyand improve the SSN's tolerance to partial connectivity.