An energy-efficient architecture for multi-hop communication between rovers and satellites in extra-terrestrial surfaces

Abstract

Over the past three decades, several man-made vehicles have being sent into space to explore the extra-terrestrial bodies. As the search for water and other useful substances in the extra-terrestrial surfaces increases, this exploration activity is set to dramatically increase over the next decade (2020); with NASA planning to explore the surface of Mars, Moon and other planets and satellites. In this regard, it is imperative to build an extremely energy-efficient communication system that will cover a large area in the range of hundreds of kilometres which unfortunately is absolutely not possible today. A two-hop communication mechanism that has been well researched in the literature is insufficient to cover the extremely large distance of extraterrestrial surface. In this paper, a novel three-hop clusterbased hierarchical communication architecture is proposed which could be easily extended to higher number of hops. In particular, it allows the individual rovers to move large distances for collecting data and at the same time provide an extremely energy-efficient mechanism for continuously exploring the surfaces. The simulation results show that in a Martian surface, the proposed three-hop design results in a higher capacity as compared to a single-hop or a clusterbased two-hop design even when the rovers move 100 km.