Load-aware and Position-aided Routing in Satellite IP Networks

Abstract

Satellite communication is regarded as a promising way to achieve seamless global coverage with an array of advantages over the traditional terrestrial network. However, the non-uniform distribution of users and the highly topological dynamics have been a matter of facts. The traditional load balancing technique is able to guarantee a better traffic distribution around the Inter Satellite Links with heavy loads after considering the non-uniform distribution of users, but it transmits load information passively and fails to provide a fair traffic distribution over the entire constellation. Given the highly topological dynamics, traditional routing protocols may experience the convergence processes frequently or use a large amount of storage to keep the snapshots. This paper proposes a novel routing protocol named LPR for the Satellite IP Networks, which transmits the bottleneck link load information to upstream satellites in a Hop-by-Hop manner actively, to guarantee a better distribution of traffic among satellites. In response, upstream satellites select less congested paths and communicate a portion of data according to the priority of different classes of traffic. In addition, LPR applies the geographical position when selecting the routing path to eliminate the convergence process which may cause the routing tables invalid. Finally, various aspects of performance of LPR have compared with other mechanisms. Our evaluations show that a routing protocol with load-aware and position-aided leads to higher throughput and better traffic distribution compared to the traditional routing protocol and load balancing technique.