Satellite Model for Network Simulator 3

Abstract

Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) organisation has published a bluebook for the 2nd generation of satellite return link specification, DVB-RCS2. Also, the evolution of DVB-S2, currently called DVB-Sx, is in standardization process. Simulations have increased importance in standardization support as well as in internal product development due to the ability to provide faster feedback on technological solutions without the need for early-stage testbed and real systems development. However, there is a need for modular open-source satellite system simulator which would adopt the latest DVB satellite standards. Current simulators owned by satellite vendors, operators and research organizations may be proprietary, generally tailored for special purposes and/or may be based on commercial licenses. In this article we present the building blocks and architecture of satellite model developed on top of a widely used opensource system/packet level simulator Network Simulator 3 (NS-3). The satellite extensions are based on DVB-S2 and DVB-RCS2 specifications for forward and return links, respectively. Simulator module is developed to be highly modular and flexible to be able to match the future R&D needs of satellite system vendors, operators, research organizations, as well as scientific community.

A burst-approach for transmission of TCP traffic over DVB-RCS2 links

“…Performance evaluation leverages on the Network Simulator Ns-3 enhanced with the satellite module described in the introduction [4]. Fig.…”

“…Details on the specific RBDC/VBDC algorithms can be found on the documentation related NS3 satellite modules [3] [4] and are out of DVB standards specification. In addition, since transport protocols are unaware of lower layers characteristics, we assess TCP NewReno or TCP Wave performance and reliability without altering default MAC layer configuration, as happens in the real life.…”

“…Such a module implements a full protocol stack compliant to ETSI DVB-S2 in the forward link and DVB-RCS-2 in the return link. While in past works [4], mainly reliability and link-level performance have been validated, this paper aims to exploit such a powerful tool for a complete characterization of realistic TCP-based applications. A new TCP variant, called TCP Wave and based on TCP-Noordwijk [5], is herein tested as an end-to-end alternative to standard TCP.…”

Reliable M2M/IoT data delivery from FANETs via satellite

“…In this section, the scenario under configuration is evaluated by means of simulations. The simulator we built is based on the use of S‐NS3, which provides a compliant DVB‐RCS2 implementation to the NS3 environment. The channel model described in Section 4 and the traffic model in Section 3.1 have been implemented in Matlab, and their outputs imported as trace‐files in the simulator.…”

Improving Message Dissemination in Opportunistic Networks

“…For example, the Satellite Network Simulator 3 (SNS3) [128] is an extension to ns-3 to simulate video broadcasting satellite networks. FNCS (Framework for Network CoSimulation) [30] is a co-simulation framework for simulating electrical power grids together with the required communication channels.…”