TY - GEN
T1 - End-to-End Delivery in LEO Mega-constellations and the Reordering Problem
AU - Frederiksen, Rasmus Sibbern
AU - Mulvad, Thomas Gundgaard
AU - Leyva-Mayorga, Israel
AU - Madsen, Tatiana Kozlova
AU - Chiariotti, Federico
PY - 2024/9/5
Y1 - 2024/9/5
N2 - Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite mega-constellations with hundreds or thousands of satellites and inter-satellite links (ISLs) have the potential to provide global end-to-end connectivity. Furthermore, if the physical distance between source and destination is sufficiently long, end-to-end routing over the LEO constellation can provide lower latency when compared to the terrestrial infrastructure due to the faster propagation of electromagnetic waves in space than in optic fiber. However, the frequent route changes due to the movement of the satellites result in the out-of-order delivery of packets, causing sudden changes to the Round-Trip Time (RTT) that can be misinterpreted as congestion by congestion control algorithms. In this paper, the performance of three widely used congestion control algorithms, Cubic, Reno, and BBR, is evaluated in an emulated LEO satellite constellation with Free-Space Optical (FSO) ISLs. Furthermore, we perform a sensitivity analysis for Cubic by changing the satellite constellation parameters, length of the routes, and the positions of the source and destination to identify problematic routing scenarios. The results show that route changes can have profound transient effects on the goodput of the connection, posing problems for typical broadband applications.
AB - Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite mega-constellations with hundreds or thousands of satellites and inter-satellite links (ISLs) have the potential to provide global end-to-end connectivity. Furthermore, if the physical distance between source and destination is sufficiently long, end-to-end routing over the LEO constellation can provide lower latency when compared to the terrestrial infrastructure due to the faster propagation of electromagnetic waves in space than in optic fiber. However, the frequent route changes due to the movement of the satellites result in the out-of-order delivery of packets, causing sudden changes to the Round-Trip Time (RTT) that can be misinterpreted as congestion by congestion control algorithms. In this paper, the performance of three widely used congestion control algorithms, Cubic, Reno, and BBR, is evaluated in an emulated LEO satellite constellation with Free-Space Optical (FSO) ISLs. Furthermore, we perform a sensitivity analysis for Cubic by changing the satellite constellation parameters, length of the routes, and the positions of the source and destination to identify problematic routing scenarios. The results show that route changes can have profound transient effects on the goodput of the connection, posing problems for typical broadband applications.
KW - Space vehicles
KW - Satellite constellations
KW - Satellites
KW - Costs
KW - Sensitivity analysis
KW - Satellite broadcasting
KW - Low earth orbit satellites
KW - Throughput
KW - Routing
KW - Transient analysis
U2 - 10.1109/PIMRC59610.2024.10817267
DO - 10.1109/PIMRC59610.2024.10817267
M3 - Article in proceeding
SN - 979-8-3503-6225-1
T3 - I E E E International Symposium Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications
SP - 1
EP - 6
BT - 2024 IEEE 35th International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC)
PB - IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
T2 - 2024 IEEE 35th International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC)
Y2 - 2 September 2024 through 5 September 2024
ER -