Joint Route Selection and Time-Slot Allocation for Energy Consumption Optimization in Satellite Communication Systems

Abstract

In this paper, we consider a satellite communication system which consists of a number of source low earth orbit (SLEO) satellites, a number of relay low earth orbit (RLEO) satellites and a destination ground station (GS). Under the assumption that data flows can be split while transmitted through the system, a joint route selection and time-slot allocation algorithm is proposed. Considering the constraints on the transmission requirements of data flows, system resource allocation and the amount of data flows, the joint route selection and time-slot allocation problem is formulated as an optimization problem which minimizes total system energy consumption. As the original optimization problem is NP-hard, which cannot be solved conveniently, the optimization problem is equivalently converted into candidate link selection subproblem and route selection subproblem. The two optimization problems are solved by means of the K-shortest path algorithm and the knapsack algorithm, respectively, and the optimal strategy of joint route selection and time-slot allocation is obtained. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.