MSN: a mobility-enhanced satellite network architecture

Abstract

The proposed MSN architecture is intended to directly address the challenge of mobility, which refers to the motion of users as well as the dynamics of the satellite constellation. A virtual access point layer consisting of fixed virtual satellite network attachment points is superimposed over the physical topology in order to hide the mobility of satellites from the mobile endpoints. Then the MSN enhances endpoint mobility by a clean separation of identity and logical network location through an identity-to-location resolution service, and taking full advantage of the user's geographical location information. Moreover, a SDN based implementation is presented to further illustrate the proposal.