Research on link load-balancing between marine LEO satellite constellations based on SDN

Abstract

LEO satellite constellation architecture has been greatly developed in military and civil applications in recent years because of its flexibility and low transmission delay. For maritime operations, when it is far away from the ground base station, the most priority is satellite communication technology, and the characteristics of LEO satellites make it the first choice for maritime communication. However, due to the poor real-time and maintainability of the traditional satellite network, SDN technology is introduced in this paper. SDN is a new network architecture, which realizes the separation control of the data plane and the control plane. It can control the LEO satellite constellation network in real time in a programmable way, so as to obtain a better service guarantee. This paper studies the LEO satellite constellation system on the sea based on SDN technology. By analyzing the characteristics of SDN architecture and combining the characteristics of LEO satellite constellation system, this paper puts forward a feasible load balancing strategy, and uses the virtualization simulation tool to model and simulate it. The experimental results show that this method can effectively improve the throughput of inter satellite links, So as to improve the overall transmission efficiency of the constellation.