User-Driven Flexible and Effective Link Connection Design for Mega-Constellation Satellite Networks

Abstract

The emerging satellite internet constellation aims to deploy hundreds of low-orbit satellites to provide high-speed broadband internet services to global ground terminals. However, this poses a significant challenge for large-scale and highly dynamic satellite networking due to the traditional satellite constellations’ uniform structure. This structure is limited by four laser links per low-orbit satellite, using default connections of two intra-orbit links and two inter-orbit links, and is difficult to match with the uneven population distribution and user traffic on the ground, resulting in unnecessary overheads in propagation delay and transmission hops. In recent years, researchers have developed methods for matching structure and traffic distribution that overcome the limitations of traditional connection methods, reducing transmission delay and hops. Despite this progress, these methods still maintain the characteristics of uniform configuration. To address this issue, a new link connection design for largescale low-orbit satellite network driven by user distribution has been proposed. This mechanism enables the dynamic matching of satellite structure and users, facilitating elastic networking under dynamic topology conditions, improving the overall capacity and utilization of satellite networks. Through simulation, this user-driven link connection design has been verified to reduce the average hop count by at least 41% in many scenarios, demonstrating its effectiveness for a variety of new large-scale low-orbit satellite networks.

新兴的卫星互联网星座计划部署数百颗低轨卫星，以向全球地面终端提供高速宽带互联网服务。然而，由于传统卫星星座的均匀结构，构建大规模且高度动态的卫星网络面临重大挑战。这种结构受限于每颗低轨卫星仅能建立四条激光链路，并默认采用两条轨道内链路和两条轨道间链路的连接方式，难以适应地面上不均衡的人口分布与用户流量，导致传播时延和传输跳数上的额外开销。近年来，研究人员已提出匹配星座结构与流量分布的方法，以突破传统连接方式的局限性，从而降低传输时延和跳数。然而，这些方法仍然保持了均匀配置的特性。

为解决这一问题，研究人员提出了一种面向用户分布的大规模低轨卫星网络链路连接设计。该机制能够动态匹配卫星结构与用户需求，在动态拓扑条件下实现弹性组网，提高卫星网络的整体容量和利用率。通过仿真实验验证，该用户驱动的链路连接设计在多种场景下可使平均跳数至少降低41%，表明其在新型大规模低轨卫星网络中的有效性。

TL; DR

以前：静态卫星拓扑（默认4条，难以适应地面上不均衡的人口分布与用户流量）

本论文：动态匹配用户需求的卫星拓扑，实现弹性组网