TR2007-05-02 Technical Report
Internetworking and Media Communications Research Laboratories
Department of Computer Science, Kent State University
http://medianet.kent.edu/technicalreports.html

A ROUTING PROTOCOL AND ROUTING ALGORITHM FOR SPACE COMMUNICATION

Nouman Bantan
nbantan@cs.kent.edu

Supervisor: Dr. Javed I. Khan
Department of Computer Science
Kent State University
Date Submitted: May 2007

Abstract

We have developed a routing protocol for space that creates an infrastructure which enables routers on board spacecrafts to calculate near optimum routing tables ahead of time and on-demand when network changes occur. Our routing protocol for space communication, Space OSPF (SOSPF), divides the routing domain (e.g., our solar system) into areas within areas which provides an orderly fashion of transmitting routing information throughout the routing domain. The concept of areas within SOSPF allows routing information of one area to be hidden within that area. In addition, since the trajectory of space crafts are either predictable (e.g., satellite constellation around Earth), preset (e.g., the International Space Station), or set on demand (e.g., a space shuttle), a router on board those spacecrafts calculates the time intervals where spacecrafts are in direct view with the calculating router and the propagation delays to those spacecrafts using the location of those spacecrafts and the local transmission capabilities. Then, those calculated values are dispersed throughout the routing domain. Also, we will present a new routing algorithm which allows routers on board spacecrafts to use the received routing information (i.e., the time intervals and the propagation delay) to compute the routing table. This routing algorithm can compute shortest delay paths over conventional concurrent-link as well as intermittent-links using a store-and-forward communication scheme. Furthermore, we will present the routing performance of this new protocol in real space scenarios and show how the SOSPF routing domain stays stable after link failures as the routing domain diameter grows to the end of our solar system.

• Dissertation [pdf]
  

• Presentation [ppt] 

• Publications

  • Bantan, N. 2006. Space OSPF. In the Fifth Space Internetworking Workshop – presentation paper (Baltimore, Maryland, United States). September 2006. http://www.hynet.umd.edu/Space_Internet_Workshop/pres/A004.pdf

  • Bantan, N. and Khan, J. 2007. SOSPF- a new routing protocol for space. In Proceedings of The 25th AIAA International Communications Satellite Systems Conference (Seoul, South Korea). April 2007

  • Bantan, N. and Khan, J. 2006. Space OSPF - shortest delay intermittent pathway routing with mobile routers. In the Fifth Space Internetworking Workshop – presentation paper (Baltimore, Maryland, United States). September 2006. http://www.hynet.umd.edu/Space_Internet_Workshop/pres/A008.pdf

• Other Related Links:

  • http://www.nasa.gov/

  • http://www.aiaa.org/

  • http://www.apscc.or.kr/

Last Modified: September 2007.