Distributed Probabilistic Congestion Control in LEO Satellite Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a distributed probabilistic congestion control method for LEO satellite networks that reduces delay by leveraging the constellation's topology and traffic information exchange, improving upon existing algorithms.

Contribution

It presents a novel distributed congestion control scheme built on the Datagram Routing Algorithm, tailored for LEO satellite networks, with analysis and simulation validation.

Findings

Improved end-to-end delay performance over existing congestion control methods.

Effective utilization of deterministic topology for routing decisions.

Validation through simulations demonstrating performance gains.

Abstract

In a dense Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation, using a centralized algorithm for minimum-delay routing would incur significant signaling and computational overhead. In this work, we exploit the deterministic topology of the constellation to calculate the minimum-delay path between any two nodes in a satellite network. We propose a distributed probabilistic congestion control scheme to minimize end-to-end delay, which is built on top of the existing Datagram Routing Algorithm (DRA). The decision to route packets is taken based on the latest traffic information received from neighbours. We provide an analysis of the congestion caused by a simplified DRA on a uniform infinite mesh of nodes. We compare the proposed congestion control mechanism with the existing congestion control used by the DRA via simulations, and show improvements over the latter.