Large Scale LEO Satellite Networks for the Future Internet: Challenges and Solutions to Addressing and Routing

Abstract

This document analyses the problems and challenges of addressing and routing to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites used for the future Internet. It focuses on the scenario where Inter-Satellite-Links (ISL) are used for massive LEO satellite constellation. Such LEO satellite network is the key to the Non-terrestrial Network (NTN) integration with 5G and beyond. The paper describes two categories of solutions. One is based on IPv6 and another is based on a new protocol, New IP. The two categories of solutions are a) using new types of addresses for LEO satellites and b) new concepts for routing with these addresses. The semantic addressing scheme leverages the characteristics of satellites with known orbit elements; and simplifies the satellite identification by using limited indexes. The routing method combines semantic addressing with source routing and generates a new semantic routing scheme. Compared with traditional methods, the new proposals dramatically reduce the workload in satellite, such as table size, Ternary Content-addressable memory (TCAM) lookups, and packet header size. Thus it is more suitable to networks in space where the harsh environment limits the hardware performance, power consumption, link bandwidth and system complexity.