Design and Analysis of Store-and-Forward Data Collection Network using Low-cost LEO Nanosatellite and Intelligent Terminals

[Abstract] There have been a lot of studies about Low Earth Orbit satellite constellations but very few have dealt with a single LEO satellite. The use of a single LEO satellite implies a complex hardware and software architectures both of the satellite payload and the ground terminals, especially when they are designed to be small, and economical. The Nanosatellite, as small as the Cubesat concept, requires employment of a simple store-and-forward payload whereas all the complexity is brought back to the terminals. This paper describes the design and analysis of store-and-forward data collection network using low-cost LEO Nanosatellite and intelligent ground terminals situated all over the world. The study will employ the Slotted-ALOHA multiple access in the uplink and will assess its efficiency in terms of the maximum number of ground terminals that can be served by the Nanosatellite along with the delays experienced in the packet transfer. In this work, we will establish a mathematical model for evaluating the performance of the slotted aloha system and then we will present a comparison between an analytical model and simulation results by using discrete event simulations. In such a system, two appropriate measures of the performance are the throughput and the average delay; thus, we will use these measures in this paper. A good correlation between analytical model and the discrete event simulations was found.