A Space-Time Graph based Minimum Cost Routing Algorithm for the Random Traffic in the Satellite Network

In a satellite network, random traffic challenges the routing design due to the indeterminate data volume, time-varying topology and limited resource onboard. In this paper, therefore, an ON/OFF traffic model is demonstrated to describe the probabilistic arrival of traffic events with equal amounts of data, in a well-designed space-time graph. In particular, a space-time graph based minimum cost routing algorithm (MCRT) is proposed to find a feasible set of paths, where the contact capacity is probabilistically available for the such randomly arriving traffic data. Utilizing these paths, current traffic data could be transferred successfully to the destination during the ON period time slots, with a minimum cost in a tolerable delay requirement. Compared with a minimum cost routing algorithm for deterministic traffic, the simulation results show the excellent performance for the proposed MCRT algorithm.