Link analysis for space communication links using ARQ protocol

In space communications, standard link analysis assumes that messages are sent once. For a communication link that uses an error-correction coding scheme, bit-error-rate (BER) or frame-error-rate (FER), and link margins are common metrics that characterize the quality of a link, and they are used to determine the supportable data rate. With the advent of Automatic Repeat-reQuest (ARQ) protocols, when messages are corrupted during transmission, they can be resent multiple times automatically until they are correctly received and acknowledged. The concept of BER, FER, and link margin cannot be directly applied, and the link analysis approach for ARQ links needs to be re-examined. In [1] we described the problem formulation and defined the evaluation metrics to analyze the performance of ARQ links, and derived analytical models that describe the statistical behavior of the space links that use ARQ. In this paper, we show that by integrating these analytical ARQ protocol models into the standard link analysis, we bypass the need to simulate or emulate the ARQ protocol operations, and generate analytical models on effective data rate, effective throughput, latency, and FER. We demonstrate this approach using the Lunar L2 Flyby Mission communication scenarios, and discuss the insights and trades between link efficiency, latency, and error rate.