A fast link assignment algorithm for satellite communication networks

In satellite communication networks using laser transceivers, each satellite has a limited number of transceivers with a very narrow field of view. The authors consider the problem of deciding which logical connections should be formed among satellites out of all the possible connections that can be made depending on the line-of-sight (LOS) visibility of satellites. These logical connections can be decided to meet various objectives of the underlying network. The objective functions can be maximizing the number of links formed, thus, maximizing the transceiver utilization, maximizing network connectivity, minimizing link re-targeting, or minimizing average distance between nodes. Here, the satellite networks are assumed to be independent from intervention by ground stations. Hence, the decisions made should be autonomous. Another assumption is that all the computations and decisions made are either aperiodic or the input to computation is too unpredictable to be precomputed. Various approaches to link assignment with different objective functions and algorithms for some specific functions are described. Simulation results and performance analyses for some of the algorithms are also presented