An efficient utilization of intermittent satellite-to-ground links by using mass storage device embedded in satellites

In recent years, tremendous amount of traffic is delivered by the Internet. However, ground networks cannot provide communication environment to disaster areas and isolated areas such as mountain and sea. Thus, as the next generation networks, optical satellite networks have attracted much attention because of many advantages such as high capacity, disaster resistance, and large coverage. Since optical communication can increase traffic rate in comparison with radio wave, the optical satellite networks can provide high speed communication. On the other hand, optical communication is greatly influenced by the atmospheric condition, which can lead to traffic congestion. Thus, we focus on utilizing satellites with embedded mass storage device to manage large amount of traffic in the network. Since satellites embedded mass storage device can store the traffic temporary, it is possible to deliver the data when the downlink condition is more favorable. However, there are no traffic control method that effectively use mass storage device embedded in satellite while taking into account optical link between satellite and optical ground station. Therefore, in this article, we propose a new traffic control method to effectively use mass storage device embedded in satellite according to optical downlink condition between satellite and optical ground station.