Routing and rate control for coded cooperation in a satellite-terrestrial network

We address the problem of high-throughput, delay-constrained communication over a satellite-terrestrial network where terrestrial node mobility leads to intermittent links. Due to the short time-scale of link state durations, standard single-path routing protocols are disadvantaged by the delay incurred in determining that a route is unavailable and then finding a new route. Instead we focus on the approach of sending data over multiple paths simultaneously, and use random linear network coding as a distributed way of sending linearly-independent data on different paths. We present a routing and rate control protocol for coded multipath routing. This protocol specifies the fraction of offered traffic carried on each path, provides a congestion avoidance strategy to limit queueing delays in the network, and adapts quickly to time-varying connectivity. We outline our coded routing and rate-control strategy and also present simulation results from a mobile satellite-terrestrial network.