Telcordia Technologies, Inc.

Bell Communications Research, Inc.

Anindo Bagchi

Narayanan Natarajan

William Edward Stephens

Tirunell V Lakshman

Kasra Rastani

Stephen Leanheart

In Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks data routes for point to point and point to multipoint communication sessions in LEO satellite networks are determined by considering session bandwidth, priority, and the constantly changing terminal-satellite and satellite-satellite connectivity. Multiple routes are computed for a session to facilitate automatic adaptive rerouting by satellite payloads when they encounter network failures or congestion conditions.

Method and system for determination of routes in LEO satellite networks with bandwidth and priority awareness and adaptive rerouting

A payload switching architecture for LEO satellite networks minimizes processing and storage requirements of payloads for deployment as small primary or secondary payloads, payloads perform only forwarding functions. Forwarding rules are provisioned in the payloads enabling them to reroute in case of failures or congestion without intervention from a ground station. Configuration rules are provisioned in the payloads enabling them to dynamically establish and remove interplane crosslinks without intervention from a ground station. The central network operations center on the ground computes forwarding rules and configuration rules for payloads and uploads the rules to the payloads.

Context aware adaptive switching in reconfigurable low earth orbit satellite networks

In a distributed management scheme for LEO satellite networks interactions between a satellite and the designated fixed center occur according to a time schedule and only when the designated center is in the coverage area of the payload. For exception/alarm reporting and real-time configuration updates the interaction varies with time. Interactions of this type occur between a satellite and the management center that is 'nearest' to the payload or satellite at the time instant at which the network event occurs or configuration upload is needed. The nearest management center for a payload is the center that can be reached from the payload with fewest number of crosslink hops. A central network operation center determines, prior to payload launch, the association between satellites and management centers for routine information exchange, and the nearest management center for the payload for different snapshots of time.

Distributed management of LEO satellite networks with management agility and network efficiency

A scheduler for a packet switch capable of atomic multicasts, that is, allowing one packet at an input port to be simultaneously transmitted to multiple output ports. The scheduling algorithm sequentially polls each of the input ports to determine to which output ports it desires connection for the next transmission slot. If those output ports are available, that input port assigns itself to the slot, and subsequent input ports are blocked from those output ports. The scheduling algorithm does not poll these blocked input ports for the current slot. The scheduler can be advantageously implemented in an optical system having one optical path for indexing control and multiple optical paths corresponding to each of the output ports. Sub-schedulers are arranged serially along all the optical paths. When a sub-scheduler is notified by the indexing control path that its turn to assign has arrived, it checks all of the optical paths corresponding to the output ports to which it desires connection. If those output ports are available, it assigns itself to the current slot, indicates on the output port optical paths that those desired output ports are no longer available, and indicates on the indexing control path that its assigning turn is over. If those output ports are not available, it nonetheless indicates on the indexing control path that its assigning turn is over and waits till the next assigning period.

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Ocean, NJ, United States of America

Anindo Bagchi