Exploiting Path Diversity to Increase System Performance in Mega-constellations

Due to the simplification of path selection in traditional IP routing schemes and the uneven distribution of traffic, problems such as congestion and low system performance are still unavoidable in satellite networks. Compared with terrestrial networks, satellite networks have much more equal-cost paths between any two points. So, this paper uses path diversity to solve the above problems. Researchers have proposed many traffic engineering algorithms to solve similar problems, but high-dynamics and high-latency of the satellite network make these algorithms ineffective. This paper proposed a Multi-routing-plane based Flow Scheduling Strategy (MFSS), using different routing schemes in different routing planes. It can make full use of path diversity to solve simplification of path selection and solve the high-dynamics problem through cooperation between satellites and the terrestrial networks. The simulation result on the topology of Starlink shows that, in our scenarios, MFSS can increase the system throughput by 60.9% while the delay growth does not exceed 3%.