ABSTRACT:

A lot of routing algorithms have been proposed for low earth orbit (LEO) satellite IP networks in recent years, but most of them cannot achieve global optimization. The dynamic characters of LEO satellite networks are reflected in two aspects: topology and traffic change. The algorithms mentioned above are “hard routing” which only realize local optimization. A distributed soft routing algorithm combined with multi-agent system (MASSR) is proposed. In MASSR, mobile agents are used to gather routing information actively, and blackboard is introduced to achieve direct information exchange between agents. MASSR provides traffic adaptive routing and tracks the change of LEO satellite network topology. The performance of ant colony optimization (ACO) and MASSR are compared in Iridium constellation, and MASSR presents better end-to-end delay as well as enhanced robustness.