Status: attic
Analyzing the Effect of Buildings in Hybrid LEO Satellite and Vehicular Networks
PA: Research Project (INF-PM-FPA / INF-PM-FPG) or
BA: Bachelor Thesis (or Studienarbeit / Großer Beleg)

In order to provide low-latency high-throughput Internet access all over the world, companies like SpaceX, Amazon, and OneWeb currently deploy and maintain Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellations. Thousands of small satellites orbit Earth at an altitude of roughly 500km. Such a system is perfect for supporting vehicular networks by means of providing Internet access even in regions in which cellular communication technologies like LTE or 5G are not available. For evaluating LEO satellite supported vehicular networks, the simulator space_Veins is currently developed by us. Due to the advanced mobility of LEO satellites, ground stations, vehicles in this scenario, can only communicate with a single LEO satellite for a few minutes. Additionally, buildings which potentially block radio signals could even decrease the time in which a vehicle is able to communicate with a LEO satellite. Thus, simulating the effect of buildings in hybrid LEO satellite and vehicular networks may have a major influence on simulation results.
Goals of the thesis
In its current version space_Veins is able to integrate real-world buildings in the simulated scenarios, but only with a predefined height for all buildings. The correct height of buildings as well as their corresponding roof shape can be determined with LIDAR measurements as done by the state North Rhine-Westphalia. Measurement data is published via the portal opengeodata.nrw.de. The thesis’s goal is to integrate their 3D building models provided by the LIDAR measurements in order to evaluate their influence by means of a simulation study.
Possible milestones are as follows:
- Getting familiar with the existing simulation environment and the research area
- Investigating the data set in terms of data representation and notation
- Integrating the LIDAR-based 3D building models of real-world buildings in the scenario generation process
- Evaluation of the influence of buildings with correct height compared with the old space_Veins behavior and no buildings at all in a simulation study
Keywords
C++, Network Simulation, Vehicular Networking, LEO Satellite
Literature
[1] O. Kodheli et al., “Satellite Communications in the New Space Era: A Survey and Future Challenges,” IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 70–109, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1109/COMST.2020.3028247
[2] Mario Franke, Florian Klingler and Christoph Sommer, “Poster: Simulating Hybrid LEO Satellite and V2X Networks,” Proceedings of 13th IEEE Vehicular Networking Conference (VNC 2021), November 2021. (to appear)
https://www.cms-labs.org/bib/franke2021simulating/