Status: attic
Impact of Satellite Mobility Models on Vehicle-to-Satellite Communication
MA: Master's Thesis (or Diploma Thesis / Diplomarbeit)
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. Currently, the satellites' mobility is based on the Simplified Perturbations Model SGP4. The SGP4 model depends on Two-line Element (TLE) sets. A single Two-line Element contains all parameters such that the SGP4 model can calculate the orbit of a satellite around Earth for a defined epoch.
Goals of the thesis
The presented SGP4 model is a commonly used model for calculating satellite orbits. However, using the SGP4 model limits space_Veins to be only capable of simulating satellites for which a TLE exists. Thus, space_Veins is not able to simulate artificial satellite orbits at the moment. The goal of the thesis is extending space_Veins such that artificial satellite orbits can be simulated. Possible approaches could be:
- Using Kepler orbits
- Creating artificial TLEs
Further, the implemented approaches need to be evaluated in the context of Vehicle-to-Satellite communication by comparing them with the SGP4 model.
Keywords
C++, Network Simulation, Vehicular Networking, 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/