A novel QoS routing protocol for LEO and MEO satellite networks

The rapid advance of communication and satellite technology pushes broadband satellite networks to carry on multimedia traffic. However, the function of onboard routing cannot be provided in existing satellite networks with inter‐satellite links, and quality of service (QoS) of satellite networks cannot be reliably guaranteed because of great difficulties in processing of long distance‐dependent traffic. In this paper, a two‐layered low‐Earth orbit and medium‐Earth orbit satellite network (LMSN) is presented. A novel hierarchical and distributed QoS routing protocol (HDRP) is investigated, and an adaptive bandwidth‐constrained minimum‐delay path algorithm is developed to calculate routing tables efficiently using the QoS metric information composed of delays and bandwidth. The performance of LMSN and HDRP is also evaluated through simulations and theoretical analysis. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.