Recently, mega-constellations with a massive number of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites are being considered as a possible solution for providing global coverage due to relatively low latency and high throughput compared to geosynchronous orbit satellites. However, as the number of satellites and operators participating in the LEO constellation increases, inter-satellite interference will become more severe, which may yield marginal improvement or even decrement in network throughput. In this article, we introduce the concept of satellite clusters that can enhance network performance through satellites' cooperative transmissions. The characteristics, formation types, and transmission schemes for the satellite clusters are highlighted. Simulation results evaluate the impact of clustering from coverage and capacity perspectives, showing that when the number of satellites is large, the performance of clustered networks outperforms the unclustered ones. The viable network architectures of the satellite cluster are proposed based on the 3GPP standard. Finally, the future applications of clustered satellite networks are discussed.
翻译:最近,与大量低地轨道卫星(LEO)的巨型星座正在被视作提供全球覆盖的一个可能解决办法,因为与地球同步轨道卫星相比,潜伏时间相对较低,吞吐量较高,但随着参与低地轨道星座的卫星和运营者数目的增加,卫星间干扰将变得更加严重,这可能导致网络吞吐量的微小改善甚至下降。在本篇文章中,我们引入卫星集群概念,通过卫星的合作传输提高网络性能。强调了卫星集群的特点、形成类型和传输计划。模拟结果从覆盖和能力角度评价集群的影响,表明在卫星数量庞大时,集群网络的性能将超过非集群网络。根据3GPP标准提出了卫星集群的可行网络结构。最后,讨论了集群卫星网络的未来应用。