A selective look-ahead bandwidth allocation scheme for reliable handoff in multimedia LEO satellite networks

Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites are expected to support multimedia traffic and to provide their users with the negotiated quality of service (QoS). However, the limited bandwidth of the satellite channel, the rotation of the satellite around the Earth, and the mobility of users makes QoS provisioning and mobility management a challenging task. One important mobility problem is the intra-satellite handoff management. The main contribution of this work is to propose a novel bandwidth allocation scheme along with a connection admission control strategy for LEO satellite networks. Our bandwidth allocation scheme that we call the selective look-ahead strategy (SILK), is specifically tailored to meet the QoS needs of multimedia connections. In SILK, bandwidth allocation for a connection that has stringent call dropping probability (CDP) requirements will differ significantly from that of a more tolerant application. The performance of SILK is compared to that of various bandwidth allocation schemes proposed in the recent literature. Extensive simulation results show that, compared with the other bandwidth allocation schemes, SILK offers low CDP providing for reliable handoff of on-going calls, acceptable call blocking probability (CBP) for new calls, while maintaining resource utilization high.