CCSDS Advanced Orbiting Systems, Data Links Protocol: Study on Virtual Channels Scheduling Algorithm

With the development of space communication systems, the transferred data have varied from traditional asynchronous data to mixed data of synchronous and asynchronous data. Synchronous data, such as video and audio, need to be transmitted in high real-time while asynchronous data, such as image, command and file, need not to be transmitted in high real-time. The conventional way is to transmit audio and video information in a single channel, but it can decline the channel utilization. To solve this problem, a virtual channel (VC) scheduling algorithm is proposed in this paper based on the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) advanced orbiting systems (AOS) data link protocol to make many kinds of VCs can multiplex physical channel in effect. The experimental results show the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method.