Cooperative Multilayer Edge Caching in Integrated Satellite-Terrestrial Networks

The integrated satellite-terrestrial network is promising to provide global broadband communication service. However, the long propagation delay of satellite-terrestrial links will lead to high communication delay when users access the Internet via satellites. In this paper, we investigate the cooperative multilayer edge caching in the integrated satellite-terrestrial network to reduce the communication delay, in which the base station cache, the satellite cache, and the gateway cache cooperatively provide content service for ground users. We first propose the three-layer cooperative caching model of the network, based on which we analyze the content retrieving process and derive the cache hit probability for different caching locations. Considering limited cache sizes, we formulate the content placement problem to minimize the average content retrieving delay of users. Then, two caching strategies, the non-cooperative caching strategy and the cooperative caching strategy, are proposed with exhaustive theoretical analysis. By introducing the concept of delay reduction gains, the optimal caching strategies are obtained based on the proposed iterative algorithms. Finally, numerical results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed cooperative caching architecture and the caching strategies.