AoTP: An Age-Optimal Transport Protocol for Satellite-Integrated Internet

Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites are characterized by high availability, high throughput, and low propagation latency, which are regarded as the critical component of satellite-integrated Internet to provide an optimal solution for global coverage. However, due to the high dynamics and packet loss rates caused by the LEO satellites, the most of the existing transport layer protocols of terrestrial Internet are not suitable for LEO satellite-integrated Internet. In this paper, we propose an age-optimal transport protocol (AoTP) that targets the minimization of age of information (AoI) for satellite-integrated Internet. We first model the bottleneck link of the satellite-integrated Internet as an M/M/1 queue, and derive the upper bound of AoI under multiple sources competitions. With the goal of minimizing the sum of upper bound AoI, we derive a set of data rates. Subsequently, we design an AoTP control algorithm that enables the satellite-integrated Internet to achieve the lowest AoI. Simulation results based on NS-3 demonstrate that the proposed AoTP can achieve a lower AoI compare to other related age control protocols.