Temporal Graph based Energy-limited Max-flow Routing over Satellite Networks

Nowadays satellite networks are playing an increasing role in earth observation, global communication, etc. Many space missions require to deliver large amounts of data to the ground system for different purposes, and analyzing the maximum throughput of the given satellite network is a prerequisite for efficient data transmission. However, satellite networks possess the time-varying topologies, dynamic bandwidth and limited on-board energy, which restricts the end-to-end capacity and poses challenges to the analysis. In this paper, we utilize temporal graphs for better solving the end-to-end max-flow problem over energy-limited satellite networks. An energy time-expanded graph (eTEG) is constructed to accurately represent the restriction of on-board limited energy on data transmission capability. Furthermore, to maximize flow delivery and energy utilization, we proposed an eTEG-based max-flow routing algorithm with time-dependent residual network update rules. Simulation results are also presented to verify the efficacy of our algorithm.