Towards flexibility and accuracy in space DTN communications

Abstract

Although Interplanetary Telecommunications rely on preconfigured contact schedules to make routing decisions, there is a lack of appropriate mechanisms to notify the network about contact plan changes. In order to fill this gap, we propose and evaluate a framework for disseminating information about queueing delays and link disruptions. In this context, we present such a mechanism, focusing not only on its functional properties, but rather on its impact objectives: to improve accuracy and routing performance. Supportively, we couple this mechanism with a DTN-compatible protocol, namely Contact Plan Update Protocol (CPUP), which implements our dissemination policy. Through simulation of space scenarios we show that accuracy can be significantly improved in all cases while routing performance can achieve a wide range, from minor through to significant gains, conditionally.