A Comprehensive Simulation Platform for Space-Air-Ground Integrated Network

Abstract

Space-air-ground integrated network (SAGIN) is envisioned as a promising solution to provide cost-effective, large-scale, and flexible wireless coverage and communication services. Since realworld deployment for testing of SAGIN is difficult and prohibitive, an efficient SAGIN simulation platform is requisite. In this article, we present our developed SAGIN simulation platform which supports various mobility traces and protocols of space, aerial, and terrestrial networks. Centralized and decentrallized controllers are implemented to optimize the network functions such as access control and resource orchestration. In addition, various interfaces extend the functionality of the platform to facilitate user-defined mobility traces and control algorithms. We also present a case study where highly mobile vehicular users dynamically choose different radio access networks according to their quality of service (QoS) requirements.