Structural Performance of Satellite Networks: A Complex Network Perspective

Abstract

Network structure has significant impact on its data transmission and robustness. This article presents a framework to evaluate the structure performance of dynamic networks, with a focus on measuring the topological dynamics and assessing its effect on routing, transmission efficiency, network robustness, and network capacity. Based on this framework, the structural performance of satellite networks including both single-layered and multilayered satellite networks is evaluated systematically. The performance results reveal that it is difficult to design the efficient and feasible transmission protocols for multilayered satellite networks for their high-dynamic topologies with irregular changes, which brings unpractical requirements on the routing update. To cope with this problem, a synchronization mechanism of the interorbital links for multilayered satellite networks is presented, which can significantly reduce and regularize the topological dynamics of multilayered satellite networks. Its advantages can effectively facilitate the realization of transmission protocols for multilayered satellite networks. Finally, the experimental evaluation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.