Titulo Estágio
Integrating Terrestrial and Satellite Communications with SDN
Áreas de especialidade
Comunicações, Serviços e Infraestruturas
Engenharia de Software
Local do Estágio
Departamento de Engenharia Informática, Polo II - Pinhal de Marrocos 3030-290 Coimbra
Enquadramento
With the increasing demand for global connectivity and usage of IoT devices, there is a need to ensure communication with strict Quality of Service requirements while providing as much coverage as possible. To tackle these problems, two types of solutions emerge: improving the existing terrestrial networks and deploying a large number of satellites. However, terrestrial and satellite networks are developed and operated separately [1].
Due to recent developments of space technologies and decrease of operation costs, satellite communications can be used to improve communication latency and coverage [2]. Yet, the communications are mainly done to a set of ground stations or between satellites, making them unusable to general communications.
For terrestrial networks, Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is a promising solution to deal with the increase of IoT devices [3]. It allows a decoupling between the control plane and the data plane, to grant an efficient configuration, better performance and higher flexibility of new network designs. This allows an easier integration or removal of different devices and connections. Several frameworks, such as ONOS [4], were designed to tackle this problem.
Several simulators, such as NS-3 [5], have modules for terrestrial and satellite devices, making them desirable to develop simulations considering both types of devices. Furthermore, due to the abstract nature of SDN frameworks, it is possible to include satellite devices. Thus, it is of interest to integrate SDN frameworks with simulators to advance the consolidation of terrestrial-satellite communications.
This work will focus on integrating the ONOS controller with the NS-3 simulator. The student is expected to study SDN frameworks, the existing simulators, how communications between terrestrial and satellite devices occur and their different characteristics.
References:
[1] X. Zhu and C. Jiang, ‘Integrated Satellite-Terrestrial Networks Toward 6G: Architectures, Applications, and Challenges’, IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 437–461, Jan. 2022, doi: 10.1109/JIOT.2021.3126825.
[2] O. Kodheli et al., ‘Satellite Communications in the New Space Era: A Survey and Future Challenges’, IEEE Communications Surveys Tutorials, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 70–109, 2021, doi: 10.1109/COMST.2020.3028247.
[3] W. Xia, Y. Wen, C. H. Foh, D. Niyato, and H. Xie, ‘A Survey on Software-Defined Networking’, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 27–51, 2015, doi: 10.1109/COMST.2014.2330903.
[4] https://opennetworking.org/onos/
[5] https://www.nsnam.org/
Objetivo
The goal of this thesis is to integrate an SDN controller, such as ONOS, with the network simulator NS-3 and the respective satellite communications module. For the experimental analysis, different types of satellite constellations, number of devices and topologies will be used.
Plano de Trabalhos - Semestre 1
- Literature review of SDN and satellite communications
- Familiarisation with ONOS and NS-3
- Preliminary simulation results with NS-3
- Writing of the intermediate report
Plano de Trabalhos - Semestre 2
- Integration of ONOS with NS-3
- Experimental analysis
- Writing of the final report
Condições
The work is to be executed at the laboratories of the CISUC’s LCT group. A workplace will be provided as well as the required computational resources.
Observações
Advisors: Noé Godinho (noe@dei.uc.pt) and Bruno Sousa (bmsousa@dei.uc.pt)
Orientador
Noé Godinho / Bruno Sousa
noe@dei.uc.pt 📩