In Walker delta constellations, satellites moving in different directions form two meshes. Inter-mesh links that connect satellites in different meshes are typically not used due to high relative speed. However, this hurts the end-to-end delay performance. In this letter, we aim to find a tradeoff between the system complexity of establishing such links and the delay performance. An inter-mesh link scheduling method is proposed by considering multiple constraints, including link distance, angular velocity, link setup time, and link switching frequency. First, for a given set of satellites, a set of candidate inter-mesh links are identified which fulfill link distance and angular velocity constraints and maximize topology duration. The inter-mesh links are selected based on maximum matching in general graphs. Then, a set of satellite positions are identified which prolong the topology duration. Based on these positions, satellites in an orbit alternately establish inter-mesh links to fulfill the link setup time constraint. Simulation reveals the benefits of the proposed method: the average end-to-end delay is reduced significantly with acceptable system overhead.

中文翻译：

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使用网格间链路减少 Walker Delta Constellations 中的端到端延迟


在沃克三角洲星座中，沿不同方向移动的卫星形成两个网格。由于相对速度较高，通常不使用连接不同网格中的卫星的网格间链路。然而，这会损害端到端延迟性能。在这封信中，我们的目标是在建立此类链路的系统复杂性和延迟性能之间找到折衷方案。考虑链路距离、角速度、链路建立时间和链路切换频率等多种约束，提出了一种网格间链路调度方法。首先，对于给定的一组卫星，识别一组候选网格间链路，这些链路满足链路距离和角速度约束并最大化拓扑持续时间。网格间链接是根据一般图中的最大匹配来选择的。然后，识别一组卫星位置，从而延长拓扑持续时间。基于这些位置，轨道上的卫星交替建立网状网络间链路，以满足链路建立时间约束。仿真揭示了所提出方法的优点：在系统开销可接受的情况下，平均端到端延迟显着降低。