Performance of LAMS-DLC, a protocol for low altitude satellite networks

The authors introduce a data link control protocol appropriate for communication in low-altitude satellite networks. A low-altitude satellite network is assumed to be a system of satellites in the range 1000 to 15000 km, such that satellites may exchange messages while they are in line of sight with one another. In this environment data rates are expected to be Mbs, propagation delays are measured in milliseconds, and SWAP (size, weight, and power) constraints restrict buffer size. The proposed data link control protocol is called LAMS-DLC (low altitude satellite data link control). Unlike traditional automatic repeat request (ARQ) schemes, LAMS-DLC uses negative acknowledgment to provide a lossless packet stream without guaranteeing delivery of packets in sequence. Throughput and buffer size metrics are computed and compared with selective repeat HDLC, a typical acknowledgment-based ARQ protocol