Applicability and Performance of NEMO in Satellite Networks

Future Low Earth Orbiting spacecrafts will contain several IP-enabled devices, such as Earth observing equipment, that will be accessible by terrestrial users through the Internet. Mobility solutions, such as Mobile IPv6, can be used to handle the mobility of individual devices as the spacecraft moves around the Earth and handsover between ground stations. Mobility management of individual hosts, however, results in large amount of signaling in the bandwidth-limited satellite links and manageability problem as the number of devices increases. Network Mobility (NEMO) protocols can be used for mobility management of such a group of devices moving together. In this paper, we propose an architecture for application of NEMO in satellite networks, where the devices are connected using an on-board Local Area Network. In addition to providing continuous connectivity between onboard devices from Earth, the architecture enjoys several advantages, such as reduced signaling, increased manageability and conservation of satellite link bandwidth.