Energy-efficient routing based on a genetic algorithm for satellite laser communication

Low earth orbit satellite laser communication has become an important part of communications due to its large capacity and low latency. The lifetime of the satellite mainly depends on the recharge and discharge cycles of the battery. The low earth orbit satellites frequently recharge under sunlight and discharge in the shadow, which leads satellites to age quickly. This paper studies the energy-efficient routing problem for satellite laser communication and builds the satellite ageing model. Based on the model, we propose an energy-efficient routing scheme based on the genetic algorithm. Compared with shortest path routing, the proposed method improves the satellite lifetime by about 300%, and the performances of the network are only slightly degraded, the blocking ratio increases by only 1.2%, and the service delay increases by 1.3 ms.(c) 2023 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

Low earth orbit satellite laser communication is crucial in communication industry due to its high capacity and low latency. The lifetime of satellites largely depends on their battery recharge and discharge cycles. However, frequent recharging and discharging of low earth orbit satellites under sunlight and shadow leads to rapid aging. This study focuses on energy-efficient routing and proposes a genetic algorithm-based scheme to prolong satellite lifetime by about 300% while slightly sacrificing network performance with only a 1.2% increase in blocking ratio and 1.3 ms increase in service delay.