IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 71, NO.
1, JANUARY 2022
Joint Data Downloading and Resource Management
for Small Satellite Cluster Networks
Shanghong Zhang , Gaofeng Cui , Member, IEEE, and Weidong Wang
Abstract—As an attractive alternative to traditional and large
satellite, small satellite cluster (SSC) with low cost and short de-
velopment time will play an important role in Earth observation.
Generally, SSC networks for Earth observation are energy-limited,
the design of the joint data downloading and resource manage-
ment scheme remains challenging. On the one hand, with the
ever-increasing amount of sensing data, multiple gateway stations
and relay satellites have been deployed to receive the sensing data
from SSC. The problem that where to download the sensing data
should be addressed. On the other hand, due to the limited com-
munication, storage, computing and power supply capacities of
small satellite, an efficient multi-dimensional resource management
scheme should be adopted. In this paper, the joint data downloading
scheduling and multi-dimensional resource management problem
for satellite cluster networks with relay satellites is investigated,
which is formulated as a long-term optimization problem to min-
imize the energy consumption and guarantee the data drop rate
performance. Then, this problem is decomposed into a series of
mixed-integer programming problems by Lyapunov optimization
theory. Leveraging many-to-many matching theory with empty
node and the simplex method, an online joint data downloading and
resource management (OJDDRM) scheme is proposed. Simulation
results validate the proposed OJDDRM scheme’s performance and
demonstrate that there exists a balance point for the proposed
OJDDRM scheme. Under the balance point, the data drop rate
is zero and the energy consumption can be reduced compared with
the existed schemes.
Index Terms—Small satellite cluster, data downloading, multi-
dimensional resource management, Lypunov optimization.
I. INTRODUCTION
S ONE of the most promising infrastructures in 6 G,
A space information network, which consists of geostation-
ary orbit (GEO), low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite and high alti-
tude platform station, is planning to meet the growing service
requirements for real-time data acquisition, high-speed data
transmission and onboard processing [1]. Once the construction
of space information network is completed, users can acquire
various services (i.e., high-speed Internet access, surveillance
and monitoring, road traffic forecasting, and so on) anywhere
and anytime [2] [3].
Manuscript received January 23, 2021; revised June 29, 2021 and October
23, 2021; accepted November 1, 2021. Date of publication November 18, 2021;
date of current version January 20, 2022. This work was supported in part by
the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 62171052 and
61971054. The review of this article was coordinated by Dr. Tomaso De Cola.
(Corresponding author: Gaofeng Cui.)
The authors are with the School of Electronic Engineering, Beijing University
of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China (e-mail: zhangshang
hong@bupt.edu.cn; cuigaofeng@bupt.edu.cn; wangweidong@bupt.edu.cn).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TVT.2021.3128925
0018-9545 © 2021 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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887
In order to provide the above-mentioned services, remote
sensing data of Earth observation is essential. For example,
surveillance and monitoring services are based on the analysis of
remote sensing data [4]. Nowadays, with the rapid development
of satellite platform and onboard equipment, Earth observation
satellites (EOS) can acquire high-resolution images of specified
areas on Earth surface and carry out a variety of tasks [5]. Due to
the ever-increasing observation area and high complexity of the
emerging tasks, multiple satellite systems have been introduced
into Earth observation [6]. One of them is small satellite cluster
(SSC). Thanks to the enhanced onboard capability of small
satellite platform, SSC with low cost and short development time
has attracted considerable attention from researchers to replace
the large satellite for Earth observation [7].
Different from the single large satellite with low revisit fre-
quency, SSC, which consists of multiple small satellites, can
work together to obtain frequent revisit, built-in system redun-
dancy and low deployment cost [8]. For example, some area
targets for EOS need to be imaged multiple times within a short
visible time window, which implies that a single EOS cannot
complete the image acquisition tasks for an area target. And the
task needs the collaboration of multiple EOS [9]. As for SSC,
multiple satellites can work together to achieve a multi-time and
multi-angle observation for a single target during the specific
time window [10].
Generally, SSC is a distributed satellite system [11]. Lever-
aging the collaboration among several satellites through inter-
satellite links (ISLs), satellites of SSC can work together to carry
out complex observation missions. On the basis of their payloads
and roles, satellites of SSC can be divided into master satellite
(hub satellite) and slave satellite (imaging satellite) [12]. For the
master satellite (MS), it is responsible for data and commands
transmission between slave satellite (SS) and gateway station
(GW). SS, which receives the commands, will execute the
imaging tasks and transfer the collected sensing data to its MS.
Finally, MS will send the sensing data to GW for further analysis
or processing when the feeder link is available. Unfortunately,
due to the limited coverage and uneven distribution of GW,
the feeder link between MS and GW is intermittent, which
may lead the data to be dropped [13]. Therefore, data relay
satellites (DRS) are introduced into small satellite cluster Earth
observation system to relay the data to GW [14].
Although deploying DRS can relieve the burden of data down-
loading, they cannot satisfy all of the emerging requirements due
to the limited resource and ever-increasing resolution of remote
sensing images. Fortunately, recent years have seen the rise of
888 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 71, NO. 1, JANUARY 2022

onboard compression and high-throughput transmission tech- TABLE I

ACRONYMS
niques with low complexity for small satellites, which enhances
the data downloading capacities of small satellites [15].
However, the data downloading and resource management
for SSC still faces the following challenges: 1) The process of
SSC’ data downloading is related to multi-dimensional resource
allocation, such as storage, power, computing and communica-
tion resource, which will make the resource management very
complex; 2) The available resource of SSC are limited. Taking
small satellite as an instance, which weighs about 100 kg, its
platform cannot support large payloads of storage, energy, com-
munication and computing [16]. Even DRS based on GEO plat-
form with comparatively sufficient resource, a limited number of
transceivers will limit the access of multiple satellite clusters; 3)
The distribution of the multi-dimensional constrained resource
is uneven. This is because that the quantity of multi-dimensional
resource for SS, MS and DRS is varying due to different onboard
payload. Moreover, the data arrivals of each satellite cluster are
stochastic. The demand for multi-dimensional resource of each
satellite cluster will be dynamic, and the demand and supply for
multi-dimensional resource may mismatch; Fortunately, EOS
networks are generally delay-tolerant [17], and the key require-
ments of EOS networks are to reduce the data drop rate and save
energy. Therefore, the key issues of SSC’ data downloading are
to effectively allocate multi-dimensional constrained uneven-
distributed resource to minimize the energy consumption and
guarantee the performance of data drop rate [18].
In this paper, we introduce data compression into small satel-
lite cluster networks with DRS, which extends the dimensions
of resource management. In order to guarantee the data drop
rate performance and minimize the energy consumption simul-
taneously, the joint data downloading and resource management problem for each time slot, which can further be decom-
problem is investigated. With stochastic data arrivals, the joint posed into two sub-problems, where to offload the sensing
data downloading and resource management problem is formu- data and how much data should be transmitted and com-
lated as a long-term network performance optimization problem pressed for each satellite.
on the metric of energy consumption with the constraint of data r In order to solve two sub-problems, a many-to-many
drop rate. Through Lyapunov optimization, the usage of the matching model with empty node and the simplex method
storage for each satellite can be scheduled, and the long-term are adopted, and an online joint data downloading and
performance optimization problem is decomposed into a series resource management (OJDDRM) scheme is proposed.
of mixed-integer programming problems for each time slot. In Simulations demonstrate that there exists a balance point,
order to solve the mixed-integer linear programming problem under which the energy consumption can be reduced while
for each time slot, an online scheme based on many-to-many the data drop rate is zero.
matching with empty node and the simplex method is proposed. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. The related
The main contributions of this paper are listed as follows: work is reviewed in Section II. In Section III, the system model
r We formulate onboard computing resource into the re- is presented. In Section IV, we describe the formulation of
source management problem for delay-tolerant small our optimization problem. The proposed scheme is provided
satellite cluster networks with DRS. Fully considering in Section V. Section VI shows the simulation results, and
the multi-dimensional constrained uneven-distributed re- Section VII concludes the paper. All related acronyms are listed
source, the joint data downloading and resource manage- in Table I.
ment problem in this paper is formulated as a long-term
optimization problem. And the objectives are to minimize
the energy consumption and guarantee the performance of II. RELATED WORKS
data drop rate. Moreover, a new architecture of data buffer As a hot area of research, data downloading and resource man-
is presented. agement for Earth Observation satellite networks have attracted
r Based on Lyapunov optimization framework, the formu- significant attentions. Based on their objectives and constraints,
lated problem in this paper with the long-term optimization the related works can be roughly classified into three types as
objective is transformed to a mixed-integer programming follows.

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ZHANG et al.: JOINT DATA DOWNLOADING AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FOR SMALL SATELLITE CLUSTER NETWORKS
The first type of these articles with a single optimization
objective aims at maximizing the amount of downloaded data or
throughput of data downloading or the number of the completed
transmission tasks. In order to design an optimal contact plan
for DRS systems to maximize the long-term average network
throughput, a time-expanded graph-based scheme is proposed
in [19]. However, the constraints of buffer and energy consump-
tion are not considered in [19]. Shi et al. devise a traffic-aware
inter-layer contact selection algorithm for multi-Layer satellite-
terrestrial network in [20], and the buffer size is considered.
For LEO satellite constellation network with only one gateway
station, the data downloading window of each LEO satellite may
not match the amount of its data that waits to be downloaded.
Therefore, a collaborative data downloading scheme is proposed
in [21], which allows LEO satellites to share their data down-
loading windows with each other through ISLs to maximize the
amount of downloaded data. However, data offloading among
LEO satellites in [21] will increase the cost of energy. By exploit-
ing the real antenna slewing model, the authors in [22] maximize
the system throughput from the perspectives of optimizing the
antenna scheduling sequence. However, the energy consump-
tion in the process of antenna slewing is not considered. Fully
considering the energy consumption, storage condition, and
channel condition, a dynamic data downloading optimization
problem for small satellite is investigated in [23], and a dynamic
programming framework is adopted to maximize the amount
of downloaded data. Meanwhile, it can meet the constraints of
energy consumption, storage. With similar constraints of [23], a
mission scheduling algorithm is proposed in [24] to maximize
the minimum number of successfully scheduled missions for all
user satellites, while the fairness among different user satellites
and the time-varying inter-satellite contacts are considered. Fur-
thermore, taking hybrid tasks into consideration, a stochastic
optimization framework is proposed in [25] to maximize the
number of the completed hybrid transmission tasks. Besides,
recent work [26] proposes a task scheduling method to improve
the task completion rate, where each transmission task can be
split into several parts to match the data downloading window.
Moreover, to overcome the limitations of traditional algorithms,
a resource management scheme based on machine learning is
proposed in [27]. Unlike the first type of the existing works,
which take energy consumption as one of their constraints, this
article’s objective is to minimize the energy consumption and
guarantee the performance of data drop rate. Since SSC networks
are delay-tolerant and energy-limited, we focus on allocating the
multi-dimensional resource effectively.
Unlike the articles mentioned above with a single objective
optimization problem, the second type of these works takes
energy consumption as part of the optimization objective. Zhang
et al. in [28] evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme
on the metric of the weight sum of energy consumption and
the amount of downloaded data. Considering different battery
models, a battery-aware contact plan design scheme is proposed
in [29] for LEO satellite networks to maximize the contact
capacity and minimize battery exhaustion probability. Besides,
a multi-objective optimization problem is investigated in [30],
and one of the objectives is to maximize the number of the
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889
completed transmission tasks from LEO satellite to DRS, an-
other is to minimize the energy consumption in the process of
data offloading. For the second type of the existing works, they
minimize the energy consumption mainly by decreasing data
offloading or high-efficient antenna selection. In this paper, we
save energy consumption through transmission model selection,
storage management and communication resource allocation
jointly.
The third type of these articles focuses on mission scheduling,
which generally takes data acquisition and data downloading
into account simultaneously. The key point of these works is
to complete Earth Observation missions and then transmit the
sensing data to their destination. In order to maximize the num-
ber of the completed tasks for resource-limited small satellite
networks, Zhou et al. in [31] formulate the mission aware content
plan design problem as a mixed-integer linear programming
problem by leveraging an extended time-evolving graph, and
both the buffer constraints and energy constraints are considered.
In this paper, we assume that the sensing data has been obtained.
The above-mentioned studies have well investigated the data
downloading problems for LEO satellite networks with data
relay satellites. And the energy consumption, storage condition,
resource management for communication resource, multiple
antennas and collaboration among LEO satellite satellites have
been fully considered, while the computing resource is missing.
Nowadays, productive works have been done in the field of satel-
lite onboard processing [32]. A framework of satellite-terrestrial
integrated edge computing networks is proposed in [33], dif-
ferent from the existing works, satellite in [33] and [34] can
conduct task processing directly. The compression algorithms
and embedded devices are introduced in [35], [36] and [37], and
the onboard devices for compression can reach throughput per-
formance above 1 Gb/s. With the powerful onboard compression
capacities, the sensing data collected by SSC can be compressed
first to reduce the cost of storage and communications resource.
Therefore, this paper takes onboard computing resource man-
agement into account. And the relationship among the energy
resource, onboard computing resource, communication resource
and storage resource are investigated. With the proposed OJD-
DRM scheme, the network performance and the usage of multi-
dimensional resource can be scheduled through a control param-
eter.
III. SYSTEM MODEL
Fig. 1 shows the architecture of small satellite cluster net-
works, which can be described by three sets denoted G, K and
S, where G = {1, 2, . . ., G} is the set of GW, S = {1, 2, . . ., S}
is the set of DRS and K = {1, 2, . . ., K} is the set of MS (small
satellite cluster). Satellites of each small satellite cluster can
be divided into two categories: MS k and a set of SS L =
{1, 2, . . ., L}. MS, which has enhanced capacities of communi-
cation and data compression, are responsible for collecting the
data of SS, transmitting the data to DRS or GW, and compressing
the data. As for SS with limited capacities of communication
and storage, it equips with EO cameras, which collect image
data of the ground targets, then these data will be delivered to
890
TABLE II
KEY NOTATIONS
Fig. 1. Small satellite cluster networks with data relay satellite.
its MS [38]. Due to the periodic movement of small satellite
cluster, the orbit period of this system can be slotted into a set
T = {1, 2, . . ., T } of slots, and the length of these slots is τ . The
key notations are summarized in Table II.
Each DRS s in this system is equipped with a set of antenna
H = {1, 2, 3. . ., H} (H  K) for small satellite cluster, each
of which includes several property parameters of switch power
Ps,h (t) and switch time SThs . And each antenna on DRS can
only serve one small satellite cluster within one time slot [30].
Simultaneously, every DRS also has one antenna for the feeder
linker in Ka band, and all of the DRS operates at geosynchronous
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 71, NO. 1, JANUARY 2022
orbit, which can always keep the feeder linker with GW. For MS
of SSC, it has three antenna, one is for the feeder linker in Ka
band, the others are for the inter-satellite data link with DRS
and SS, respectively. In this paper, we assume that the antenna
of MS for intra-cluster communications is multi-beam antenna,
which can communicate with multiple SS simultaneously. For
SS, it only has the abilities of intra-cluster communications.
During each time slot, SS collects data and then transmits it to
its MS, MS can choose to compress the data firstly or offload the
data to GW directly. Due to the mobility of LEO satellite, the ISL
and feeder links for MS are dynamic. In addition, each MS, DRS
and GW can only keep limited data links under the constraint
of antenna. Therefore, the association indicator ISLhk,s (t) and
F Lk,g (t) are used to represent the on-off of the data link. For
all of the available data links, if it is chosen to establish within
time slot t, its association indicator is 1, otherwise it is 0. Let
ISLhk,s (t) denote the inter-satellite data link between MS k and
antenna h of DRS s.

1, the data link is established for time slot t,
ISLhk,s (t)
= .
0, otherwise
(1)
At the beginning of each time slot, DRS s will point its antenna
h to MS k if ISLhk,s (t) = 1. F Lk,g (t) defines the feeder link
between GW g and MS k.

1, the data link is established for time slot t
F Lk,g (t) =
0, otherwise
(2)
ZHANG et al.: JOINT DATA DOWNLOADING AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FOR SMALL SATELLITE CLUSTER NETWORKS 891

Let QD D D
l,k (t), Qk (t) and Qs (t) (in bits) represent the queue
backlog of SS,’ MS’ and DRS’ uncompressed data (the storage
capacities of SS, MS and DRS are finite), the set of the uncom-
pressed data queues QD (t) at the beginning of time slot t can
be denoted as follows
QD (t) = {QD D D
l,k (t), Qk (t), Qs (t)|l ∈ L, k ∈ K, s ∈ S}. (4)

For the queue of SS l, the queuing dynamics of QD l,k (t) can

be formulated as follows
 D 
QD k max
l,k (t + 1) = min Ql,k (t) − Dl,k (t) + Al (t), Ql,k . (5)
where Qmax
l,k is the maximum storage of SS. Dl,k (t) is the data
transmitted from SS l to MS k within time slot t, which should
not exceed the length of QD l,k (t). And the amount of dropped
Fig. 2. Traffic and Queue model. data Dropl,k (t) is denoted as
 
if F Lk,g (t) = 1, MS k can transmit its data to GW g. Let Dropl,k (t) = max QD k max
l,k (t) + Al (t) − Dl,k (t) − Ql,k , 0 .
link(t) represent the state of ISLs and feeder links during time (6)
slot t, which can be defined as follows For the queue of master satellite k, the queuing dynamics of
QDk (t) can be formulated as follows
link(t)  ISL(t), F L(t) (3) G

QD
k (t + 1) = max {QD
k (t) − Ck (t) − D
Dk,g (t)
where ISL(t) = {ISLhk,s (t)|k ∈ K, s ∈ S, h ∈ H} and
g=1
F L(t) = {F Lk,g (t)|k ∈ K, g ∈ G} are the set of the states of
S 
 H L

ISLs and feeder links during time slot t, respectively. D
− Dk,s,h (t), 0} + Dl,k (t). (7)
s=1 h=1 l=1
A. Traffic and Queue Model
where Ck (t) is the data delivered to the compressed data queue
In each time slot, SS of SSC will work and collect the data. D
which will be compressed. Dk,s,h (t) is the uncompressed data
According to [23], let Akl (t) be the stochastic arrivals (number D
delivered to DRS s through antenna h, and Dk,g (t) is the
of bits) at the end of time slot for SS l of SSC k and assume that
uncompressed data delivered to GW g.
Akl (t) is independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) across
For the queue of DRS s, the queuing dynamics of QD s (t) can
time slots. With the improvement of onboard data compression
be represented as follows
capacities, we assume that MS and DRS in this paper have the
 D 
capacities of data compression, which can compress the data QD D
s (t + 1) = max Qs (t) − Cs (t) − Ds,g (t), 0
according to the standard of consultative committee for space
K 
 H
data systems (CCSDS) [39]. Therefore, as shown in 2, each D
+ Dk,s,h (t). (8)
MS and DRS keeps multiple queues, which are designed for
k=1 h=1
the storage of uncompressed and compressed data, respectively.
And all of the data in the queue follows the store-carry-forward where Cs (t) is the data delivered to the compressed data queue
D
paradigm. Under this paradigm, the incoming data will be stored which will be compressed. Ds,g (t) is the uncompressed data,
in the queue firstly, and these data can be further delivered or which will be transmitted to GW g.
compressed from the next time slot on. In addition, let QC C
k (t) and Qs (t) (in bits) represent the
Since SS has limited capacities, it only has one queue for data queue backlog of MS’ and DRS’ compressed data, the set of
storage. For each time slot t, SS collects data of size Akl (t) and compressed data QC (t) at the beginning of time slot t can be
stores it into its queue, then it will offload these data to MS, MS denoted as follows
will store the data from SS l to the sub-queue of uncompressed
QC (t) = {QC C
k (t), Qs (t)|k ∈ K, s ∈ S}. (9)
data. Meanwhile, MS can compress the data with size of Ck (t) in
the sub-queue of uncompressed data, and the compressed data For the compressed data queue of MS k, the compressed data
will be pushed into the sub-queue of compressed data. If MS queue backlog QCk (t) evolves as follows
keeps the feeder link or ISL, it can offload its data from the sub-
G

queue of compressed data or uncompressed data. If MS offloads
data to DRS, the uncompressed data of MS will be stored in the QC C
k (t + 1) = max {Qk (t) −
C
Dk,g (t)
g=1
sub-queue of uncompressed data of DRS, and the compressed
data will be pushed into the sub-queue of compressed data. As S 
 H
C
for DRS, it can also compress the uncompressed data or offload − Dk,s,h (t), 0} + ρCk (t). (10)
its data to GW. s=1 h=1

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892 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 71, NO. 1, JANUARY 2022

C
where ρ is the compression ratio. Dk,s,h (t) is the compressed can be represented as follows
data offloaded from MS k to DRS s through antenna h, and h
Dk,s,max (t) = (τ − αh SThs )Rk,s
h
(t)ISLhk,s (t). (18)
C
Dk,g (t) is the compressed data delivered to GW g.
For the compressed data queue of DRS s, the queuing dynam- there αh = 1 denotes that the switch of antenna h. And multiple
ics of QCs (t) can be defined as follows
constraints are needed to guarantee that the data delivered by
MS is less than the maximum capacities of ISL.
QC C C
s (t + 1) = max {Qs (t) − Ds,g (t), 0 } D C h
Dk,s,h (t) + Dk,s,h (t) ≤ Dk,s,max (t). (19)
K 
 H
+ C
Dk,s,h (t) + ρCs (t). (11) For the ICL, the achievable data rate Rl,k (t) in time slot t can
k=1 h=1
be represented by

C Pl,k (t)Gtx rx loss

l Gk Pl,k (t)
where Ds,g (t) is the compressed data, which will be transmitted Rl,k (t) = Wl,k log2 1+ . (20)
to GW g. N0
According to [40], QD D D C C
l,k (t), Qk (t), Qs (t), Qk (t) and Qs (t) where Wl,k is the bandwidth for the ICL between MS k and SS l,
are mean rate stable if Pl,k (t) is the transmission power. Gtx rx
  l and Gk are respectively
  antenna gain of the transmitting antenna and receiving antenna.
E QD l,k (t)  max
lim = 0. (12) Therefore, the maximum size of data transmission is Dl,k (t) =
t→∞ t τ Rl,k (t). And the amount of data for the ICL does not exceed
 D 
E Qk (t) the following limit
lim = 0. (13)
t→∞ t max
Dl,k (t) ≤ Dl,k (t). (21)
  
E Q D s (t)

For the feeder link between gateway g and MS k, the achiev-
lim = 0. (14)
t→∞ t able data rate Rk,g (t) in time slot t can be denoted by
 
E Q C k (t)

Pk,g (t)Gtx rx loss
lim = 0. (15) k Gg Pk,g (t)
t→∞ t Rk,g (t) = Wk,g log2 1+ . (22)
 C  N0
E Qs (t)
lim = 0. (16) where Wk,g is the bandwidth for the feeder link, Pk,g t
is the
t→∞ t
tx rx
transmission power. Gk and Gg are respectively antenna
Moreover, if all of the queues of the network are mean rate gain of the transmitting antenna and receiving antenna. There-
stable, the network will be stable, which means that the queue fore, the maximum amount of data transmission is Dk,g max
(t) =
will keep finite length and ensures the time average output rate of τ Rk,g (t)F Lk,g (t). Similar to Rk,g (t), we can obtain the achiev-
the queue equal to the time average input rate. In order to keep able data rate Rs,g (t) of the feeder link between gateway g and
all the queues mean rate stable, the input and output of each DRS s, and the maximum size of data transmission Ds,g max
(t) =
queue should be optimized, and the set of the input and output τ Rs,g (t). And the following constraints should be satisfied
of each queue can be denoted as D(t) and C(t). D(t) is the
D C max
D
set of Dl,k (t), Dk,s,h C
(t), Dk,s,h D
(t), Dk,g C
(t), Dk,g D
(t), Ds,g (t) Dk,g (t) + Dk,g (t) ≤ Dk,g (t). (23)
C
and Ds,g (t). C(t) is the set of Ck (t) and Cs (t). Moreover, if D
Ds,g C
(t) + Ds,g max
(t) ≤ Ds,g (t). (24)
ISLhk,s (t) = 0, there will be no data link between MS k and
D C
antenna h of DRS s, so Dk,s,h (t) and Dk,s,h (t) will equal C. Computing Model
to zero. And if the data link between MS k and GW g is not
D C In this paper, SSC is designed for Earth observation, it can
available, the value of Dk,g (t) and Dk,g (t) is zero.
obtain photographs of the Earth surface. SSC can transmit its
data to GW directly or compress it firstly. With the increasing
B. Communication Model onboard processing capacities of satellites, we consider that
For the data link between MS k and antenna h of DRS s, the both of MS and DRS are facilitated with a low-complexity
h and high-throughput onboard compressor, and the compression
achievable data rate Rk,s (t) in time slot t can be obtained by
capacity of MS k and DRS s can be respectively represented by
h
Pk,s (t)Gtx rx loss Vk (t) in bit/s and Vs (t) in bit/s, which follows the standard of
h k Gs Pk,s (t)
Rk,s (t) = Wk,s log2 1+ . (17) CCSDS [36]. In order to cope with data corruption and obtain
N0
scalable throughput, the sensing data can be partitioned into
where Wk,s is the bandwidth for the ISL between MS k and small segments, which can be independently compressed and
DRS s, Pk,sh
(t) is the transmission power of satellite s for ISL. decompressed [39], [41]. For each time slot t, MS k and DRS
s can compress part of its data, the compressed data will be
Gk and Grx
tx
s are respectively antenna gain of the transmitting
loss delivered to the queue of compressed data, the maximum amount
antenna and receiving antenna, Pk,s (t) is the path loss, and N0
of data compression for MS k and DRS s in time slot t is
is the noise power. Since antenna switch of DRS will consume
time of time slot t [30], the maximum size of data transmission Ckmax (t) = Vk (t)τ. (25)

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ZHANG et al.: JOINT DATA DOWNLOADING AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FOR SMALL SATELLITE CLUSTER NETWORKS 893

Csmax (t) = Vs (t)τ. (26) constraints, which can be formulated as follows

T
And the amount of compressed data should not exceed the 1
min lim Esum (t)
specified limit C(t),D(t) T →∞ T
link(t) t=1
 
Ck (t) ≤ min Ckmax (t), QD
k (t) . (27) s.t. C1 : (19), (21), (23), (24), (27) and (28),
 
Cs (t) ≤ min Csmax (t), QD
s (t) . (28) K

C2 : F Lk,g (t) ≤ p, F Lk,g (t) ∈ {0, 1},
k=1
D. Energy Model G

For small satellite cluster, both of data transmission and data C3 : F Lk,g (t) ≤ 1, F Lk,g (t) ∈ {0, 1},
compression will lead to energy consumption [23] [36]. In time g=1
slot t, the energy consumption Ek (t) for MS k can be denoted K

by C4 : ISLhk,s (t) ≤ 1, ISLhk,s (t) ∈ {0, 1},
k=1
G
 D C
Ck (t) Dk,g (t) + Dk,g (t)
Ek (t) = Pkc + Pk,g (t) S 
 H
Vk (t) g=1
Rk,g (t) C5 : ISLhk,s (t) ≤ 1, ISLhk,s (t) ∈ {0, 1},
s=1 h=1
H 
 S D C
Dk,s,h (t) + Dk,s,h (t)
+ h
Pk,s (t) . (29) C6 : All of the queues are mean rate stable.
h (t)
Rk,s
h=1 s=1 (33)
where link(t), C(t), D(t) are the set of the state of all the data
where Pkc is the power for the compressor of MS k. Pk,g (t) and links, the amount of compressed data and delivered data within
Pk,s (t) are the transmission power for the ISL and feeder link time slot t. Multiple constraints (C1) guarantee that the amount
of MS k, respectively. of delivered and compressed data does not exceed its maximum.
And the energy consumption El,k (t) for SS l can be denoted (C2) represents that each GW can serve at most p MS during one
by time slot. (C3) means that each MS can only associate with at
most one GW within time slot t. (C4) ensures that each antenna
Dl,k (t)
El,k (t) = Pl,k (t) . (30) of DRS can only serve one small satellite cluster within one
Rl,k (t) time slot [23]. (C5) guarantees that each MS can only be served
by at most one antenna of DRS within time slot t. And (C6)
where Pl,k (t) is the transmission power, and Dl,k (t) denotes the implies that QD D D C
l,k (t), Qk (t), Qs (t) and Qk (t) should be mean
data transmitted to MS k. rate stable to guarantee the network stability.
As for DRS, its energy consumption consists three parts [30]:
the energy consumption of antenna switching, computing and
V. JOINT DATA DOWNLOADING AND RESOURCE
data transmission, which can be defined as follows
MANAGEMENT ALGORITHM
Cs (t) Ds,g (t) With stochastic data arrivals, problem (33) in this paper is a
Es (t) = Psc + Ps,h (t)SThs + Ps,g (t) . (31)
Vs (t) Rs,g (t) stochastic mixed-integer programming problem with multiple
constraints. In this section, leveraging Lyapunov optimization
where Psc (t), Ps,h (t) and Ps,g (t) are the computing, antenna technique, problem (33) with long-term optimization objective
switch and transmission power of DRS s. Cs (t) and Ds,g (t) = is decomposed into two sub-problems for each time slot. Then,
D C
Ds,g (t) + Ds,g (t) represent the amount of compressed data and based on many-to-many matching with empty node and the
the data transmitted to GW g, respectively. And αh SThs are the simplex method, an OJDDRM scheme is proposed, which can
times of antenna switch. ensure the stability of all the queues and meet multiple con-
Therefore, the sum of energy consumption in time slot t can straints.
be presented as following
A. Problem Transform Based on Lyapunov
K
 L
 S
 Optimization Technique
Esum (t) = El,k (t) + Ek (t) + Es (t). (32)
k=1 l=1 s=1
As a powerful technique for optimizing time average network
performance in stochastic queuing networks, Lyapunov opti-
mization has been widely used to investigate the performance
IV. PROBLEM FORMULATION trade-off between optimizing objectives and average queue
Due to the limitation of energy capture for satellites, the backlog [42], [43]. Therefore, Lyapunov optimization technique
objective of this paper is to search for an energy-effective can be adopted in this section to solve problem (33), which aims
data downloading policy during one cycle T under multiple to minimize average energy consumption subject to network

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894 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 71, NO. 1, JANUARY 2022

stability. Thus, the following formulation denotes the Lyapunov L 2


function QD
k (t + 1) −
2
QD
k (t)
2
Dl,k (t) D
+ (Ck (t) + Dk,gw (t)
K L l=1
1   D 2
L(Θ(t))  Ql,k (t) + QD 2 C
k (t) + Qk (t)
2
L

2 D
k=1 l=1 + Dk,sh (t))2 + 2QD
k (t) Dl,k (t)
S l=1

+ (QD C
s (t) + Qs (t) ) .
2 2
(34)
D D
s=1 − Ck (t) − Dk,gw (t) − Dk,sh (t) . (41)
D C
where Θ(t) = {Q (t), Q (t)} is a concatenated vector, and
Δ(Θ(t)) is Lyapunov drift function, which can be defined as K 
 H 2

follows QD
s (t + 1) −
2
QD
s (t)
2
≤ D
Dk,s,h (t) + (Cs (t)
k=1 h=1
Δ(Θ(t))  E {L(Θ(t + 1)) − L(Θ(t))|Θ(t)} . (35)
K 
 H
D
Then, the Lyapunov drift-plus-penalty function can be defined + Ds,g (t))2 + 2QD
s (t)
D
Dk,s,h (t)
as k=1 h=1

Δ(Θ(t)) + V E {Esum (t)|Θ(t)} . (36) D

− Cs (t) − Ds,g (t) . (42)
where V is the control parameter.
And the stochastic optimization problem (33) can be trans-
QC C C C
k (t + 1) − Qk (t) ≤ (ρCk (t)) + (Dk,gw (t) + Dk,sh (t))
2 2 2 2
formed as follows

+ 2QC C
k (t) ρCk (t) − Dk,gw (t)
min Δ(Θ(t)) + V E {Esum (t)|Θ(t)} (37a)
link(t),C(t),D(t)
C

− Dk,sh (t) . (43)
s.t. C1 to C5. (37b)
K 
H 2

Then, the Lyapunov drift function can be obtained by QC
s (t + 1) −
2
QC
s (t)
2
≤ C
Dk,s,h (t) + ρCs (t)
K L k=1 h=1
1   
L(Θ(t + 1))−L(Θ(t)) = QD 2 D
l,k (t+1) −Ql,k (t)
2 K 
 H
2 C
+ Ds,g (t)2 + 2QC C
k=1 l=1 s (t) Dk,s,h (t)
k=1 h=1

+ QD
k (t + 1) −
2
QD
k (t)
2
+ QC
k (t + 1) − 2
QC
k (t)
2
C
+ ρCs (t) − Ds,g (t) . (44)
S

+ (QD D C D
s (t + 1) − Qs (t) + Qs (t + 1) − Qs (t) ) .
2 2 2 2
According to [40] and the above equation, the upper bound
s=1 of Lyapunov drift-plus-penalty can be obtained
(38)
For simplicity, let denote the input and output for each queue Δ(Θ(t)) + V E {Esum (t)|Θ(t)]} ≤ B + W (t) (45)
of MS as follows
G where B is a positive constant [43]. And W (t) is defined as

D D following
Dk,gw = Dk,g ,
g=1  K L 

D k
G
 W (t) = E Ql,k (t)[Al (t) − Dl,k (t)]|Θ(t)
C C
Dk,gw = Dk,g , k=1 l=1
g=1  K L
 
S 
 H +E (QD
k (t)
D
Dl,k (t) − Ck (t) − Dk,gw (t)
D D
Dk,sh = Dk,s,h , k=1 l=1
s=1 h=1
  K

D
S 
 H − Dk,sh (t) |Θ(t) +E QC C
k (t)[ρCk (t)−Dk,gw (t)
C C
Dk,sh = Dk,s,h . k=1

s=1 h=1 (39)
C
− Dk,sh (t)])|Θ(t)
By (5), (7), (8), (10), (11) and (39), we can obtain

QD D k
l,k (t + 1) − Ql,k (t) ≤ Al (t) + Dl,k (t)
2 2 2 2 S
 K 
 H
+E QD
s (t)
D
Dk,s,h (t)
+ 2QD k
l,k (t)[Al (t)−Dl,k (t)]. (40) s=1 k=1 h=1

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ZHANG et al.: JOINT DATA DOWNLOADING AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FOR SMALL SATELLITE CLUSTER NETWORKS 895


1) μ(k) ∈ G ∪ H ∪ V;
D
− Cs (t) − Ds,g (t) |Θ(t) 2) μ(p) ∈ K ∪ K ;
3) |μ(k)| ≤ qk , ∀k ∈ K ∪ K ;
 S
 K 
 H 4) |μ(p)| ≤ qp , ∀p ∈ G ∪ H ∪ V;
+E QC
s (t)
C
Dk,s,h (t) 5) k ∈ μ(p) if and only if p ∈ μ(k);
s=1 k=1 h=1 In this paper, we define two special types of nodes, empty
 MS node (EMN) and empty DRS node (EDN), which are used
C
+ ρCs (t) − Ds,g (t) |Θ(t) + V E{Esum (t)|Θ(t)}. to simplify the many-to-many matching game. Generally, when
a matching game gets convergent, all of the nodes should be
(46) matched. However, in this paper, due to the limitation of antenna,
Therefore, we can obtain the sub-optimal of (37a) by mini- there will be some MS that can not associate with DRS or GW at
mizing the right-hand side of (45). And the sub-optimal of (37a) the end of the matching game. Therefore, we introduce EMN and
can be transformed as the following problem. EDN to guarantee that all of the nodes can finally be matched.
Moreover, the queue, the amount of compressed data and the
min W (t) (47a) delivered data of EMN and EDN are 0, which will not affect the
link(t),C(t),D(t)
process of resource management. In this matching game, one
s.t. C1 to C5 (47b) EDN is introduced, and this EDN is assumed that can serve any
MS or EMN at any time. Similarly, a set of EMN K is created,
The optimal problem of the right-hand side of (45) is a mixed-
whose size is the same with the set K.
integer linear programming problem, which is NP-hard. In order
In definition 1, μ(k) is the set of the associated nodes for MS
to solve this problem, the optimal problem of the right-hand
or EMN k, μ(p) represents the set of the associated nodes for
side of (45) can be decomposed into two sub-problems. One is
GW, DRS’s antenna or EDN p. Condition 1 indicates that each
to decide the state of all the data links link(t), the other is to
MS or EMN is matched with a subset of GW, DRS’s antenna
obtain the amount of compressed data C(t) and delivered data
and EDN. Condition 2 implies that each gateway, DRS’s antenna
D(t) within time slot t.
or EDN is matched with a subset of MS or EMN. Condition 3
and 4 define the quota of μ(k) and μ(p). The quota of μ(k) and
B. OJDDRM Scheme
μ(p) is affected by the topology and antenna configuration of
In this section, two sub-problems of (47a) are addressed in each node. For example, in time slot t, MS k has two antenna
order. Firstly, we assume that the state of all the data links which can associate with GW or DRS, the quota of μ(k) will be
link(t) in time slot t is known. Then, problem (47a) can be 2. Condition 5 indicates that if node k is matched with node p,
reformulated as then node p is also matched with node k.
min W (t)|link(t) (48a) Based on the matching result μ, problem (47a) can be refor-
C(t),D(t) mulated as
s.t. C1 (48b)
With linear objective function and multiple linear constraints,
min W (t)|μ (49a)
problem (48a) is a linear programming problem. A classical C(t),D(t)
algorithm named simplex method is adopted in this paper to
s.t. C1 (49b)
solve problem (48a), and the optimal solution can be obtained
via off-the-shelf solvers, such as Lingo.
Due to the dynamic changes of topology and data queue
backlog, we need to obtain the state of all the data links for each From MS’s perspective, each MS will try to minimize its
time slot, which can be considered as a user association process. the weight sum of the queue backlog and energy consumption,
And each MS can be associated with DRS or GW. As for the which is part of the upper bound of Lyapunov drift-plus-penalty.
user association problem, the matching theory has been proved to Therefore, the preference value Pk (μ, t) for MS k under the
be an effective technique to investigate it. Therefore, according matching μ can be defined as
to the characteristic of our model, we adopt a many-to-many
matching game model to tackle the MS association problem in
this paper [44]. And a many-to-many matching game is defined Pk (μ, t) = QD D D
k (t)[Ck (t) + Dk,gw (t) + Dk,sh (t)]
as follows:
Definition 1 (Many-to-Many Matching): In this many-to- + QC C C
k (t)[Dk,gw (t) + Dk,sh (t) − ρCk (t)]
many matching game, there are two disjoint finite sets of players,
K ∪ K and G ∪ H ∪ V, where K ∪ K is the set of MS and − V Ek (t). (50)
empty MS node, G ∪ H ∪ V is the set of GW, DRS’s antenna
and empty DRS node. A matching μ is defined as a func-
tion: K ∪ K → G ∪ H ∪ V such that for all k ∈ K ∪ K and Similarly, the preference value of each node p, which is
p ∈ G ∪ H ∪ V: determined by its weight sum of the queue backlog and energy

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896 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 71, NO. 1, JANUARY 2022

consumption as well as its user node’s, can be expressed as

Algorithm 1: OJDDRM Scheme.
 Input: queue backlog of all the queues, available onboard
Pp (μ, t) = QD D D
k (t)[Ck (t) + Dk,gw (t) + Dk,sh (t)] computing resource and channel conditions.
k∈Z Output: C(t), D(t) and link(t).

+ QC C C Phase I - Initialize
k (t)[Dk,gw (t) + Dk,sh (t) − ρCk (t)]
k∈Z
1) For each time slot, according to the topology and
antenna configuration, determine the quota of each node
 and generate the empty nodes.
− QD
p (t)
D
Dk,p D
(t) − Cp (t) − Dp,g
2) MS of the set K ∪ K are randomly matched to the
k∈Z
nodes of the set G ∪ H ∪ V subject to multiple
 constraints (C1-C4).
− QC
p (t)
C
Dk,p C
(t) + ρCp (t) − Dp,g Phase II - Swap matching
k∈Z
1) For every MS k ∈ K ∪ K which is associated with p
− V [Ek (t) + Ep (t)]. under the matching result μ, search for a swap-blocking
(51) pair (k, k ) (MS k associates with node p ) that forms a
where Z is the set of MS, which is associated with node p. swap matching result μp,p k,k .
D C
Dk,p (t) and Dk,p (t) are respectively the uncompressed and 2) If (k, k ) is a swap-blocking pair, a new matching
compressed data transmitted from node k to node p. QD p (t) and result μ = μp,p
k,k is obtained.
QC p (t) are respectively the length of the queue for uncompressed 3) Else if the pair (k, k ) does not satisfy the condition
and compressed data of node p, respectively. Moreover, the cost in definition 3, keep the matching result μ unchanged.
function of the matching result μ is U (μ, t) = W (t)|μ. 4) Repeat step II until there does not exist
Each MS k and node p will rank its associated nodes by its swap-blocking pair.
preference values in descending order and obtain its preference Phase III - Resource allocation
lists. It is easy to find that the preference value Pk (μ) of MS k not 1) Update the state of all the data links by the final
only depends on itself but is also affected by the choices of other matching result μ.
MS. For example, a set of MS associated with the antenna of the 2) Solve the problem (49a) by the simplex algorithm,
same DRS will share DRS’s storage resource. In this way, each obtain the amount of compressed and delivered data.
MS will have a dynamic preference list following the choices 3) Update the queue of each satellite.
of other nodes, which means that the many-to-many matching 4) Repeat step 1 until the last time slot.
game in this paper has externalities.
For this many-to-many matching game with externalities,
the classical deferred acceptance algorithm can not be applied
directly. Motivated by the former studies, swap matching and A. Simulation Setup
a two-sided exchange-stable concept are adopted in this paper Consider small satellite cluster networks with twelve small
to obtain a feasible and convergent matching result. A swap satellite clusters, three data relay satellites and six gateway
matching can be defined as follows: stations [23]. Each SSC under Cartwheel formation consists of
Definition 2 (swap matching): In a matching μ, there four slave satellites and one master satellite. These twelve master
exists a associated pair that k ∈ μ(p) and p ∈ μ(k ), where satellites uniformly orbit over two sun-synchronous orbits at
k ∈ / μ(p) and p ∈ / μ(k ). And a swap matching can be pre- the height of 619 km. Six of them are distributed in orbit
sented as μk,k p,p = μ\{(k, p), (k, p )} ∪ {(k, p ), (k, p)}, while with inclination being 86.4◦ , and the inclination is 93.6◦ for
k ∈ μk,k k,k
p,p (p ), k ∈ μp,p (p), k ∈/ μk,k / μk,k
p,p (p) and k ∈ p,p (p ).
the other master satellites. For each small satellite cluster, four
Definition 3 (two-sided exchange-stable): For a matching μ in slave satellites orbit around its master satellite with constant
this paper, it is two-sided exchange-stable if there does not exist distance by specific orbit design [45]. Three data relay satel-
swap block pair (k, k ) or (p, p ), which satisfies the following lites are geosynchronous satellites with nominal longitude of
conditions: 0◦ E, 162.324◦ W and 162.324◦ E, respectively [30]. Six gateway
1) ∀x ∈ {k, k, p, p }, Px (μp,p
k,k ) ≥ Px (μ);
stations are respectively located in Beijing, Wenchang, Kashi,
Toronto, Kiruna and Buenos Aires [19]. In this simulation, each
2) ∃x ∈ {k, k, p, p }, Px (μp,p
k,k ) > Px (μ); master satellite is equipped with three antennas. The transmis-
yields U (μp,p
k,k ) < U (μ). sion power of MS for offloading data to DRS with a high data
Leveraging the many-to-many matching game model and rate of 1200 Mbps and low data rate of 800 Mbps is 20 and 12 W,
simplex method, the proposed online joint data downloading respectively. And the transmission power for the feeder link is
and resource management scheme is shown in Algorithm 1. 12 W and the data rate is 1.2 Gbps. As for SS, its transmission
power is 6 W, and the data rate for intra-cluster data link within
SSC is 600 Mbps. Take [36] as a reference, the compression
VI. SIMULATION RESULTS
rate of master satellite and data rate satellite is respectively
In this section, the performance of the proposed OJDDRM 500 Mbps with power of 8 W and 1 Gbps with power of 10 W,
scheme and other five schemes is evaluated under different and the compression ratio is 0.4. The sensing data arrival rate
system parameters.
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ZHANG et al.: JOINT DATA DOWNLOADING AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FOR SMALL SATELLITE CLUSTER NETWORKS
TABLE III
SIMULATION PARAMETERS
for each slave satellite is randomly distributed with the mean
of 100 Mbps. The length of each time slot is 30 seconds. The
details of the parameters are listed in Table III.
B. Simulation Baseline Design
In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme,
the following schemes are presented as baselines.
r Greedy Scheme (GS): The communication resource will be
allocated greedily. DRS and GW will choose MS with the
largest amount of data awaiting for downloading to serve
for every time slot.
r Best-Effort Scheme (BES): The set of the association in-
dicator link(t) for each time slot t is still obtained by
the proposed scheme. However, as an alternative scheme
to the simplex method, all the satellites will try their best
to transmit and compress their data.
r Brute-Force Scheme (BFS): For this scheme, the set of
association indicator link(t) for each time slot t is ob-
tained by enumerating, and the set of input and output of
each queue for each time slot t is obtained by the simplex
method.
r Random Scheme (RS): MS will be randomly matched to
DRS or GW, and the set of input and output of each queue
for each time slot t is obtained by the simplex method.
r No-Compression Scheme (NCS): All of the satellites do not
have onboard computing capacities, while other configu-
rations and resource management algorithms are the same
with the proposed scheme.
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897
Fig. 3. Throughput of small satellite networks.
C. Performance Analysis Versus Control Parameter
Fig. 3 depicts the relationship between the control parameter
V and throughput of data downloading for small satellite cluster
networks. With the increase of the control parameter V, the
throughput of data downloading is successively decreasing until
zero. This is because that a larger control parameter V will make
the networks prefer to maintain a large queue to decrease its
energy consumption, which means a greater weight of energy
consumption. In this way, satellites will try to avoid transmission
or compression to reduce energy consumption. When the con-
trol parameter V becomes large enough, satellites will stop to
transmit or compress, which will lead the throughput to be zero.
Fig. 3 also shows the throughput of data downloading for small
satellite cluster networks with different configurations. As we
can see from Fig. 3, the throughput of small satellite cluster with
four slave satellites is larger than SSC with two or three slave
satellites when the control parameter does not exceed 7 × 106 .
This is because that the throughput will increase with the growth
of the number of slave satellites.
Fig. 3 also shows that the throughput of small satellite clus-
ter with three and four slave satellites suddenly falls behind
the performance of SSC with two SS when the value of the
control parameter V reaches 7 × 106 . The reason lies in the
fact that, with three or four SSs, a large number of data will
be simultaneously transmitted to MS, which leads to the rapid
increase of SS,’ MS’ and DRS’ queue backlog. And a specified
relationship among the queue of SS, MS and DRS is satisfied.
Under this situation, the queue backlog of SS has reached the
maximum, and MS also maintains a large queue. But the queue
backlog of DRS is less than the threshold of transmitting data
to GW while it is larger than the threshold of receiving data
from MS. For DRS, the threshold of DRS-GW transmission is
dependant on the control parameter V, the transmission rate and
power, and the queue backlog of DRS. And the threshold of
MS-DRS transmission depends on the control parameter V, the
transmission rate and power of ISL, and the queue backlog of
DRS and MS. In this way, DRS will not transmit its data to
GW, and MS can not deliver its data to DRS. Moreover, due to
the large queue backlog of MS, the data transmission between
898
Fig. 4. Energy consumption of small satellite cluster networks.
Fig. 5. Amount of the data which remains in the queue.
SS and MS is interrupted, too. To validate our analysis, Fig. 3
also depicts the throughput of SSC with high storage and high
ICL data rate. With high storage of SS and high ICL data rate,
the threshold will decrease, and the congestion is significantly
relieved.
Fig. 4 presents the impact of the control parameter V on en-
ergy consumption under different configurations. As the control
parameter V increases, the energy consumption under all the
configurations decreases dramatically initially and then drops
slowly from V=6 × 106 . Due to the larger amount of data
awaiting for downloading, small satellite clusters with more
slave satellites need more energy to download their data. And the
energy consumption grows with the number of slave satellites
in Fig. 4. For the configurations with high-speed intra-cluster
data links, it can transmit more data during the same time.
Therefore, it has better performance than the normal one when
the control parameter V is below 4 × 106 . It can also be observed
from Fig.5 that, with the increase of the control parameter, the
energy consumption of small satellite cluster networks with
high ICL rate and high storage becomes larger than the normal
configuration. The reason is that SSC with a high ICL rate and
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Fig. 6. Amount of dropped data of small satellite cluster networks.
high storage has a lower threshold of data transmission and
compression.
Fig. 5 illustrates the amount of data which remains in the
queue under different control parameter V. The amount of data
in the queue grows with the increase of the control parameter V.
When the control parameter V become lager enough, the amount
of data in the queue keep constant, which implies that small
satellite cluster will not download any data to save its energy. In
this way, all the data will be held in the queue. Moreover, small
satellite clusters with fewer slave satellites have short queue
length because fewer slave satellites mean less data arrival. It
can also be seen from Fig. 5 that small satellite clusters with
high storage have a large queue length than the normal one. Due
to SSC with high ICL rate, its queue backlog is less than the
normal configuration’s at first. However, with the increase of the
control parameter V, its queue backlog becomes the same with
the normal configuration. This is because that, the transmission
between SS and MS will be interrupted if the control parameter
becomes larger enough.
The relationship between the amount of dropped data and
control parameter V is depicted in Fig. 6. As shown in Fig. 6,
the amount of dropped data is 0 when the control parameter
V is small. Compared to the relationship between the energy
consumption and control parameter V, it can be found that the
performance of energy consumption and data drop rate is con-
flicting. Therefore, we normalize the performance of throughput,
energy consumption, queue backlog and data drop rate, which
are plotted in Fig. 7. It can be seen from Fig. 7 that there exists
a specified control parameter V, which can minimize the energy
consumption while the data drop rate is zero. And the specified
control parameter V can be seen as the balance point of the
proposed scheme.
D. Performance Analysis Versus Different Schemes
Fig. 8 plots the energy consumption of the proposed scheme
under the balance point. As we can see from Fig. 8, the energy
consumption of all the schemes increases with the growth of the
data arrival rate. This trend is expected, because more data need
ZHANG et al.: JOINT DATA DOWNLOADING AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FOR SMALL SATELLITE CLUSTER NETWORKS
Fig. 7. The normalized performance of small satellite cluster networks.
Fig. 8. Energy consumption versus data arrival rate.
more energy to transmit and compress. It can also be seen from
Fig. 8 that NCS is the most energy-intensive because it cannot
reduce the data of downloading and storage by compression. For
RS, its energy consumption is larger than GS and the proposed
scheme when the data arrival rate does not exceed 125 Mbps.
This is because that the data of MS cannot transmit to DRS in
time due to the random association, the additional energy will be
used to compress the data to keep the queue mean rate stable. As
for GS, its performance falls behind the proposed scheme first.
This is explained by the fact that, GS may aggravate the burden of
DRS because it always selects the MS with the largest amount
of data, DRS may take extra energy to transmit or compress.
Moreover, if DRS with limited storage and communication
resource chooses the MS with the largest amount of data, GS
will aggravate the burden of MS, too. Therefore, the energy
consumption of GS is larger than the proposed scheme. However,
the energy consumption of RS and GS is less than the proposed
scheme when the data arrival rate exceeds 175 Mbps due to
data drop. Fig. 8 also plots the performance of BES. For this
scheme, the data of SS and MS will be transmitted to DRS
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899
Fig. 9. Amount of dropped data versus data arrival rate.
immediately, and all the satellites will try their best to trans-
mit and compress the data. When the data arrival exceeds the
maximum capacities of transmission and compression, the data
will be dropped, so its energy consumption increases first and
then stays the same. Moreover, the performance of BFS is also
presented in Fig. 8, and the performance of the proposed scheme
is almost the same with BFS. However, BFS obtains the optimal
association indicators by enumerating, and the complexity of
enumeration is higher than the proposed scheme based on a
many-to-many game. In summary, the proposed scheme has the
best performance on the metric of energy consumption when the
data arrival rate does not exceed 150 Mbps.
As depicted in Fig. 8, RS, GS and BES outperform the
proposed scheme under the large data arrival rate. This is because
that some of the data of RS, GS and BES are dropped. Therefore,
Fig. 9 shows the performance of all the schemes on the metric
of the amount of dropped data. As presented in Fig. 9, all the
schemes except for the proposed scheme and BFS suffer data
dropping when the data arrival rate exceeds 150 Mbps. Due to
the best-effort transmission, the storage of MS and SS is wasted,
so the amount of dropped data of BES is the largest. In a compre-
hensive perspective, the proposed scheme can effectively utilize
the multi-dimension resource to reduce the energy consumption
while it can keep the data drop rate being zero.
E. Performance Analysis Versus Size of SSC
Fig. 10 and Fig. 11 depict the energy consumption and amount
of dropped data versus the size of small satellite cluster under
different data arrival rate, respectively. As the size of small
satellite cluster increases, the energy consumption increases
linearly except for small satellite cluster with six SS whose data
arrival rate is 200 Mbps. It can be attributed to the fact that
the arrival data for small satellite cluster with six SS exceeds
the maximum transmission and compression capacities of the
system. It can also be observed from Fig. 11 that the amount of
dropped data is zero for all of the schemes when the size of small
satellite cluster is below four. In this way, the balance point can
be found. With the increase of the size of small satellite cluster,
900
Fig. 10. Energy consumption versus size of small satellite cluster.
Fig. 11. Amount of dropped data versus size of small satellite cluster.
small satellite cluster with data arrival rate being 150 Mbps and
200 Mbps suffers data loss, which means that they cannot satisfy
the constraint of data drop rate despite the control parameter is
zero. Therefore, we find out that the existence of the balance
point is related to the size and data arrival rate of small satellite
cluster.
VII. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the joint data downloading and resource man-
agement problem for satellite cluster networks with data relay
satellite is addressed. Fully considering the multi-dimensional
resource and dynamic topologies, a long-term optimization
problem to minimize the energy consumption and guarantee
the performance of data drop rate is formulated, which is de-
composed into a series of mixed-integer programming problems
by Lyapunov optimization theory. In order to solve the mixed-
integer programming problems, an OJDDRM scheme based on
many-to-many matching game model and the simplex method is
proposed. Simulation results illustrate that there exists a balance
point. Under this balance point, the proposed OJDDRM scheme
can reduce energy consumption and ensure that the data drop
rate is zero. And the balance point depends on the compression
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 71, NO. 1, JANUARY 2022
rate and power, the transmission rate and power, the storage size
and data arrival rate. However, the specific value of the balance
point is obtained by simulations in this paper. In future research,
we will investigate the problem that how to obtain the balance
point analytically.
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Shanghong Zhang received the B.E. degree in
2016 in telecommunications engineering with man-
agement from the Beijing University of Posts and
Telecommunications, Beijing, China, where he is cur-
rently working toward the Ph.D. degree in electronics
science and technology. His research interests include
satellite cluster, satellite communications, and radio
resource management.
Gaofeng Cui (Member, IEEE) received the Ph.D.
degree from the Beijing University of Posts and
Telecommunications, Beijing, China, in 2013. He is
currently an Associate Professor with the Information
and Electronics Technology Laboratory, School of
Electronic Engineering, Beijing University of Posts
and Telecommunications. From 2019 to 2020, he was
a Visiting Scholar with the University of California,
Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA. His research interests
include satellite communication, space information
networks, integrated satellite-terrestrial networks, ra-
dio resource management for wireless communication system, and Internet of
Things.
Weidong Wang received the Ph.D. degree from the
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications,
Beijing, China, in 2002. He is currently a Profes-
sor with the Key Laboratory of Universal Wireless
Communications, Ministry of Education of China.
He is also the Head of the Information and Elec-
tronics Technology Lab, Beijing University of Posts
and Telecommunications. His research interests in-
clude satellite cluster, satellite communication, radio
resource management, satellite cluster, and signal
processing. He takes the role of expert of National
Natural Science Foundation and a Member of the China Association of Com-
munication.