A distributed multipath routing strategy for LEO satellite networks

Traditional routing algorithms for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) often adopt single path and greed mechanism, which are ambivalent to realize optimum performances for the whole network. Compared with single path routing, Multipath routing has the advantages of strong fault tolerance and load balancing which is more appropriate for LEO satellite networks. A distributed multipath routing algorithm combined with Multi-Agent System (MASMR) is proposed in the paper. In MASMR, mobile agents and blackboard' are introduced. The former is used to gather multipath information and the latter provides direct interactive mode between agents. Simulation results show that, compared with Ant Colony Optimization, MASMR not only presents better end-to-end delay and but also tracks the fast changing topology of LEO satellite networks.