Low earth orbit (LEO) mega constellations - satellite and terrestrial integrated communication networks.

With the recent rapid development of satellite technologies and satellite launching vehicle, constructing a LEO mega constellation (i.e. with hundreds or even thousands of satellites) to provide high-performance Internet access with global coverage becomes a reality. Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is a type of self-configuring wireless network with high flexibility and high mobility. Thus, the combination of satellite networks (particularly LEO mega constellations) and MANETs will be able to provide a comprehensive Internet access service to anyone in anywhere at anytime. The focus of this thesis is to explore the potential of the proposed fully-integrated satellite and terrestrial networks and to meet the technical challenges with required performance, which has been rarely discussed before. The main contributions of this thesis include: Firstly, a novel Mobile Ad hoc Network routing protocol (AOMDV-SIR) optimised for internetworking with satellite networks is proposed. This protocol specifically takes satellite communication characteristics into account to make traditional terrestrial MANETs ready for the integration by dynamically balancing traffic among satellite gateways while providing competitive or even better performance than other MANET routing protocols. Secondly, a novel routing scheme (HAMS) for inter-satellite routing in Satellite Ad hoc Network (SANET) is proposed. It provides an autonomous routing solution for LEO mega constellations without ground stations’ involvement. According to simulations, it can offer better network performance especially in long-distance communication scenarios. Thirdly, a coherent routing scheme for the satellite and terrestrial integrated network is proposed. Unlike current satellite-terrestrial integration approaches, the proposed scheme is designed for a fully-integrated network (i.e. terrestrial network and satellite network share the same priority). Compare to currently available techniques, the proposed network structure and routing scheme can greatly expand communication network application area and can achieve better service quality.