A Software-Defined Networking based Simulation Framework for Internet of Space Things

The last decade witnessed proliferating in the adaptation of smart devices, sensors, autonomous vehicles, drones, and robots etc for daily human use under the umbrella of Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. The next wave of IoT devices will demand for increased connectivity with minimum delay and higher availability to ensure quality of service along with energy efficiency. The current IoT deployments are carried out using 4G/5G/wireless and optical transport networks. Remote areas, such as animal farms, agricultural land, forests, seas, and so on are facing challenges with the IoT deployments due to poor or no network connectivity. Satellite communications aim to resolve these issues but due to huge amount of costs it is an ambitious task. Moreover, the existing satellites won’t be able to serve the huge amount of IoT deployments in near future. In this context, Internet of Space Things (IoST) emerged as a game changer that allows deployment of small sized Satellites in the lower orbit around the earth which would enable the IoT deployments to directly communicate through space with enhanced quality of service and would eventually resolve the current challenges faced in the remote areas. This paper presents an SDN-based simulation framework for orchestrating large scale satellites using a multi-level of SDN controller and a centeralized orchestrator.