SatEdgeSim: A Toolkit for Modeling and Simulation of Performance Evaluation in Satellite Edge Computing Environments

Along with the progress of satellite technology, satellites are becoming more and more powerful, making emerging technologies such as mist computing and edge computing considered in the future development of satellite networks. Satellite networks will use mist/edge computing to provide low-latency, highly reliable information transmission capabilities. However, despite much research in the area of satellite edge computing, there is still a lack of simulation tools with satellite edge computing environments. Here, we propose a satellite edge computing simulator-SatEdgeSim, which is an extension of PureEdgeSim and utilizes the effectiveness of it in simulating cloud, mist and edge computing environments to evaluate the satellite edge computing environment. Finally, we use SatEdgeSim to simulate the impact of different task deployment strategies in satellite edge computing scenarios. Simulation results show that SatEdgeSim is effective in satellite edge computing environment. Compared with the traditional task deployment strategy, the proposed deployment strategy designed in this paper can reduce delay and energy consumption, and improve the task success rate.

I. Introduction

The wide-area coverage characteristics of satellites can well solve the problem of ground coverage. A satellite constellation composed of multiple satellites makes network communication more stereoscopic. In recent years, O3b, One Web, SpaceX and other commercial satellite companies have proposed satellite constellation plans. Increasing investment and research work on satellite-related technologies makes satellites stronger and smarter. This makes satellite networks have greater development potential, enabling emerging technologies such as edge computing, mist/fog computing considered in the future development of satellite networks, and research on satellite edge computing has also increased.