Engineering topics
Burleigh, Scott
Publications and source records attributed to Burleigh, Scott.
A Communications Network for Cislunar Operations
Reliable and efficient communications will be critical to the success of commercial flight operations in cislunar space. The Internet is not well-suited to meeting this requirement. But the Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) architecture is. The DTN protocols are well-documented and implementations are mature. We think DTN will be ready to support low-cost, low-risk cislunar networking by the time the vehicles are in place.
Toward a Communications Satellite Network for Humanitarian Relief
No abstract available
Tortoise and Hare: Ways of Thinking About Mission Communications
No abstract available
Space Flight Middleware: Remote AMS over DTN for Delay-Tolerant Messaging
This paper describes a technique for implementing scalable, reliable, multi-source multipoint data distribution in space flight communications -- Delay-Tolerant Reliable Multicast (DTRM) -- that is fully supported by the "Remote AMS" (RAMS) protocol of the Asynchronous Message Service (AMS) proposed for standardization within the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS). The DTRM architecture enables applications to easily "publish" messages that will be reliably and efficiently delivered to an arbitrary number of "subscribing" applications residing anywhere in the space network, whether in the same subnet or in a subnet on a remote planet or vehicle separated by many light minutes of interplanetary space. The architecture comprises multiple levels of protocol, each included for a specific purpose and allocated specific responsibilities: "application AMS" traffic performs end-system data introduction and delivery subject to access control; underlying "remote AMS" directs this application traffic to populations of recipients at remote locations in a multicast distribution tree, enabling the architecture to scale up to large networks; further underlying Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) Bundle Protocol (BP) advances RAMS protocol data units through the distribution tree using delay-tolerant storeand- forward methods; and further underlying reliable "convergence-layer" protocols ensure successful data transfer over each segment of the end-to-end route. The result is scalable, reliable, delay-tolerant multi-source multicast that is largely self-configuring.
Moving Toward Space Internetworking via DTN: Its Operational Challenges, Benefits, and Management
The international space community has begun to recognize that the established model for management of communications with spacecraft - commanded data transmission over individual pair-wise contacts - is operationally unwieldy and will not scale in support of increasingly complex and sophisticated missions such as NASA's Constellation project. Accordingly, the international Inter-Agency Operations Advisory Group (IOAG) ichartered a Space Internetworking Strategy Group (SISG), which released its initial recommendations in a November 2008 report. The report includes a recommendation that the space flight community adopt Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) to address the problem of interoperability and communication scaling, especially in mission environments where there are multiple spacecraft operating in concert. This paper explores some of the issues that must be addressed in implementing, deploying, and operating DTN as part of a multi-mission, multi-agency space internetwork as well as benefits and future operational scenarios afforded by DTN-based space internetworking.
Moving Toward Space Internetworking via DTN: Its Operational Challenges, Benefits, and Management
No abstract available
Endpoint Naming for Space Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking
Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) provides solutions to space communication challenges such as disconnections when orbiters lose line-of-sight with landers, long propagation delays over interplanetary links, and other operational constraints. DTN is critical to enabling the future space internetworking envisioned by NASA. Interoperability with international partners is essential and standardization is progressing through both the CCSDS and the IETF.
A Communication Satellite Network for Infrastructure-Poor Countries: Delay-Tolerant Networking on Cubesats
No abstract available
Disruption Tolerant Networking Flight Validation Experiment on NASA's EPOXI Mission
In October and November of 2008, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory installed and tested essential elements of Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) technology on the Deep Impact spacecraft. This experiment, called Deep Impact Network Experiment (DINET), was performed in close cooperation with the EPOXI project which has responsibility for the spacecraft. During DINET some 300 images were transmitted from the JPL nodes to the spacecraft. Then they were automatically forwarded from the spacecraft back to the JPL nodes, exercising DTN's bundle origination, transmission, acquisition, dynamic route computation, congestion control, prioritization, custody transfer, and automatic retransmission procedures, both on the spacecraft and on the ground, over a period of 27 days. All transmitted bundles were successfully received, without corruption. The DINET experiment demonstrated DTN readiness for operational use in space missions. This activity was part of a larger NASA space DTN development program to mature DTN to flight readiness for a wide variety of mission types by the end of 2011. This paper describes the DTN protocols, the flight demo implementation, validation metrics which were created for the experiment, and validation results.
Dynamic Routing for Delay-Tolerant Networking in Space Flight Operations
Computational self-sufficiency - the making of communication decisions on the basis of locally available information that is already in place, rather than on the basis of information residing at other entities - is a fundamental principle of Delay-Tolerant Networking. Contact Graph Routing is an attempt to apply this principle to the problem of dynamic routing in an interplanetary DTN. Testing continues, but preliminary results are promising.
Delay-Tolerant Networking for Space Flight Operations: Design and Development
Large-scale future space exploration will offer complex communication challenges that may be best addressed by establishing a network infrastructure. The Internet protocols are not well suited for operation of a network over interplanetary distances; a Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) architecture has been proposed instead. DTN is now a rapidly growing research field, but most implementations are mainly aimed at supporting applications of DTN technology to terrestrial networking problems. Those implementations are not necessarily suitable for deployment in an interplanetary network. Interplanetary Overlay Network (ION) is an implementation of the DTN architecture that is specifically designed for use in resource-constrained embedded systems, such as interplanetary robotic spacecraft.
Deep Impact Network Experiment (DINET)
DINET is a technology development experiment intended to increase the technical readiness of JPL s implementation of DTN protocols - "ION". The objective is to advance ION in flight and ground SW to TRL 8, with code of sufficient quality that future flight projects can easily use it at low risk. DINET is to be implemented on the Deep Impact flyby spacecraft. DINET operations will be performed in late 2008 during the Deep Impact spacecraft team "stand down" after EPOCH operations and before the start of development for DIXI operations.
AMS Prototyping Activities
This slide presentation reviews the activity around the Asynchronous Message Service (AMS) prototype. An AMS reference implementation has been available since late 2005. It is aimed at supporting message exchange both in on-board environments and over space links. The implementation incoroporates all mandatory elements of the draft recommendation from July 2007: (1) MAMS, AMS, and RAMS protocols. (2) Failover, heartbeats, resync. (3) "Hooks" for security, but no cipher suites included in the distribution. The performance is reviewed, and a Benchmark latency test over VxWorks Message Queues is shown as histograms of a count vs microseconds per 1000-byte message
Interplanetary Overlay Network: An Implementation of the DTN Bundle Protocol
No abstract available
Improving UDP/IP Transmission Without Increasing Congestion
Datagram Retransmission (DGR) is a computer program that, within certain limits, ensures the reception of each datagram transmitted under the User Datagram Protocol/Internet Protocol. [User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is considered unreliable because it does not involve a reliability-ensuring connection-initiation dialogue between sender and receiver. UDP is well suited to issuing of many small messages to many different receivers.] Unlike prior software for ensuring reception of UDP datagrams, DGR does not contribute to network congestion by retransmitting data more frequently as an ever-increasing number of messages and acknowledgements is lost. Instead, DGR does just the opposite: DGR includes an adaptive timeout-interval- computing component that provides maximum opportunity for reception of acknowledgements, minimizing retransmission. By monitoring changes in the rate at which message-transmission transactions are completed, DGR detects changes in the level of congestion and responds by imposing varying degrees of delay on the transmission of new messages. In addition, DGR maximizes throughput by not waiting for acknowledgement of a message before sending the next message. All DGR communication is asynchronous, to maximize efficient utilization of network connections. DGR manages multiple concurrent datagram transmission and acknowledgement conversations.