LEO Topology Design Under Real-World Deployment Constraints

TL;DR

This paper addresses topology design for large-scale LEO networks under real-world deployment constraints such as partial and evolving constellations and time-varying link availability. It introduces two methods, Long--Short Links (LSL) and Simulated Annealing (SA), that operate on stable links and support incremental topology updates to minimize disruption. Through extensive evaluation on synthetic shells and real Starlink Shell-1 data, the authors demonstrate up to 45% reductions in end-to-end delay, up to 65% fewer hops, and up to 2.3x higher aggregate throughput compared with baselines, with robust performance amid daily satellite turnover. The work provides practical, scalable topology design approaches that stay effective as constellations evolve, enabling more reliable and efficient in-space and inter-satellite communication.

Abstract

The performance of large-scale Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) networks, which consist of thousands of satellites interconnected by optical links, is dependent on its network topology. Existing topology designs often assume idealized conditions and do not account for real-world deployment dynamics, such as partial constellation deployment, daily node turnovers, and varying link availability, making them inapplicable to real LEO networks. In this paper, we develop two topology design methods that explicitly operate under real-world deployment constraints: the Long--Short Links (LSL) method, which systematically combines long-distance shortcut links with short-distance local links, and the Simulated Annealing (SA) method, which constructs topologies via stochastic optimization. Evaluated under both full deployment and partial deployment scenarios using 3-months of Starlink data, our methods achieve up to 45% lower average end-to-end delay, 65% fewer hops, and up to $2.3\times$ higher network capacity compared to +Grid. Both methods are designed to handle daily node turnovers by incrementally updating the topology, maintaining good network performance while avoiding costly full reconstruction of the topology.

Figures (12)

• Figure 1: Deployment of Starlink Shell-1: partial, uneven, and dynamic. The full deployment would be $72 \times 22 = 1,584$ satellites (dashed line).
• Figure 2: Grid Topologies with Different ISL limits
• Figure 3: Illustration of short links and a long link. Short links offer local connectivity, while the long link acts as a shortcut.
• Figure 4: Link feasibility and stability in inclined shells. Opposite-direction pairs are feasible but short-lived and unstable (a), while nearby orbit pairs remain stable because their maximum separation stays within range limits (b).
• Figure 5: Stable Links Region for Starlink Shell-1