Resource aware space mission routing

Abstract

In space applications, the mission lifetime is considered one of the most crucial issues. Such missions rely mainly on rovers that move around to sense useful information to be later sent to the earth. The main source of energy in such applications is the solar energy at daytime and then batteries are the only source available at night operation. Due to the scarcity of energy on Mars, a careful design is needed at all levels of the mission to save the energy consumption. The rover communication system consumes a considerable amount of energy during the mission. The used routing protocol can have a huge effect on the energy consumed during the communication between the rovers. Thus, an efficient routing protocol that can effectively exploit the rover resources, and most importantly its energy, is needed. In this thesis, a resource aware routing protocol that will help in extending the lifetime of Mars exploration missions is proposed. The simulation results run on MATLAB have shown that the proposed space mission routing protocol increases the lifetime of the mission, the fairness between the rovers and the packet delivery ratio. In addition to the introduction of the space mission routing, further techniques were implemented to guarantee that the system lifetime is at its maximum. The optimal initial positions of the rovers were obtained resulting in an extended mission lifetime. Furthermore, the bottleneck orbit was identified, and countermeasures were taken to achieve the highest mission lifetime possible. The simulation results obtained showed that the additional two techniques resulted in a much higher lifetime of the mission.

Department

Electronics & Communications Engineering Department

Degree Name

MS in Electronics & Communication Engineering

Graduation Date

2-1-2019

Submission Date

12-31-2018

First Advisor

Amer, Hassanein

Committee Member 1

Seddik, Karim

Committee Member 2

El-Soudany, Magdi

Extent

71 p.

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Rights

The author retains all rights with regard to copyright. The author certifies that written permission from the owner(s) of third-party copyrighted matter included in the thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study has been obtained. The author further certifies that IRB approval has been obtained for this thesis, or that IRB approval is not necessary for this thesis. Insofar as this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study is an educational record as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 USC 1232g), the author has granted consent to disclosure of it to anyone who requests a copy. The author has granted the American University in Cairo or its agents a non-exclusive license to archive this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study, and to make it accessible, in whole or in part, in all forms of media, now or hereafter known.

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval

Not necessary for this item

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