ON THROUGHPUT ANALYSIS OF THE MARS IN-SITU ARQ PROTOCOL

Abstract

Combating harsh and unpredictable channel environments is a part of the design of any in-situ communication system (i.e. rover to lander, rover to orbiter, etc.). Channel characteristics can range from simple additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels to more bursty fading channels found in rover to orbiter links (i.e. canyon scenarios and typical orbiter passes around mountain ranges). A combination of forward error correction and automatic repeat request (ARQ) schemes are commonly used to provide a more robust communications link. ARQ enhances the communication link particularly for bursty fading channels. Go-Back-N is a commonly used ARQ scheme and is an option in the newly developed Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) Proximity-1 Link protocol [7], a data link layer protocol targeted specifically for in-situ applications. Optimization of frame sizes and retransmission persistence of the ARQ scheme require a good analytical model of how the scheme performs over various channel conditions. In this paper, an analytical framework for modeling the COP-1 protocol is presented for both AWGN channels along with bursty fading channels. A Gilbert-Elliot two-state Markov model is used to model a bursty fading channel.