Software defined satellite networks: A survey

In recent years, satellite networks have been proposed as an essential part of next-generation mobile communication systems. Software defined networking techniques are introduced in satellite networks to handle the growing challenges induced by time-varying topology, intermittent inter-satellite link and dramatically increased satellite constellation size. This survey covers the latest progress of software defined satellite networks, including key techniques, existing solutions, challenges, opportunities, and simulation tools. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the most comprehensive survey that covers the latest progress of software defined satellite networks. An open GitHub repository is further created where the latest papers on this topic will be tracked and updated periodically. Compared with these existing surveys, this survey contributes from three aspects: (1) an up-to-date SDN-oriented review for the latest progress of key techniques and solutions in software defined satellite networks; (2) an inspiring summary of existing challenges, new research opportunities and publicly available simulation tools for follow-up studies; (3) an effort of building a public repository to track new results.