2025/12/10 by Wang, Xiangtong
#FOS: Computer and information sciences #Networking and Internet Architecture (cs.NI)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2512.09453
This paper presents BlockFLEX, an adaptive and survivable architecture with a hierarchical routing scheme for Low Earth Orbit satellite networks, designed to address dynamic topology changes and severe link failures. By organizing satellites into autonomous blocks, BlockFLEX establishes a survivable underlay network that masks network volatility and offers a stable overlay view. The architecture employs a hierarchical routing scheme integrating both convergence-free geographic routing and convergence-isolated routing. Furthermore, BlockFLEX adaptively switches between stateful and stateless forwarding modes, enabling efficient, resilient, and stable routing via a dedicated protection mechanism and an optimized source satellite selection algorithm. Experimental evaluations on current operational LEO satellite networks (LSNs) demonstrate that under scenarios with up to 30% random link failures, the proposed method achieves a 2× improvement in reachability compared to current leading schemes, while maintaining near-100% routing availability. Moreover, the overhead of control messages and forwarding information base (FIB) updates remains below 0.2% of that in OSPF, accompanied by a ≥ 36% reduction in routing computation time and a ≥ 50% decrease in latency jitter.