2. RELATED WORK
The implementation of a communication subsystem for
formation flying or swarm missions demands various
technologies. The research activities in this area focus on
hardware design, protocol implementation, navigation or
adaption of terrestrial standards. Since the realization of
ad-hoc networks for space applications is a highly complex
issue and involves various technologies, we address the
relevant publication for our work.
An efficient architecture for precision formation flying
(PFF) missions is proposed in [11]. The authors verify the
capability of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) in
terms of mUltiple access interferences. Multi-point routing
between nanosatellites and a S-Band inter-satellite link will
be realized by S-Net [20]. The transceivers of the
nanosatellites will use a modified CCSDS proximity-l
protocol. [6, 3, 8] propose some COTS transceivers and
wireless technologies for pico- and nanosatellites. The
transceivers differ in data rate, maximal possible
communication distance or frequency bands. It is possible to
adapt these transceivers for an ISL [3].
[9] The utilization of terrestrial standards has also been
presented in ESA studies which focus on robotics and
autonomous systems in space applications. Some terrestrial
communication protocols have already been verified by
pico- and nanosatellite missions. For instance, the main
objective of the picosatellite UWE-l was the optimization
and verification of the Internet protocol (IP). Furthermore
cross layer optimizations have been analyzed between
AX.25 and higher protocols (i.e. IP, HTTP) [4]. The
Communication and Navigation Demonstration On Shuttle
(CANDaS) experiment verified some technologies such as
Mobile IP, SNR communication and GPS Navigation. It
realized automatically setting up routing tunnels to send
uplink traffic to the correct ground network or TDRSS relay