A Community-Based Construct Method for an Inter-Satellite Communication Network of Satellite Swarm

An inter-satellite communication network of satellite swarm (ICNS) is created if the members of a satellite swarm communicate with each other via inter-satellite links (ISLs). ICNS can be constructed using the theory of complex networks. A link community is defined as two satellites between which the ISL has been established. The satellite swarm, whose members have not established ISLs, is modeled as a pre-link network (PLN). The edge of a PLN is described as a candidate for the link community. Consequently, an ICNS can be constructed by collecting combinations of candidates for link communities (CCLC) based on PLN and then by selecting one of these. An algorithm is designed to take a sample of all CCLCs. A new structural entropy of networks is developed to evaluate a CCLC. The CCLC with a maximum structural entropy in the CCLC sample will be selected to become the edge set of the ICNS. An improvement method was proposed to ensure that the ICNS remains a dynamic connected network by preventing each satellite from establishing an ISL with the same satellite. The simulations demonstrated that the proposed method outperformed the benchmark methods, and it is necessary to adopt the improvement method.