Optimal Dynamic Multi-Resource Management in Earth Observation Oriented Space Information Networks

Space information network (SIN) is an innovative networking architecture to achieve near-real-time mass data observation, processing and transmission over the globe. In the SIN environment, it is essential to coordinate multi-dimensional heterogeneous resources (i.e., observation resource, computation resource and transmission resource) to improve network performance. However, the time varying property of both the observation resource and transmission resource is not fully exploited in existing studies. Dynamic resource management according to instantaneous channel conditions has a potential to enhance network performance. To this end, in this paper, we study the multi-resource dynamic management problem, considering stochastic observation and transmission channel conditions in SINs. Specifically, we develop an aggregate optimization framework for observation scheduling, compression ratio selection and transmission scheduling, and formulate a flow optimization problem based on extended time expanded graph (ETEG) to maximize the sum network utility. Then, we equivalently transform the flow optimization problem on ETEG as a queue stability-related stochastic optimization problem. An online algorithm is proposed to solve the problem in a slot-by-slot manner by exploiting the Lyapunov optimization technique. Performance analysis shows that the proposed algorithm achieves close-to-optimal network utility while guaranteeing bounded queue occupancy. Extensive simulation results further validate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm and evaluate the impacts of various network parameters on the algorithm performance.