A Study of Licklider Transmission Protocol in Deep-Space Communications in Presence of Link Disruptions

Delay/disruption-tolerant networking (DTN) is widely recognized as a key internetworking technology for implementing a space system of systems (SoS). Aimed at being the main data transport protocol of DTN, Licklider transmission protocol (LTP) is expected to provide reliable data transmission service in a challenging space SoS networking environment regardless of random link disruptions. In this paper, a study of LTP in deep-space communication networks in presence of link disruptions is presented. An analytical framework is developed for the effect of multiple random link disruptions on LTP's reliable data delivery in deep-space networks. The study indicates that the models accurately predict the transmission performance of LTP over a deep-space communication channel in presence of multiple link disruptions. A threshold interval value, obtained from the analytical modeling results, is proposed as a means of determining the reducibility of two successive link disruptions to a single disruption; that threshold value is verified by the experiments.