A novel onboard-gateway-based mechanism to improve TCP performance in aeronautical satellite networks

The IP-based networks on aircraft serve to support Internet services via satellites. However, in aeronautical satellite hybrid networks, the TCP protocol performance often deteriorates due to improper decreases and slow recovery of the congestion window. This paper proposes a window size determination and notification mechanism, onboard-gateway-based mechanism (OGBM), which is based on the onboard gateway in the networks on aircraft. A cross-layer approach is adopted by the onboard gateway to obtain the satellite link bandwidth information. And then, by the gateway, through changing the receiver's advertised window field in ACK packets, TCP sources are notified of the window size of each TCP source calculated on the ground of bandwidth delay product and flow numbers. The mechanism is able to avoid improper changes of TCP window and serve multiple users. Simulation results show that the mechanism with the fairness index close to 1 improves TCP performance in aeronautical satellite networks.