ST-SAM: A Lightweight Satellite-Tailored Service-Adaptive Multicast TE Protocol

Multicast traffic engineering (TE) over Segment Routing (SR) is crucial for large-scale Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks. However, introducing multicast Source Routing TE to the LEO satellite network faces challenges due to constrained computational resources and the need for service adaptability. To address these issues, we propose the SatelliteTailored Service-Adaptive Multicast TE protocol, abbreviated as ST-SAM, which emphasizes efficient TE through a lightweight design and adaptability. ST-SAM introduces a protocol that partitions the network into two domains to provide depth and breadth control of the multicast service tree. Furthermore, it incorporates a dynamic domain boundary adjustment mechanism that optimizes domain placement based on satellite node density and multicast service characteristics. Simulations show that our proposed ST-SAM effectively reduces network overhead by up to 53.68% compared to existing solutions and achieves optimal lightweight performance under over 75 % of evaluated conditions, including various network scales and multicast service demands.