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Edge Computing in Low-Earth Orbit -- What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Published: 06 October 2023 Publication History

Abstract

Large low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite networks are being built to provide low-latency broadband Internet access to a global subscriber base. In addition to network transmissions, researchers have proposed embedding compute resources in satellites to support LEO edge computing. To make software systems ready for the LEO edge, they need to be adapted for its unique execution environment, e.g., to support handovers in face of satellite mobility.
So far, research around LEO edge software systems has focused on the predictable behavior of satellite networks, such as orbital movements. Additionally, we must also consider failure patterns, e.g., effects of radiation on compute hardware in space. In this paper, we present a taxonomy of failures that may occur in LEO edge computing and how they could affect software systems. From there, we derive considerations for LEO edge software systems and lay out avenues for future work.

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Cited By

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  • (2024)Komet: A Serverless Platform for Low-Earth Orbit Edge ServicesProceedings of the 2024 ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing10.1145/3698038.3698517(866-882)Online publication date: 20-Nov-2024
  • (2023)Serverless Abstractions for Edge Computing in Large Low-Earth Orbit Satellite NetworksProceedings of the 24th International Middleware Conference: Demos, Posters and Doctoral Symposium10.1145/3626564.3629088(3-6)Online publication date: 11-Dec-2023
  • (2023)Can Orbital Servers Provide Mars-Wide Edge Computing?Proceedings of the 1st ACM MobiCom Workshop on Satellite Networking and Computing10.1145/3614454.3622997(7-12)Online publication date: 6-Oct-2023

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      LEO-NET '23: Proceedings of the 1st ACM Workshop on LEO Networking and Communication
      October 2023
      51 pages
      ISBN:9798400703324
      DOI:10.1145/3614204
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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      Published: 06 October 2023

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      Author Tags

      1. LEO edge computing
      2. satellite networks
      3. fault tolerance

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      View all
      • (2024)Komet: A Serverless Platform for Low-Earth Orbit Edge ServicesProceedings of the 2024 ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing10.1145/3698038.3698517(866-882)Online publication date: 20-Nov-2024
      • (2023)Serverless Abstractions for Edge Computing in Large Low-Earth Orbit Satellite NetworksProceedings of the 24th International Middleware Conference: Demos, Posters and Doctoral Symposium10.1145/3626564.3629088(3-6)Online publication date: 11-Dec-2023
      • (2023)Can Orbital Servers Provide Mars-Wide Edge Computing?Proceedings of the 1st ACM MobiCom Workshop on Satellite Networking and Computing10.1145/3614454.3622997(7-12)Online publication date: 6-Oct-2023

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