A Feedback Implosion Suppression Algorithm for Satellite Reliable Multicast

In this paper, we propose a knapsack-based feedback suppression algorithm for reliable multicast transport protocols operating over a satellite network. A reliable transport protocol needs to identify the packets which failed to reach a given destination. This is achieved through feedback packets returned to the source. For multicast services, receive feedback has been shown to lead to the feedback implosion problem. Feedback implosion is a well-studied problem and various solutions exist in the literature. However, these solutions mainly focus on wireline terrestrial networks and do not take into account the inherent characteristics of the satellite channel and the architecture of the deployed network. Therefore, we need to revisit the problem and provide a new set of solutions for efficient integration to next-generation satellite systems. In this paper, we introduce a feedback implosion suppression algorithm, which effectively suppresses the amount of feedback relayed through the satellite channel, while ensuring that the critical information is conveyed in a timely fashion. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated through simulations.