ESA Open Invitation to Tender: 1-11167
Open Date: 23/05/2022 15:09 CEST
Closing Date: 29/08/2022 13:00 CEST

The objective of the activity is to develop load balancing techniques for on-board critical computational tasks as a trade-off between large in-situ computational resources versus distributed processing among less powerful (satellite) nodes and the consequent communication overhead. The techniques will be implemented in a software test bed that will assess the effectiveness of dynamic load balancing among multiple satellites based on realistic and relevant system and mission scenarios. Targeted Improvements: Enhancing the normalised energy efficiency per processed information bit by a factor of 2 for satellite nodes. Description: Edge computing is a concept to balance the computation loads among the core network components and the edge nodes aiming to reduce latency and enhance user quality. Considering satellites as the edge nodes of the global communication networks, the aim of this activity is to develop and test techniques for balancing the local computation versus data transmission to ground via other nodes, while taking into account the communication link and computation power constrains as well as time criticality of the task. This task will consist of different classification and identification techniques for critical objects (planes, vessels, IoT nodes) to be identified as part of the activity. The activity will define constellation scenarios with satellites in different orbits (GEO/MEO/LEO) and nodes with different computation and communication capabilities including specialised assets such as AI chipsets. These scenarios will be the base for the development of the load balancing techniques that will be implemented in a software test bed as part of the activity. The performance of the load balancing techniques will be benchmarked against a solution of raw data transmission (no edge computing). For the benchmarking realistic use cases shall be considered such as satellite based IoT, satellite based AIS and ADS-B signal processing.

Directorate: Directorate Telecom Integrated Applica
Estabilishment: ESTEC
ECOS Required: No
Classified: No
Price Range: 200-500 KEURO
Authorised Contact Person: Florence Odette Jeanne Glandieres
Initiating Service: TIA-TFA
IP Measure: N/A
Prog. Reference: E/0534-01G – CC-AT 4.0.1
Tender Type: Open Competition
Open To Tenderers From: AT+BE+CA+CH+CZ+DE+DK+GR+ES+FI+FR+GB+HU+IE+IT+LU+NL+NO+PL+PT+RO+SE
Technology Keywords: 6-A-III-Networking Techniques
Products Keywords: 2-L-all.1.1-a-*See EEE Components