Performance analysis of CCSDS File Delivery Protocol and erasure coding techniques in deep space environments

The rising demand for multimedia services even in hazardous environments, such as space missions and military theatres, and the consequent need of proper internetworking technologies have revealed the performance limits experienced by TCP protocol over long-delay and lossy links and highlighted the importance of the communication features provided by the protocol architectures proposed by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS). This paper proposes a CCSDS File Delivery Protocol (CFDP) extension, based on the implementation of erasure coding schemes, within the CFDP itself, in order to assure high reliability to the data communication even in presence of very critical conditions, such as hard shadowing, deep-fading periods and intermittent links. Different encoding techniques are considered and various channel conditions, in terms of Bit Error Ratio and bandwidth values, are tested.