Satellite Messaging with Short Handles for Low-Bandwidth Links
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Solution Overview
Problem
Wireless networks face limitations in speed and bandwidth when conveying data between user equipment devices, particularly when devices transition from being on-grid to off-grid, leading to increased latency and security risks.
Innovation Solution
A communications system utilizing a non-terrestrial network (NTN) and a terrestrial network that enables user equipment devices to provision sender keys and use short handles or handle indices for end-to-end encryption, reducing message size and ensuring secure communication through a constellation of communications satellites.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If full user identifiers (phone numbers, email addresses) are used for messaging, then communication reliability is improved, but message size increases and bandwidth consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the user identifier into two parts: a short handle (public identifier) and a handle index (internal reference). The handle is used for external communication while the handle index is used internally by the core network to map to the full user identifier. This segmentation allows the system to use short handles in messages while maintaining the ability to reliably identify users through the full identifier in the network's database.
Solution Approach 2:
The core network acts as an intermediary that maintains a mapping between short handles and full user identifiers. Instead of transmitting full identifiers across the network, the system transmits short handles and relies on the core network's intermediary mapping function to translate these handles into the appropriate user identifiers for delivery. This intermediary approach reduces bandwidth while preserving communication reliability.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If end-to-end encryption is implemented, then security is improved, but computational overhead increases and message processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary key exchange and encryption setup while the user is still on-grid (connected to terrestrial network). The core network establishes encryption keys and security parameters in advance before the user goes off-grid. This preliminary action ensures that when the user transitions to satellite communication, encryption can be applied immediately without requiring time-consuming key exchange protocols, thus reducing message processing time while maintaining security.
3Adaptability or versatility
If satellite communication is used for off-grid users, then connectivity is maintained, but bandwidth is limited and latency increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the parameter of identifier length from full user identifiers to short handles, reducing the data size by a significant margin. This parameter change directly addresses the bandwidth limitation of satellite communications by reducing the amount of data that needs to be transmitted over the slow satellite link, thereby improving effective data transmission speed while maintaining connectivity for off-grid users.
Data Source
AI summary
A communications system may include a satellite constellation and a terrestrial network. A first user equipment (UE) device may provision sender keys, handles, and/or status information with a core network while connected to the terrestrial network. The core network may accommodate server fan out to a set of other UE devices associated with a particular user identifier. When the first UE device disconnects from the terrestrial network, the first UE device and the set of other UE devices may convey end-to-end encrypted messages through the constellation and the core network. The first UE device may address the set of other UE devices using a short handle associated with the user identifier and/or using a handle index. The first UE device may transmit a control message via the constellation that instructs the core network to release provisioned status information to the set of other UE devices.