Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites play a crucial role in providing global connectivity for non-terrestrial networks (NTNs) and supporting various Internet-of-Remote-Things (IoRT) applications. Each LEO satellite functions as a relay node in the sky, employing store-and-forward transmission strategies that necessitate the use of buffers. However, due to the finite size of these buffers, occurrences of buffer overflow leading to packet loss are inevitable. In this paper, we demonstrate how inter-satellite links (ISLs) can mitigate the probability of buffer overflow. Specifically, we propose an approach to reallocate packets among LEO satellites via ISLs to minimize the occurrence of buffer overflow events. Consequently, the implementation of ISLs can lead to a more reliable satellite network, enabling efficient packet reallocation to reduce the probability of buffer overflow.

翻译：低地球轨道（LEO）卫星在为非地面网络（NTN）提供全球连接以及支持各类远程物联网（IoRT）应用方面发挥着关键作用。每颗LEO卫星作为空中的中继节点，采用存储转发传输策略，必须使用缓冲器。然而，由于这些缓冲器容量有限，导致数据包丢失的缓冲器溢出事件不可避免。本文论证了星间链路（ISL）如何能够降低缓冲器溢出的概率。具体而言，我们提出一种通过ISL在LEO卫星间重新分配数据包的方法，以最小化缓冲器溢出事件的发生。因此，ISL的实施能够构建更可靠的卫星网络，通过高效的数据包重分配降低缓冲器溢出概率。