Patent ID: 8730864

Claim:
In a Low Earth Orbit Satellite Network, a method for adaptively switching Layer 2 frames from an uplink or crosslink to another crosslink or downlink based on failure and congestion conditions of crosslinks and downlinks in satellite network payloads, wherein the payloads perform switching based on forwarding rules received from a planning system on the ground, where each forwarding rule specifies how a Layer 2 frame received on a crosslink/uplink should be forwarded to another crosslink/downlink, and where the forwarding rule is of the form <Destination, Input Link, Start Time, End Time, Priority, Output Link 1 , Output Link 2 , . . . , Output Link n> where Destination is a Destination MAC address in the Layer 2 frame received; Input Link is the satellite crosslink/uplink on which the Layer 2 frame is received; Start Time and End Time specify the time interval within which the rule is effective; Priority is the priority level assigned to the Layer 2 frame; and Output Link 1 , . . . , Output Link n is an ordered sequence of preferred crosslinks/downlink to which the received frame is to be switched; an Output Link in the sequence is selected for forwarding if and only if either all previous Output Links in the sequence have either failed or is congested.