Decentralized data distribution for satellite swarms

Establish decentralized or partially decentralized data-distribution solutions for satellite systems that can replace the assumed ideal data distribution between a centralized feeder-link node and the radiating elements of a distributed satellite swarm.

Background

The system model assumes that a central node calculates the beamforming weights and distributes data to all radiating elements. Although partially and fully decentralized data-distribution solutions have been studied in terrestrial massive-MIMO systems, their applicability to satellite systems is unresolved. The paper explicitly identifies the adoption of such solutions in satellite systems as outside its scope, while recognizing data distribution as a key scalability challenge for large swarms.

References

The adoption of these solutions in satellite systems remains an open issue.

— Satellite Swarms for Direct-to-Cell Networks: A Distribution-Performance Trade-off Analysis  (2609.01380 - Artiga et al., 1 Sep 2026) in Section II, System model, first paragraph

Other system-level aspects also remain open challenges and require further investigation. These include the random access procedure over wide fields of view, which is complicated by operation under very narrow bandwidths, and the efficient distribution of data from the centralized node to the swarm.

— Satellite Swarms for Direct-to-Cell Networks: A Distribution-Performance Trade-off Analysis  (2609.01380 - Artiga et al., 1 Sep 2026) in Section VIII, Conclusions