A Framework for the Virtualization of Satellite Gateways: The SURPRISE Project

Network virtualization and centralized resource orchestration is gaining importance thanks to cutting-edge 5G communication paradigms. Although satellite networks are often characterized by legacy technologies customized for specific application requirements, an update of the satellite platforms following the process encompassed by the mobile network operators can help a future efficient integration of terrestrial and satellite resource to offer added-value services. The main objective of the SURPRISE project, funded by ESA, is the virtualization of the satellite gateway, which is of paramount importance, needing a careful design, development and testing of the ground software components to control, manage and share combined digitalized services/resources provided by flexible high throughput satellites and terrestrial networks to multiple end users and service providers. It just ended the reference scenario definition phase, arriving to valuable results to share with the scientific community. Thus, the aim of this paper is to describe the use cases and the reference scenarios so far defined.