Resource Mobility in Space Information Networks: Opportunities, Challenges, and Approaches

Space information networks (SINs) have been designed to achieve agile acquisition, transmission, and processing of space information. Compared to traditional terrestrial communication networks comprised of mobile users and fixed resources, SINs are characterized by resource mobility, specifically in terms of resource migration, interchange, and aggregation. The resource mobility of SIN provides opportunities to deal with the resource scarcity problem. However, due to complex multi-dimensional resource mobility management, making full use of the opportunities brought by resource mobility is a daunting challenge for network performance improvement. This article provides an overview of open issues with regard to resource mobility in SINs. We first propose the concept of resource mobility and further elaborate on the opportunities it provides. Then we introduce the key research challenges of resource mobility management from three aspects. Furthermore, an optimal resource mobility utilization strategy is devised to achieve high network performance. Overall, resource mobility opens new niches for the exploitation of efficient resource utilization in SINs.