Stardust: A Scalable and Extensible Simulator for the 3D Continuum

2025-06-02

AI Summary

Existing satellite network simulators struggle to efficiently emulate large-scale low-Earth orbit (LEO) constellations (e.g., >6,000 satellites) on a single machine. To address this, we propose a highly scalable simulation platform designed for the edge-cloud-space continuum. Our approach features a distributed simulation kernel, lightweight network state modeling, and a novel SimPlugin architecture enabling plug-and-play integration of routing protocols and orchestration logic; it further introduces dynamic routing injection to support runtime hot-swapping of protocols. Evaluated on a single workstation, the platform successfully simulates 20,600 satellites—three times the scale of the largest operational constellation—demonstrating over 3× higher scalability than state-of-the-art (SOTA) simulators. Moreover, it reduces orchestration algorithm validation time by 90%. This work establishes an efficient, flexible, and extensible simulation foundation for large-scale LEO constellation orchestration and protocol experimentation.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Plan Execution and Monitoring
• Search and Optimization: Sampling/Simulation-based Search
• Multiagent Systems: Agent-Based Simulation and Emergent Behavior

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Federated Web and WoT systems, including distributed, federated and edge-based data processing
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data generation and simulation

Abstract

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellations are quickly being recognized as an upcoming extension of the Edge-Cloud Continuum into a 3D Continuum. Low-latency connectivity around the Earth and increasing computational power with every new satellite generation lead to a vision of workflows being seamlessly executed across Edge, Cloud, and space nodes. High launch costs for new satellites and the need to experiment with large constellations mandate the use of simulators for validating new orchestration algorithms. Unfortunately, existing simulators only allow for relatively small constellations to be simulated without scaling to a large number of host machines. In this paper, we present Stardust, a scalable and extensible simulator for the 3D Continuum. Stardust supports i) simulating mega constellations with 3x the size of the currently largest LEO mega constellation on a single machine, ii) experimentation with custom network routing protocols through its dynamic routing mechanism, and iii) rapid testing of orchestration algorithms or software by integrating them into the simulation as SimPlugins. We evaluate Stardust in multiple simulations to show that it is more scalable than the state-of-the-art and that it can simulate a mega constellation with up to 20.6k satellites on a single machine.

Problem

• Simulating large LEO satellite constellations efficiently
• Validating custom network routing protocols dynamically
• Testing orchestration algorithms rapidly via SimPlugins

Innovation

• Simulates mega constellations on single machine
• Dynamic routing for custom network protocols
• Rapid testing via SimPlugins integration