LAUSR

In deep space missions, large-scale deep space information and continuous sensory data are generated, processed, and exchanged over Internet of deep space things (IoDST). Ensuring reliable communication in IoDST requires resolution of challenges engendered by the unique characteristics of IoDST, including long propagation delays, link outages, high error rates, and asymmetric bandwidths. Thus, transmission control protocol (TCP) layer functionalities are crucial for ensuring reliable IoDST communications. However, existing TCP congestion control (CC) protocols present poor performance in IoDST communications, owing to the dependence of traditional window-based CC approaches on pre-configured rules to adjust transmission rate against the aforementioned unique characteristics. In this paper, we propose an intelligent CC scheme called optimistic actor–critic-based TCP congestion control (OAC-TCPCC) to solve the problems of the challenging link conditions in IoDST. OAC-TCPCC dynamically determines optimal congestion window for data transmission over IoDST communication links to maximize the TCP throughput performance and minimize file transfer time. Simulation results reveal that OAC-TCPCC improves the TCP throughput performance by up to 27%, 79%, 92%, 477%, 643%, and 766%; and reduces file transfer time by up to 16%, 37%, 50%, 48%, 58%, and 79%, compared to DRL-CC, TP-Planet, FAST TCP, TCP Peach, TCP BBR, and TCP CUBIC, respectively.