7,318 research outputs found
SDN/NFV-enabled satellite communications networks: opportunities, scenarios and challenges
In the context of next generation 5G networks, the satellite industry is clearly committed to revisit and revamp the role of satellite communications. As major drivers in the evolution of (terrestrial) fixed and mobile networks, Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) technologies are also being positioned as central technology enablers towards improved and more flexible integration of satellite and terrestrial segments, providing satellite network further service innovation and business agility by advanced network resources management techniques. Through the analysis of scenarios and use cases, this paper provides a description of the benefits that SDN/NFV technologies can bring into satellite communications towards 5G. Three scenarios are presented and analysed to delineate different potential improvement areas pursued through the introduction of SDN/NFV technologies in the satellite ground segment domain. Within each scenario, a number of use cases are developed to gain further insight into specific capabilities and to identify the technical challenges stemming from them.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
Enhancing satellite & terrestrial networks integration through NFV/SDN technologies
NFV and SDN technologies can become key facilitators for the combination of terrestrial and satellite networks. Enabling NFV into the SatCom domain will provide operators with appropriate tools and interfaces in order to establish end-to-end fully operable virtualized satellite networks to be offered to third-party operators/service providers. Enabling SDNbased, federated resource management paves way for a unified control plane that would allow operators to
efficiently manage and optimize the operation of the hybrid network.
The proposed solution is expected to bring improved coverage, optimized communication resources use and better network resilience, along with improved innovation capacity and business agility for deploying communications services over combined networks.Postprint (author's final draft
Hybrid Satellite-Terrestrial Communication Networks for the Maritime Internet of Things: Key Technologies, Opportunities, and Challenges
With the rapid development of marine activities, there has been an increasing
number of maritime mobile terminals, as well as a growing demand for high-speed
and ultra-reliable maritime communications to keep them connected.
Traditionally, the maritime Internet of Things (IoT) is enabled by maritime
satellites. However, satellites are seriously restricted by their high latency
and relatively low data rate. As an alternative, shore & island-based base
stations (BSs) can be built to extend the coverage of terrestrial networks
using fourth-generation (4G), fifth-generation (5G), and beyond 5G services.
Unmanned aerial vehicles can also be exploited to serve as aerial maritime BSs.
Despite of all these approaches, there are still open issues for an efficient
maritime communication network (MCN). For example, due to the complicated
electromagnetic propagation environment, the limited geometrically available BS
sites, and rigorous service demands from mission-critical applications,
conventional communication and networking theories and methods should be
tailored for maritime scenarios. Towards this end, we provide a survey on the
demand for maritime communications, the state-of-the-art MCNs, and key
technologies for enhancing transmission efficiency, extending network coverage,
and provisioning maritime-specific services. Future challenges in developing an
environment-aware, service-driven, and integrated satellite-air-ground MCN to
be smart enough to utilize external auxiliary information, e.g., sea state and
atmosphere conditions, are also discussed
SDN and NFV for satellite infrastructures
The integration of SDN and NFV enablers into the satellite network could prove to be an essential means to save on physical sites, improve the time to bring new services to the market and open new ways to improve network resiliency, availability and efficiency. It can be considered that the above two enablers can play a central role in the integration of satellite to terrestrial technologies by using federated management of the network resources.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
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Ubiquitous Internet in an integrated satellite-terrestrial environment: The SUITED solution
yesThe current Internet architecture appears to
not be particularly suited to addressing the
emerging needs of new classes of users who wish
to gain access to multimedia services made available
by ISPs, regardless of their location, while
in motion and with a guaranteed level of quality.
One of the main objectives of so-called nextgeneration
systems is to overcome the limitations
of todayÂżs available Internet by adopting an
approach based on the integration of different
mobile and fixed networks. The SUITED project
moves in this direction since it aims at contributing
to the design and deployment of the global
mobile broadband system (GMBS), a unique
satellite/terrestrial infrastructure ensuring
nomadic users access to Internet services with a
negotiated QoS. A description of the main features
of the GMBS architecture, characterized
by the integration of a multisegment access network
with a federated ISP network is given in
this article. The GMBS multimode terminal is
schematically described, and an overview of the
so-called QoS-aware mobility management
scheme, devised for such a heterogeneous scenario,is provided
Reliable multicast transport by satellite: a hybrid satellite/terrestrial solution with erasure codes
Geostationary satellites are an efficient way to provide a large scale multipoint communication service. In the context of reliable multicast communications, a new hybrid satellite/terrestrial approach is proposed. It aims at reducing the overall communication cost using satellite broadcasting only when enough receivers are present, and terrestrial transmissions otherwise. This approach has been statistically evaluated for a particular cost function and seems interesting. Then since the hybrid approach relies on Forward Error Correction, several practical aspects of MDS codes and LDPC codes are investigated in order to select a code
Green Hybrid Satellite Terrestrial Networks: Fundamental Trade-Off Analysis
With the worldwide evolution of 4G generation and revolution in the information and communications technology(ICT) field to meet the exponential increase of mobile data traffic in the 2020 era, the hybrid satellite and terrestrial network based on the soft defined features is proposed from a perspective of 5G. In this paper, an end-to-end architecture of hybrid satellite and terrestrial network under the control and user Plane (C/U) split concept is studied and the performances are analysed based on stochastic geometry. The relationship between spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE) is investigated, taking consideration of overhead costs, transmission and circuit power, backhaul of gateway (GW), and density of small cells. Numerical results show that, by optimizing the key parameters, the hybrid satellite and terrestrial network can achieve nearly 90% EE gain with only 3% SE loss in relative dense networks, and achieve both higher EE and SE gain (20% and 5% respectively) in sparse networks toward the future 5G green communication networks
Energy efficient hybrid satellite terrestrial 5G networks with software defined features
In order to improve the manageability and adaptability
of future 5G wireless networks, the software orchestration mechanism,
named software defined networking (SDN) with Control
and User plane (C/U-plane) decoupling, has become one of the
most promising key techniques. Based on these features, the hybrid
satellite terrestrial network is expected to support flexible
and customized resource scheduling for both massive machinetype-
communication (MTC) and high-quality multimedia requests
while achieving broader global coverage, larger capacity and lower
power consumption. In this paper, an end-to-end hybrid satellite
terrestrial network is proposed and the performance metrics,
e. g., coverage probability, spectral and energy efficiency (SE and
EE), are analysed in both sparse networks and ultra-dense networks.
The fundamental relationship between SE and EE is investigated,
considering the overhead costs, fronthaul of the gateway
(GW), density of small cells (SCs) and multiple quality-ofservice
(QoS) requirements. Numerical results show that compared
with current LTE networks, the hybrid system with C/U split
can achieve approximately 40% and 80% EE improvement in
sparse and ultra-dense networks respectively, and greatly enhance
the coverage. Various resource management schemes, bandwidth
allocation methods, and on-off approaches are compared, and the
applications of the satellite in future 5G networks with software
defined features are proposed
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