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

A Survey of Air-to-Ground Propagation Channel Modeling for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), particularly for small UAVs, due to their affordable prices, ease of availability, and ease of operability. Existing and future applications of UAVs include remote surveillance and monitoring, relief operations, package delivery, and communication backhaul infrastructure. Additionally, UAVs are envisioned as an important component of 5G wireless technology and beyond. The unique application scenarios for UAVs necessitate accurate air-to-ground (AG) propagation channel models for designing and evaluating UAV communication links for control/non-payload as well as payload data transmissions. These AG propagation models have not been investigated in detail when compared to terrestrial propagation models. In this paper, a comprehensive survey is provided on available AG channel measurement campaigns, large and small scale fading channel models, their limitations, and future research directions for UAV communication scenarios

2009 Index IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters Vol. 8

This index covers all technical items - papers, correspondence, reviews, etc. - that appeared in this periodical during the year, and items from previous years that were commented upon or corrected in this year. Departments and other items may also be covered if they have been judged to have archival value. The Author Index contains the primary entry for each item, listed under the first author\u27s name. The primary entry includes the coauthors\u27 names, the title of the paper or other item, and its location, specified by the publication abbreviation, year, month, and inclusive pagination. The Subject Index contains entries describing the item under all appropriate subject headings, plus the first author\u27s name, the publication abbreviation, month, and year, and inclusive pages. Note that the item title is found only under the primary entry in the Author Index

2008 Index IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology Vol. 16

This index covers all technical items - papers, correspondence, reviews, etc. - that appeared in this periodical during the year, and items from previous years that were commented upon or corrected in this year. Departments and other items may also be covered if they have been judged to have archival value. The Author Index contains the primary entry for each item, listed under the first author\u27s name. The primary entry includes the coauthors\u27 names, the title of the paper or other item, and its location, specified by the publication abbreviation, year, month, and inclusive pagination. The Subject Index contains entries describing the item under all appropriate subject headings, plus the first author\u27s name, the publication abbreviation, month, and year, and inclusive pages. Note that the item title is found only under the primary entry in the Author Index

信頼性の高い大容量公共用移動通信システムを実現するためのソフトウェア無線およびコグニティブ無線に関する研究

Public safety mobile wireless communication systems (PMCSs) are widely used by public safety personnel, such as firefighters and police, as well as local governments. PMCSs are crucial to protect safety and security of communities. Conventional PMCSs effectively cover underpopulated areas as well as urban areas by employing long-zone scheme. Since the PMCSs can cover areas that are not covered by commercial cellule systems, they play the important role as the only communication tool. Moreover, the conventional PMCSs have enhanced robustness and reliability. The conventional PMCSs can keep their services even if backbone lines are cut off. In contrast, short-zone scheme systems cannot offer stable and wide service area without backbone line connection. For example, the Great East Japan Earthquake in Japan, police mobile communication systems had kept their functions while cellular phones became disabled. PMCSs are required to be quite high robustness and reliability in order to save human life. Recently, conventional PMCSs are required to realize further expansion of service areas and high speed transmission although they have stably provided users with wide service areas so far. Nowadays, in order to solve complicated public affair quickly, more stable service areas and broadband communication are required. Compared with conventional PMCSs in urban areas, commercial wireless mobile communication systems (CWMCSs) such as cellular systems supply stable service areas and broadband communication in times of peace. In accordance with development of wireless technology, PMCSs need to keep pace with CWMCSs. However, conventional PMCSs can hardly realize further stable service areas and high speed transmission because of large-zone scheme. In terms of realization of further stable service areas, no-service areas cannot be eliminated easily. This is because no-service areas are mostly attributed to shadowing; in large-zone scheme, a no-service area that must essentially be covered by a certain base station is seldom covered by other neighboring base stations. Although new allocation of base stations is fundamental answer to solve no-service area problem in PMCSs, building new base stations of PMCSs that are not used for a commercial purpose is restricted by national and local budget. Realization of high speed transmission of PMCSs is also difficult because of large-zone scheme. To realize high speed transmission, increase of transmit power or shrinking of service area coverage is required to compensate Signal to Noise Power Ratio (SNR) deterioration caused by expanding bandwidth. Increase of transmission power of mobile station used in large-zone scheme systems is almost impossible because transmission power of mobile station is originally high. Thus, shrinking of service areas is necessary for high speed communication. Currently, to realize high speed transmission, next generation broadband PMCSs (BPMCSs) employing short-or middle-zone scheme are being developed. In the 3GPP, it is considered that the Long Term Evolution (LTE) is used for communication of public safety. In Japan, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) has researched and developed Public Broadband Wireless Communication System (PBWCS), which employs 200MHz as carrier frequency. The PBWCS has already been equipped in national police agency in Japan. However, we consider that the conventional narrowband PMCSs (NPM-CSs) are not replaced with the BPMCSs completely. This is because the BPMCSs cannot cover all the areas that the conventional NPM-CSs have covered. Moreover, there are problems of robustness and reliability when accidents happen. Hence, users of PMCSs will utilize both of NPMCSs and BPMCSs in accordance with the situation. In this case, users equipping several terminals feel inconvenient and also radio resources are not used effectively. The best solution to realize optimal PMCSs is employing heterogeneous cognitive radio (HCR) for PMCSs. By applying the HCR to PMCSs, service areas expansion and high speed transmission in PM-CSs will be realized effectively. We propose an integrated system combining NPMCSs with CWMCSs and BPMCSs to make communication quality of the PMCSs improve. The proposed HCR recognizes communication conditions of several systems and then provides PMCS\u27s users with optimal communication quality. Although software defined radio techniques (SDR) are ideal to operate cognitive radio more flexibly, we deal with HCR mainly to realize combined systems in this thesis. We study advantages, problems, and their solution to realize the HCR for PMCSs. Firstly, we research service area expansion of NPMCSs using HCR. The proposed HCR is utilized for stabilization of NPMCS\u27s service area. If communication quality of a NPMCS deteriorates owing to shadowing, the proposed HCR terminal obtains a part of NPMCS\u27s data called subsidiary information (SI) from CWMCSs or BPMCSs. The proposed HCR terminal can improve PMCS\u27s bit error rate (BER) performance by combining the SI with received signals of the NPMCS and then decoding the combined signals using forward error correction (FEC). Since convolutional codes are often used in FEC of NPMCSs, we consider BER improvement methods of the convolutional code. We derive modified Viterbi algorithm from maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) of the combined signals. Moreover, we introduce the distance spectrum to evaluate characteristics of the convolutional codes. The distance spectrum is used for estimating improvement of BER performances. Next, we consider synchronization methods to realize the proposed HCR. In the HCR, there are two types of synchronization method; one is the self-synchronization method to synchronize each system itself. The other is the co-synchronization method to combine different systems. In this thesis, we consider self-synchronization methods of NPMCSs mainly. This is because the HCR aims to improve communication quality of NPMCSs equipping conventional self-synchronization methods that are not probably available in low SNR environments. In this environment, since NPMCSs can hardly obtain their self-synchronization alone, powerful self-synchronization methods using HCR techniques are required. We propose two synchronization methods that are utilization of global portioning system (GPS) signals and utilization of the SI, respectively. The synchronization methods utilizing GPS signals can acquire timing synchronization. To obtain timing synchronization, the proposed HCR acquires accurate time and own location using the GPS signals. The HCR also gets the location of base stations and the frame timing by making the SI convey their information. Since the HCR can know accurate time and distance between the base station and the HCR, synchronization timing can be calculated. However, in GPS based method, preciseness of timing synchronization may be deteriorated by measurement error of GPS signals, diffraction caused by mountains, and propagation delay caused by reection. For this reason, we consider a mitigation method of the timing error and then evaluate BER performances using computer simulation. Moreover, we propose a SI based synchronization method that can obtain timing synchronization without GPS signals. The proposed method is employed when a NPMCS uses differential coded π/4 shift QPSK as the modulation scheme. The notable feature of the proposed method is to convey the phase rotation of the π/4 shift QPSK as the SI. The HCR can forecast PMCS\u27s envelopes from the obtained SI and then obtain the timing synchronization by correlating the forecasted envelopes with real received envelopes. Since the proposed method can also be used for co-synchronization and BER improvement, CWMCS\u27s resource consumption to convey the SI is suppressed. Finally, we consider HCRs combining several PMCSs. In this thesis, the combination of NPMCSs and the combination of a NPMCS and a BPMCS are researched. In the combination of NPMCSs, we consider that several PMCSs are integrated by SDR. In the combination of a NPMCS and a BPMCS, we propose site diversity based on HCR to improve uplink communication quality of the BPMCS. In this diversity, since uplink interference must be avoided, we employ combination of the adaptive array and HCR techniques. Moreover, we propose information compression methods for narrow band backbone lines so that received data can be conveyed to head office with little BER deterioration. PMCSs will have played an important role to ensure social safety. In the thesis, we consider the one of the next generation PMCSs employing SDR and HCR. Using this research, we can obtain a direction of optimal PMCSs. The next step that we need to perform is to apply our proposed method to actual radio systems. We must continue this research so that high reliable and compact PMCSs can be realized.電気通信大学201

Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communications System (AeroMACS)

To help increase the capacity and efficiency of the nation s airports, a secure wideband wireless communications system is proposed for use on the airport surface. This paper provides an overview of the research and development process for the Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communications System (AeroMACS). AeroMACS is based on a specific commercial profile of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16 standard known as Wireless Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access or WiMAX (WiMax Forum). The paper includes background on the need for global interoperability in air/ground data communications, describes potential AeroMACS applications, addresses allocated frequency spectrum constraints, summarizes the international standardization process, and provides findings and recommendations from the world s first AeroMACS prototype implemented in Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Mathematical methods for the analysis of propagation in multitrajectory in communications move

A study about movable communication using the cellular technology and a mathematical model is presented. The aim of the present paper is to solve the problems of multi-trajectory propagation in the movable communications so that at least a station can have access to a point of the area (Huambo) with a sign, at the level stipulated by the communication companies, depending on the user’s need that allows a quality communication The Mathematics methods used have as objective to facilitate the search and selection of the most appropriate alternative to the case under study, and they help to take into account several aspects involved in the decision making. The objective of the methodology presented is to obtain the parameters of quality of the service needed. The introduction of an empiric model allows reducing the values of those parameters to discover the areas of the city that possess potential covering. Besides the potency prediction (through the proposed model), a study of forecast of the parameters of service quality was accomplished, the values limits of those parameters depended on the service that is being used

Identification of Technologies for Provision of Future Aeronautical Communications

This report describes the process, findings, and recommendations of the second of three phases of the Future Communications Study (FCS) technology investigation conducted by NASA Glenn Research Center and ITT Advanced Engineering & Sciences Division for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The FCS is a collaborative research effort between the FAA and Eurocontrol to address frequency congestion and spectrum depletion for safety critical airground communications. The goal of the technology investigation is to identify technologies that can support the longterm aeronautical mobile communication operating concept. A derived set of evaluation criteria traceable to the operating concept document is presented. An adaptation of the analytical hierarchy process is described and recommended for selecting candidates for detailed evaluation. Evaluations of a subset of technologies brought forward from the prescreening process are provided. Five of those are identified as candidates with the highest potential for continental airspace solutions in L-band (P-34, W-CDMA, LDL, B-VHF, and E-TDMA). Additional technologies are identified as best performers in the unique environments of remote/oceanic airspace in the satellite bands (Inmarsat SBB and a custom satellite solution) and the airport flight domain in C-band (802.16e). Details of the evaluation criteria, channel models, and the technology evaluations are provided in appendixes