3,492 research outputs found
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
Will 5G See its Blind Side? Evolving 5G for Universal Internet Access
Internet has shown itself to be a catalyst for economic growth and social
equity but its potency is thwarted by the fact that the Internet is off limits
for the vast majority of human beings. Mobile phones---the fastest growing
technology in the world that now reaches around 80\% of humanity---can enable
universal Internet access if it can resolve coverage problems that have
historically plagued previous cellular architectures (2G, 3G, and 4G). These
conventional architectures have not been able to sustain universal service
provisioning since these architectures depend on having enough users per cell
for their economic viability and thus are not well suited to rural areas (which
are by definition sparsely populated). The new generation of mobile cellular
technology (5G), currently in a formative phase and expected to be finalized
around 2020, is aimed at orders of magnitude performance enhancement. 5G offers
a clean slate to network designers and can be molded into an architecture also
amenable to universal Internet provisioning. Keeping in mind the great social
benefits of democratizing Internet and connectivity, we believe that the time
is ripe for emphasizing universal Internet provisioning as an important goal on
the 5G research agenda. In this paper, we investigate the opportunities and
challenges in utilizing 5G for global access to the Internet for all (GAIA). We
have also identified the major technical issues involved in a 5G-based GAIA
solution and have set up a future research agenda by defining open research
problems
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