Architectures and Key Technical Challenges for 5G Systems Incorporating Satellites

By A. Guidotti, A. Vanelli‐Coralli, M. Conti, S. Andrenacci, Symeon Chatzinotas, N. Maturo, B. Evans, A. Awoseyila, A. Ugolini, T. Foggi and 3 more. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 2018

317 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Satellite communication systems are a promising solution to extend and complement terrestrial networks in unserved or under-served areas, as reflected by recent commercial and standardization endeavors. In particular, 3GPP recently initiated a study item for new radio, i.e., 5G, non-terrestrial networks aimed at deploying satellite systems either as a stand-alone solution or as an integration to terrestrial networks in mobile broadband and machine-type communication scenarios. However, typical satellite channel impairments, as large path losses, delays, and Doppler shifts, pose severe challenges to the realization of a satellite-based NR network. In this paper, based on the architecture options currently being discussed in the standardization fora, we discuss and assess the impact of the satellite channel characteristics on the physical and medium access control layers, both in terms of transmitted waveforms and procedures for enhanced mobile broadband and narrowband-Internet of Things applications. The proposed analysis shows that the main technical challenges are related to the PHY/MAC procedures, in particular random access, timing advance, and hybrid automatic repeat request and depending on the considered service and architecture, different solutions are proposed.

Subfields: Aerospace Engineering, Computer Networks and Communications, Electrical and Electronic Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b499ee44e1b55ea278d71bb554e8c696e6bd6b3d

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Citations in the corpus

What Will the Future of UAV Cellular Communications Be? A Flight From 5G to 6G (2021, background): “Unlike a hybrid terrestrial-NTN architecture, an integrated one avails of a common network management architecture [217].”
A Survey on Nongeostationary Satellite Systems: The Communication Perspective (2021, background): “The impact of the satellite channel characteristics on the physical and medium access control layers in terms of transmitted waveforms is assessed in [134], partic-”
Massive MIMO Transmission for LEO Satellite Communications (2020, background): “Satellite communication systems can provide seamless wireless coverage so as to complement and extend terrestrial communication networks and, as in recent standardization endeavors [2], are expected to be incorporated in future wireless networks, in particular 5G and beyond networks.”
Non-Terrestrial Networks in 5G & Beyond: A Survey (2020, methodology): “2 In [62], architectural and technical issues have been discussed for 5G systems including the NTN, whereas in [63] the effect of NTN integration into the mobile systems has been assessed through an experimental comparison in terms of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).”
Integrated Satellite-Terrestrial Networks Toward 6G: Architectures, Applications, and Challenges (2022, background): “In current communication systems, satellite networks, and terrestrial networks are developed and operated separately [15].”
Satellite Communications in the New Space Era: A Survey and Future Challenges (2020, background): “For interested readers, [47] provides a more detailed explanation of each component in these architecture options, whereas the challenges of a 5G satelliteterrestrial network integration and possible solutions can be found in [48], [49].”