Non-Terrestrial Networks in the 6G Era: Challenges and Opportunities

By Marco Giordani, Michele Zorzi. IEEE Network, 2019

601 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Many organizations recognize non-terrestrial networks (NTNs) as a key component to provide cost-effective and high-capacity connectivity in future 6th generation (6G) wireless networks. Despite this premise, there are still many questions to be answered for proper network design, including those associated to latency and coverage constraints. In this article, after reviewing research activities on NTNs, we present the characteristics and enabling technologies of NTNs in the 6G landscape and shed light on the challenges in the field that are still open for future research. As a case study, we evaluate the performance of an NTN scenario in which aerial/space vehicles use millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies to provide access connectivity to on-the-ground mobile terminals as a function of different networking configurations.

Subfields: Aerospace Engineering, Computer Networks and Communications

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c1633396fd365c41c1c052da7fc00b31f43a23fd

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Aerospace Engineering

In Computer Networks and Communications

Citations in the corpus

Integrated Sensing and Communications: Toward Dual-Functional Wireless Networks for 6G and Beyond (2021, background): “, low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite networks [223], [224], Terahertz (THz) communications and sensing [225], [226], digital twins [227], [228], orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) modulation [229]–[231], and more.”
What Will the Future of UAV Cellular Communications Be? A Flight From 5G to 6G (2021, background): “Among other virtues, satellites are well positioned to reach where cables cannot, they can blanket vast areas with a LoS coverage umbrella, and their links are resilient to natural disasters on Earth [107], [108].”
Survey on 6G Frontiers: Trends, Applications, Requirements, Technologies and Future Research (2021, background): “NTNs are capable of providing coverage, trunking, backhauling and supporting high speed mobility in unserved or underserved areas through the integration of UAVs, satellites (in particular Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO)), tethered balloons, and High Altitude Platform (HAP) stations [12], [278], [281].”
Evolution of Non-Terrestrial Networks From 5G to 6G: A Survey (2021, background): “lations [21], cooperative load balancing [251], [378] and cooperative routing [379].”
A Tutorial on Fluid Antenna System for 6G Networks: Encompassing Communication Theory, Optimization Methods and Hardware Designs (2024, background): “…such as the integration of AI or machine learning (ML) [17], next-generation multiple access (NGMA) [18], [19], non-terrestrial networks (NTN) [20], reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) [21], [22], [23], Terahertz (THz) communications [24], [25] and extremely large-scale (XL)…”
A Survey on Nongeostationary Satellite Systems: The Communication Perspective (2021, background): “Beyond this, NGSO systems are envisaged to be an efficient solution for future non-terrestrial networks (NTN) to meet the demanding sixth-generation (6G) system requirements in terms of both large throughput and global connectivity [5].”