Advanced Satellite-Terrestrial Networks

Dear Colleagues,

The recent development of Release 16 of 3GPP 5G NR includes satellite components as an essential part of the nonterrestrial network (NTN). Satellite systems can provide effective solutions for enhanced machine-type communications (eMTC) and narrow-band Internet of Thing (NB-IoT) services to many areas where a terrestrial service cannot be provided. When satellite systems provide 5G or beyond 5G-like services in cooperation with the existing terrestrial services, some of the technical specifications should be modified to reflect satellite specific characteristics, such as a long round trip delay. 

New challenges have to be faced toward the realization of future NTN, where we can consider high-throughput GEO satellite, mega LEO constellations, high-altitude platforms (HAPs), as well as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to be part of a multilayer architecture.

Further standardization work is continuing with 3GPP Release 17 to envisage 5G NR enhancements to allow NTN to support both NB-IoT and eMTC.

In such a scenario, many different types of applications will be supported by NTN, and novel techniques will be needed to optimize the system in terms of radio resource management, crosslayer air interface design, and new networking approaches, including internet-centric networking. This perspective will be revolutionized by the adoption of software-defined networks and network virtualization function paradigms that will accelerate the process of service creation also in the satellite scenario. Artificial intelligence and machine learning also promise to allow optimizations of the satellite component in different ways, thus enhancing its efficiency and performance.

This Special Issue aims at collecting new developments and methodologies, best practices, and applications of satellite-terrestrial networks for 5G and beyond. We welcome submissions which provide the community with the most recent advancements on all aspects of satellite-terrestrial networks, as detailed in the list of keywords below.

Prof. Dr. Sooyoung Kim
Prof. Dr. Giovanni Giambene
Guest Editors

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