Heterogeneous traffic; Intersatellite links; Link budgets; Non-geostationary orbit satellites; Radio resources; Satellite industry; Satellite services; Small-satellite; Terrestrial networks; Traffic demands; Computer Science Applications; Computer Networks and Communications; Electrical and Electronic Engineering; Satellites; Satellite broadcasting; Space vehicles; Orbits; Satellite constellations; Radio frequency; Ka-band; Millimeter wave communication; Market research; CubeSat
Abstract :
[en] The continuous growth of the satellite industry has started an avalanche of satellite services with the accelerated deployment of thousands of non-geostationary orbit satellites. Various constellations and even swarms of small satellites have been proposed to cope with typical challenges of non-terrestrial networks (NTNs), such as heterogeneous traffic demand, scarce radio resources, challenging link budgets, and high implementation complexity. In this context, inter-satellite links (ISLs) represent a promising solution to enhance the cooperation among satellites in terms of the exchange of control information, load balancing, and so on. This article focuses on RF technology for ISL implementation. While this technology is already rather mature, the increasing number of satellites requires many such links to be deployed per satellite, giving rise to a novel paradigm of massive ISLs. This massive connectivity in space poses challenges, which will likely play a major role in future NTN system designs. In this article, we would like to open a discussion on the future of massive ISLs, the likely technology to be used for their implementation, and the potential opportunities for the research community and industrial stakeholders.
Disciplines :
Electrical & electronics engineering
Author, co-author :
Kisseleff, Steven; Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, Germany
Baeza, Victor Monzon; Sateliot, Spain
Al-Hraishawi, Hayder; University of South Florida, United States
NTONTIN, Konstantinos ; University of Luxembourg > Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SNT) > SigCom
Martins, Wallace A.; Université de Toulouse, France
CHATZINOTAS, Symeon ; University of Luxembourg > Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SNT) > SigCom
External co-authors :
yes
Language :
English
Title :
Massive RF Inter-Satellite Links for Massive Non-Terrestrial Networks
Publication date :
12 March 2025
Journal title :
IEEE Communications Magazine
ISSN :
0163-6804
eISSN :
1558-1896
Publisher :
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
This research was funded in part by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR), grant reference DEFENCE22/IS/17812162, and the European Union s HORIZON.1.2 MSCA programme under grant agreement ID 101131481. For the purpose of open access and in fulfillment of the obligations arising from the grant agreement, the author has applied a CC BY 4.0 license to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
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