A review on non-terrestrial wireless technologies for Smart City Internet of Things

Aihua Wang,Xiaqing Miao,Xiangming Li,Peisen Wang,Yun Liu,Neng Ye

doi:10.1177/1550147720936824

Abstract

Smart City Internet of Things will become a fundamental infrastructure to support massive machine-type communications between the widely deployed sensors serving big cities. Since there exists many location constraints for the existing terrestrial Internet of Things, the non-terrestrial Internet of Things sheds light on breaking these limits. Therefore, this article conducts a comprehensive survey on non-terrestrial Internet of Things technologies for Smart City, which is an important complement to terrestrial Internet of Things. We first present the application scenarios of Internet of Things and point out where the existing terrestrial Internet of Things cannot work perfectly. Two non-terrestrial Internet of Things technical proposals are then introduced, namely satellite Internet of Things and unmanned aerial vehicle Internet of Things. However, the focuses of these non-terrestrial Internet of Things are distinct, that is, the major problems of satellite and unmanned aerial vehicle Internet of Things are the high dynamic nature of channel and high maneuverability of unmanned aerial vehicles, respectively. The key technologies for satellite and unmanned aerial vehicle Internet of Things are then reviewed separately. Both physical and non-physical layer technologies are surveyed for satellite Internet of Things, and the route planning is mainly investigated for the unmanned aerial vehicle Internet of Things. Finally, we draw a conclusion and give some potential research directions of non-terrestrial Internet of Things.

Highlights

With the digital transformation of traditional economy, Internet of Things (IoT), as a new generation of communication infrastructure, is the key enabling factor of ubiquitous connectivity
Deal with the scarcity of spectrum; Design the antenna required by satellite IoT; Satellite IoT protocols, standards, and so on
In the section ‘‘Communication technologies of UAV IoT,’’ we focus on the flexible deployment of UAVs and summarize the technical status quo of UAV IoT oriented by requirements

Summary

Introduction

With the digital transformation of traditional economy, Internet of Things (IoT), as a new generation of communication infrastructure, is the key enabling factor of ubiquitous connectivity. It realizes ubiquitous social services, builds a beautiful vision of a Smart City, and creates a brand new network environment for human development and civilization evolution through ubiquitous access and information sharing. By 2025, IoT applications are projected to grow dramatically, reaching 27 billion connections worldwide. As an IoT application scenario, Smart City is bound to become the direction of future urban development. The deployment of Smart City in large cities will eliminate the information islands and information chimneys.

Methods

Findings

Conclusion