Abstract
The widespread deployment of Internet-capable devices, also known as the Internet of Things (IoT), reaches even the most remote areas of the planet, including the Arctic. However, and despite the vast scientific and economic interest in this area, communication infrastructures are scarce. Nowadays, existing options rely on solutions such as Iridium, which can be limited and too costly. This paper proposes and evaluates an alternative to existing solutions, using small satellites deployed as a freely-drifting swarm. By combining these simpler and more affordable satellites with standard protocols, we show how IoT can be supported in the Arctic. Networking protocols and link characteristics are emulated for 3 different satellite orbits and 4 ground nodes. The impact of different protocols and communication conditions is assessed over a period of 49 days and a cross-layer routing approach proposed. The obtained results reveal that a communication overhead bellow 27 % can be achieved and that the implemented satellite-aware route selection allows reducing the end-to-end time of a request up to 93 min on average. This confirms that freely-drifting small-satellite swarms may enable the Internet of Things even in the most remote areas.
Highlights
Activity in the Arctic region is increasing [1], [2] and several bodies such as the European Union (EU), NASA and the Arctic Council expect this to continue [3]
This has changed with projects such as the Norwegian Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) initiative, the Canadian Telesat, proposed mega constellations from SpaceX (StarLink) and OneWeb, aiming at providing worldwide broad-band coverage, including in the Arctic
In this paper, the concept of the Internet of Arctic Things was introduced, demonstrating how a freely drifting swarm of small satellites can be used for supporting communications in the Arctic
Summary
Activity in the Arctic region is increasing [1], [2] and several bodies such as the European Union (EU), NASA and the Arctic Council expect this to continue [3]. Small satellite constellations are currently under development, they require more costly equipment and mostly aim at covering densely populated regions of the Earth (e.g. Sky and Space Global [9]). The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) [14], due to its suitability for IoT constrained nodes, has been combined with the Bundle Protocol (BP) [15] in order to support intermittent connectivity This heterogeneity demands a convergence layer for enabling seamless interoperability between distinct communication technologies. The Internet of Arctic Things (IoAT) is presented, introducing the envisaged architecture, explaining the inner-workings of a freely-drifting swarm and detailing the proposed network solution.
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