Challenges and Opportunities in Integrated Space-Terrestrial Internet of Things

Large geographical regions and communities remain uncovered by terrestrial network connections. To enable access equality, near-Earth orbit satellites will play a defining role in providing Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity on a world-wide scale in a flexible and cost-effective manner. This paper presents the opportunities arising from global IoT solutions based on space assets, as well as the key research challenges to be addressed. In particular, we discuss existing space and terrestrial IoT technologies and protocols, and the requirements that they need to meet to successfully materialize satellite IoT services. We also propose a novel network architecture to be used by NB-IoT and LoRaWAN technologies for implementing future space-terrestrial integrated IoT networks.