Realizable Space-Air-Ground Integrated Networks for IoT

With the development of science and technology and the continuous expansion of human production and activity space, a variety of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and services will cover mountains, deserts, oceans, deep earth, sky, space and other wider areas. It is also difficult to cover geographical areas such as extremely remote areas, oceans, deep earth, sky and even deep space by relying only on ground-based networks. Therefore, 5G ground-based network technology is difficult to meet the ubiquitous communication needs of the greatly expanded network space. In addition, the demand for multi-dimensional comprehensive information resources for future information services is gradually increasing. The efficient operation of services in disaster prevention and reduction, aviation, aviation and navigation, education and medical care, environmental monitoring, traffic management and other fields all depend on the comprehensive application of multi-dimensional information in space, sky and earth. In this context, the construction of space-air-ground integrated network (SAGIN), deep integration of space-based network, space-based network and ground-based network, giving full play to the functions of different network dimensions, can break the barriers of data sharing among independent network systems, achieve wide coverage and network interconnection.

SAGIN is a heterogeneous multidimensional network. The integration of various networks leads to extremely complex network structure and diverse network resources. However, the dynamic characteristics of SAGIN are different, resulting in more complex mobile characteristics of the whole network than that of ground-based networks. It is quite a challenge to develop a holistic realizable solution for the SAGIN with heterogeneity, self-organization, and time-variability characteristics. The goal of the Topical Collection is to raise the research attention promote the principle of the design of SAGIN for IoT. This Topical Collection solicits the following topics, but not limited to:

• System architecture and protocol design of realizable SAGIN for IoT

• Reliable, low-latency communication networks of realizable SAGIN for IoT

• Planning and management of sensors for realizable SAGIN

• Data analytics of realizable SAGIN for IoT

• Structural optimization and control of realizable SAGIN for IoT

• Cyber security and privacy in realizable SAGIN for IoT

• Cloud/edge computing and task/data/computation offloading for realizable SAGIN

• Distributed learning and edge intelligence SAGIN architectures for IoT

• Experiences from IoT testbeds and field-trials for realizable SAGIN

Keywords: Space-air-ground integrated network; Internet of Things; Communication networks; Sensors planning; Structural optimization; System architecture; Cyber security; Protocol design; Cloud/edge computing; Data analytics.