Satellite communications (SatComs) have recently entered a period of renewed interest motivated by technological advances and nurtured through private investment and ventures. The present survey aims at capturing the state of the art in SatComs, while highlighting the most promising open research topics. Firstly, the main innovation drivers are motivated, such as new constellation types, on-board processing capabilities, nonterrestrial networks and space-based data collection/processing. Secondly, the most promising applications are described i.e. 5G integration, space communications, Earth observation, aeronautical and maritime tracking and communication. Subsequently, an in-depth literature review is provided across five axes: i) system aspects, ii) air interface, iii) medium access, iv) networking, v) testbeds & prototyping. Finally, a number of future challenges and the respective open research topics are described.

The upcoming fifth generation (5G) of wireless networks is expected to lay a foundation of intelligent networks with the provision of some isolated artificial intelligence (AI) operations. However, fully intelligent network orchestration and management for providing innovative services will only be realized in Beyond 5G (B5G) networks. To this end, we envisage that the sixth generation (6G) of wireless networks will be driven by on-demand self-reconfiguration to ensure a many-fold increase in the network performance and service types. The increasingly stringent performance requirements of emerging networks may finally trigger the deployment of some interesting new technologies, such as large intelligent surfaces, electromagnetic-orbital angular momentum, visible light communications, and cell-free communications, to name a few. Our vision for 6G is a massively connected complex network capable of rapidly responding to the users' service calls through real-time learning of the network state as described by the network edge (e.g., base-station locations and cache contents), air interface (e.g., radio spectrum and propagation channel), and the user-side (e.g., battery-life and locations). The multi-state, multi-dimensional nature of the network state, requiring the real-time knowledge, can be viewed as a quantum uncertainty problem. In this regard, the emerging paradigms of machine learning (ML), quantum computing (QC), and quantum ML (QML) and their synergies with communication networks can be considered as core 6G enablers. Considering these potentials, starting with the 5G target services and enabling technologies, we provide a comprehensive review of the related state of the art in the domains of ML (including deep learning), QC, and QML and identify their potential benefits, issues, and use cases for their applications in the B5G networks. Subsequently, we propose a novel QC-assisted and QML-based framework for 6G communication networks while articulating its challenges and potential enabling technologies at the network infrastructure, network edge, air interface, and user end. Finally, some promising future research directions for the quantum-and QML-assisted B5G networks are identified and discussed.

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Abstract-The lack of available unlicensed spectrum together with the increasing spectrum demand by multimedia applications has resulted in a spectrum scarcity problem, which affects Satellite Communications (SatCom) as well as terrestrial systems. The goal of this paper is to propose Resource Allocation (RA) techniques, i.e. carrier, power and bandwidth allocation, for a cognitive spectrum utilization scenario where the satellite system aims at exploiting the spectrum allocated to terrestrial networks as the incumbent users without imposing harmful interference to them. In particular, we focus on the microwave frequency bands 17.7 − 19.7 GHz for the cognitive satellite downlink and 27.5 − 29.5 GHz for the cognitive satellite uplink, although the proposed techniques can be easily extended to other bands. In the first case, assuming that the satellite terminals are equipped with multiple Low Block Noise Converters (LNB), we propose a joint beamforming and carrier allocation scheme to enable cognitive Space-to-Earth communications in the shared spectrum where Fixed Service (FS) microwave links have priority of operation. In the second case, however, the cognitive satellite uplink should not cause harmful interference to the incumbent FS system. For the latter, we propose a Joint Power and Carrier Allocation (JPCA) strategy followed by a bandwidth allocation scheme which guarantees protection of the terrestrial FS system while maximizing the satellite total throughput. The proposed cognitive satellite exploitation techniques are validated with numerical simulations considering realistic system parameters. It is shown that the proposed cognitive exploitation framework represents a promising approach for enhancing the throughput of conventional satellite systems.

Due to increasing demand of high speed data rate for satellite multimedia and broadcasting services and spectrum scarcity problem in satellite bands, exploring new techniques for enhancing spectral efficiency in satellite communication has become an important research challenge. In this aspect, satellite cognitive communication can be considered as a promising solution to solve spectrum scarcity problem. In this paper, different cognitive techniques such as underlay, overlay, interweave and database related techniques are discussed by reviewing the current state of art. Exact beam patterns of a multi-beam satellite are plotted over the Europe map and interference modeling between terrestrial Base Station (BS) and satellite terminal is carried out on the basis of interference power level. Furthermore, suitable cognitive techniques are proposed in high and low interference regions in the context of satellite cognitive communication.

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Abstract-Cognitive Radio (CR) has been considered as a potential candidate for addressing the spectrum scarcity problem of future wireless networks. Since its conception, several researchers, academic institutions, industries, regulatory and standardization bodies have put their significant efforts towards the realization of CR technology. However, as this technology adapts its transmission based on the surrounding radio environment, several practical issues may need to be considered. In practice, several imperfections such as noise uncertainty, channel/interference uncertainty, transceiver hardware imperfections, signal uncertainty, synchronization issues, etc. may severely deteriorate the performance of a CR system. To this end, the investigation of realistic solutions towards combating various practical imperfections is very important for successful implementation of the cognitive technology. In this direction, first, this survey paper provides an overview of the enabling techniques for CR communications. Subsequently, it discusses the main imperfections that may occur in the most widely used CR paradigms and then reviews the existing approaches towards addressing these imperfections. Finally, it provides some interesting open research issues.

Abstract-Compressive Sensing (CS) has received much attention in several fields such as digital image processing, wireless channel estimation, radar imaging, and Cognitive Radio (CR) communications. Out of these areas, this survey paper focuses on the application of CS in CR communications. Due to the underutilization of the allocated radio spectrum, spectrum occupancy is usually sparse in different domains such as time, frequency and space. Such a sparse nature of the spectrum occupancy has inspired the application of CS in CR communications. In this regard, several researchers have already applied the CS theory in various settings considering the sparsity in different domains. In this direction, this survey paper provides a detailed review of the state of the art related to the application of CS in CR communications. Starting with the basic principles and the main features of CS, it provides a classification of the main usage areas based on the radio parameter to be acquired by a wideband CR. Subsequently, we review the existing CSrelated works applied to different categories such as wideband sensing, signal parameter estimation and Radio Environment Map (REM) construction, highlighting the main benefits and the related issues. Furthermore, we present a generalized framework for constructing the REM in compressive settings. Finally, we conclude this survey paper with some suggested open research challenges and future directions.