Hybrid Satellite-Terrestrial Relay Network: Proposed Model and Application of Power Splitting Multiple Access

Abstract

The development of hybrid satellite-terrestrial relay networks (HSTRNs) is one of the driving forces for revolutionizing satellite communications in the modern era. Although there are many unique features of conventional satellite networks, their evolution pace is much slower than the terrestrial wireless networks. As a result, it is becoming more important to use HSTRNs for the seamless integration of terrestrial cellular and satellite communications. With this intent, this paper provides a comprehensive performance evaluation of HSTRNs employing non-orthogonal multiple access technique. The terrestrial relay is considered to be wireless-powered and harvests energy from the radio signal of the satellite. For the sake of comparison, both amplify-and-forward (AF) and decode-and-forward (DF) relaying protocols are considered. Subsequently, the closed-form expressions of outage probabilities and ergodic capacities are derived for each relaying protocol. Extensive simulations are performed to verify the accuracy of the obtained closed-form expressions. The results provided in this work characterize the outage and capacity performance of such a HSTRN.

Hybrid Satellite–Terrestrial Networks toward 6G: Key Technologies and Open Issues

“…An in-depth performance evaluation of a power-splitting NOMA-based multi-antenna HSTN with energy harvesting relays was provided and the closed-form expressions of outage probabilities and ergodic capacities for both AF and DF relaying protocols were derived to perform a comprehensive analysis in [ 72 ]. Considering the Rice and Nakagami-m fading distributions for the satellite and terrestrial channels, respectively, the authors of [ 73 ] evaluated the ergodic channel capacity of a DF-based single-frequency HSTN when the satellite–destination link is not available due to heavy fading.…”

Advanced Physical-Layer Technologies for Beyond 5G Wireless Communication Networks

“…Moreover, more users are simultaneously served using NOMA, and different performance types or services are observed among these users [ 14 ]. In the third paper, titled Hybrid Satellite-Terrestrial Relay Network: Proposed Model and Application of Power Splitting Multiple Access [ 15 ], the authors considered the requirements of both performance and energy efficiency (EE) for the future satellite communications, and provided an indepth performance evaluation of NOMA-enabled HSTRNs with a wireless-powered (i.e., energy harvesting) terrestrial relay. The proposed analytical expressions and derived results provided design insights for the implementations of HSTRNs in the 5G/6G era.…”

Performance of Hybrid Satellite-UAV NOMA Systems

“…Additionally, SatCom can provide a wide range of flexible applications in the field of navigation, TV and Radio broadcasting services, Weather prediction and climate monitoring, Internet access, and satellite telephony [1]. On the other hand, SatCom networks face several challenges including operation cost [2], propagation delay [3], and signal degradation due to rain and atmospheric disturbances. Additionally, antenna-pointing errors angle caused by satellite perturbation or by the other side's mobility may lead to communication outage [4].…”

“…Furthermore, the line-of-sight (LOS) link may be blocked by heavy shadowing or obstacles that retard communication between the satellite and terrestrial users [5]. To combat such issues, hybrid satellite-terrestrial networks (HSTNs) based on relaying have been proposed in many literature [2], [5]- [7] to increase efficiency, and enhance the performance of the user whose direct link is unavailable or deteriorated. Satellites can be stationed in a variety of orbits including Low Earth orbit (LEO), medium Earth orbit (MEO), highly elliptical orbit (HEO), and geosynchronous orbit (GEO) [8].…”

“…In [24], the NOMAbased integrated satellite-terrestrial relay networks (ISTNs) with multiple terrestrial relays was proposed, where a satellite communicates with two terrestrial users with the help of a selected relay out of multiple terrestrial relays under imperfect SIC. The performance of energy-harvesting terrestrial relaybased HSTNs network is investigated, where both amplifyand-forward (AF) [25] and decode-and-forward (DF) relay is powered from the satellite signals under NOMA transmission [2]. In [26], the authors investigated the outage probability of HSTN NOMA-based system, at which one user receives its signal directly from the satellite, while the other user relies on a multiple antenna DF relay.…”