Packet Scheduling for Internet of Remote Things (IoRT) Devices in Next Generation Satellite Networks

Background: The massive amount of deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) devices via wireless communications has presented a new paradigm in next-generation mobile networks. The rapid growth in the deployment of IoT devices can be linked to the diverse use of several IoT applications for home automation, smart systems, and other forms of innovations in businesses and industry 4.0. Methods: There is a need for a robust network infrastructure to actualize the huge traffic demand of IoT communications in this new paradigm across the globe, including rural and remote areas. However, due to technical and economic constraints, the terrestrial network infrastructure is not able to fulfill this requirement. Hence, the need for satellite network infrastructure. This solution will be of immense benefit to the provision of remote health care, disaster management, remote sensing, and asset tracking, and environmental monitoring, to name a few. While this remains an interesting solution, packet scheduling, which is one of the key radio resource management functions, is still a challenging issue that remains undefined, especially in a satellite network scenario that has its peculiarities and challenges. Results: Hence, the goal of this research work is to design a new packet scheduling scheme suitable for machine-type communications and also mixed-use case scenarios in satellite network scenarios. The performance evaluation of the proposed packet scheduler is conducted through simulations. Conclusion: The newly proposed packet scheduling scheme provides an improvement of approximately 7 Mbps and 0.5 bps/Hz in terms of throughput and spectral efficiency performances, respectively, in mixed-use case scenarios, when compared to known throughput optimal packet schedulers, without serious compromise to other performance metrics.