Call for Papers

Submit a Paper

6G is intended to meet new needs in terms of capacity, latency, enormous connections, etc. We anticipate Internet of Things (IoT) applications in a variety of disciplines, including smart city, smart factory, environmental monitoring, etc., because of the hyper-connectivity between humans and things. However, difficulties, like heterogeneity, application needs, limited resources, and connection, necessitate more complex hardware and software advancements to allow these IoT applications. Among all of them, the optimal connectivity of these IoT devices is one of the critical aspects.  While considering their use in applications such forest or climate monitoring, requires their deployment in far of places and requires the deployment of a complete communication infrastructure to support the connectivity of these IoT devices. The integration of satellite-based network in traditional terrestrial networks could be considered as a possible and effective alternative to provide improved and low-cost connectivity for IoT devices. In Release 17, the third-generation partnership project (3GPP) proposed the standardization of non-terrestrial networks (NTN) to allow 5G-based terrestrial networks to support NTN. According to Release 17, the NTN will consist of a constellation of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites, with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and high-altitude platforms (HAPs) regarded as a specific use case of NTN networks. In order to enable these IoT devices to directly communicate with NTN, future IoT systems feature a larger number of devices and multi-access environments where different types of wireless spectrum, including Sub6 GHz, Millimetre-wave, and Terahertz, should be efficiently utilized. Typically, these IoT devices would be requiring more resources to establish a fruitful link with NTN, which also increases the challenges in keeping a net zero carbon emission rate. To deal with the restricted storage and computing capabilities of IoT devices, an efficient IoT architecture should be devised. Intelligent reflecting surfaces, holographic multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO), and other technologies must be modified to suit the constraints faced by these resource-constrained IoT devices. Furthermore, the network environment and system need change across time and space, necessitating intelligent techniques. Therefore, this Special Issue (SI) aims at addressing the technical challenges for enabling IoT devices to directly communicate with NTN to improve their connectivity without relying on additional infrastructure cost. This proposed Special Issue seeks original paper submissions from expert researchers working broadly in the fields of IoT, satellite communications, wireless communications, networking, sensing, localization, computing, signal processing, and machine learning, leading towards advanced 6G enabled NTN-assisted IoT technologies. This SI will provide a common platform to academic researchers and industry practitioners for sharing cutting-edge contributions and recent findings to emerging “Technical Advancements in Non-Terrestrial Network-Assisted Internet-of-Things”. Motivated by current trends in the field of future 6G enabled NTN-assisted IoT technologies, we seek to assemble cross-cutting and high-quality original research papers in the following areas, but not limited to:

• Artificial intelligence for NTN-assisted IoT networks.
• Beamforming techniques for energy efficient NTN-assisted IoT networks.
• Multiple access schemes, e.g., RSMA and NOMA for NTN-assisted IoT applications.
• Backscatter communications for NTN-assisted IoT systems.
• Energy harvesting, wireless information, and power transfer for NTN-assisted IoT.
• Intelligent reflecting surface design for NTN-assisted IoT systems.
• MIMO/massive MIMO upgrades for NTN-assisted IoT systems.
• Holographic MIMO for IoT systems to support NTN.
• PHY algorithms and protocol designs for NTN connectivity.
• Optimization-oriented designs for NTN connectivity.
• Satellite communications and networking, e.g., LEOs, ground-to-space, and space-to-ground links.
• Green and autonomous UAVs assisted wireless.
• Security, privacy, and interference exploitation challenges in NTN based IoT systems.

Submission Guidelines

Prospective authors should submit their manuscripts following the IEEE IoT Magazine guidelines. Authors should submit a manuscript through Manuscript Central.

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 30 September 2023 (Extended Deadline)
Publication Date: First Quarter 2024

Guest Editors

Muhammad Ali Jamshed (Lead Guest Editor)
University of Glasgow, UK

Aryan Kaushik (Corresponding GE)
University of Sussex, UK

Ana Garcia Armada
University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain

Marco Di Renzo
Paris-Saclay University, France

Doowhan Lee
NTT Corporation, Japan

Rajitha Senanayake
University of Melbourne, Australia

Octavia A. Dobre
Memorial University, Canada