This page lists the scientific publications related to the 6G-NTN project:

NEW

Vision on Non-Terrestrial Networks in 6G system (or IMT-2030)

Use Cases, Requirements, and Possible Standardisation approach: A Perspective from the 6G-NTN Project

Thales Alenia Space France, Ericsson Sweden and Ericsson France, Qualcomm France, SES Techcom, Thales – SIX, Telit Cinterion, GreenerWave, Martel Innovate, Digital for Planet, CTTC, German Aerospace Center – DLR, Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna

In this white paper, the 6G-NTN consortium partners provide a consolidated view on NTN in 6G.

The paper includes an identification of the targeted market segments, connectivity scenarios, general design principles for NTN in 6G followed by a proposed standardization approach.

Dowanload

Open Datasets for AI-Enabled Radio Resource Control in Non-Terrestrial Networks

Husnain Shahid, Miguel Angel Vazquez, Laurent Reynaud, Fanny Parzysz, Musbah Shaat – “Symposium on Non-terrestrial Communications in Future Networks” at IEEE Future Network World Forum 2023​ – November 13, 2023 – Baltimore, USA

By effectively implementing the strategies for resource allocation, the capabilities, and reliability of nonterrestrial networks (NTN) can be enhanced. This leads to enhance spectrum utilization performance while minimizing the unmet system capacity, meeting quality of service (QoS) requirements and overall system optimization. In turn, a wide range of applications and services in various domains can be supported.

However, allocating resources in a multi-constellation system with heterogeneous satellite links and highly dynamic user traffic demand pose challenges in ensuring sufficient and fair resource distribution. To mitigate these complexities and minimize the overhead, there is a growing shift towards utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) for its ability to handle such problems effectively.

This calls for the development of an intelligent decision-making controller using AI to efficiently manage resources in this complex environment. In this context, real-world open datasets play a pivotal role in the development of AI models addressing radio control optimization problems. As a matter of fact, acquiring suitable datasets can be arduous. Therefore, this paper identifies pertinent real-world open datasets representing realistic traffic pattern, network performances and demand for fixed and dynamic user terminals, enabling a variety of uses cases. The aim of gathering and publishing the information of these datasets are to inspire and assist the research community in crafting the advance resource management solutions. In a nutshell, this paper establishes a solid foundation of commercially accessible data, with the potential to set benchmarks and accelerate the resolution of resource allocation optimization challenges.

Dowanload

O-RAN based Non-Terrestrial Networks: Trends and Challenges

Riccardo Campana, Carla Amatetti, and Alessandro Vanelli-Coralli – EuCNC & 6G Summit 2023 – June 6, 2023 – Gothenburg, Sweden

While 5G networks are already being deployed for commercial applications, Academia and industry are focusing their effort on the development and standardization of the next generations of mobile networks, i.e., 5G-Advance and 6G.

Beyond 5G networks will revolutionize communications systems providing seamless connectivity, both in time and in space, to a unique ecosystem consisting of the convergence of the digital, physical, and human domains. In this scenario, Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) will play a crucial role by providing ubiquitous, secure, and resilient infrastructure fully integrated into the overall system. The NTN nodes will be organized into a Multi- Layer Multi-dimensional (ML-MD) architecture. This ML-MD network will rely on the interoperability of very different network elements, enabled by the disaggregation and virtualization of network components, their interconnection by open standard interfaces and orchestrated by data-driven network Artificial Intelligence. This paradigm, which has been standardized by the O-RAN Alliance, is now being implemented in Terrestrial Networks (TNs) but has not been fully addressed in NTN, yet. Therefore, this paper aims at exploring the possible implementation of an NTN infrastructure based on the O-RAN approach. By starting with the review of the State of the Art of O-RAN in TNs and flying platforms, we identify a possible architecture solution for an O-RAN-based NTN system and we foresee the ORAN implementation trends that will increase the NTN system efficiency.

Download

Improved Graph-Based User Scheduling for Sum-Rate Maximisation in LEO-NTN Systems

Bilal Ahmad, Daniel Gaetano Riviello, Alessandro Guidotti, and Alessandro Vanelli-Coralli – 2023 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing Workshops (ICASSPW) – June 04-10 2023 – Rhodes island, Greece

In this paper, we study the problem of user scheduling for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Multi-User (MU) Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) systems with the objective of maximizing the sum-rate capacity while minimizing the total number of clusters. We propose an iterative graph-based maximum clique scheduling approach with constant graph density. Users are grouped together based on the channel coefficient of correlation (CoC) as dissimilarity metric and served by the satellite via Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA) by means of Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) digital beamforming on a cluster basis. Clusters are then served in different time slots via Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA). The results, presented in terms of per-cluster sum-rate capacity and per-user throughput, show that the presented approach can significantly improve the system performance.

Download