Satellite-MEC Integration for 6G Internet of Things: Minimal Structures, Advances, and Prospects

TL;DR

This paper surveys the integration of satellite communications and Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) for 6G IoT, discussing minimal structures, current advances, challenges, lessons learned, and future research directions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of satellite-MEC integration, proposing minimal structures and outlining future research challenges for 6G IoT applications.

Findings

Three minimal integrating structures are proposed.

Current advances are summarized for each structure.

Future research directions include intelligence, security, and sustainability.

Abstract

The sixth-generation (6G) network is envisioned to shift its focus from the service requirements of human beings' to those of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices'. Satellite communications are indispensable in 6G to support IoT devices operating in rural or disastrous areas. However, satellite networks face the inherent challenges of low data rate and large latency, which may not support computation-intensive and delay-sensitive IoT applications. Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is a burgeoning paradigm by extending cloud computing capabilities to the network edge. By utilizing MEC technologies, the resource-limited IoT devices can access abundant computation resources with low latency, which enables the highly demanding applications while meeting strict delay requirements. Therefore, an integration of satellite communications and MEC technologies is necessary to better enable 6G IoT. In this survey, we provide a holistic overview of satellite-MEC integration. We first discuss the main challenges of the integrated satellite-MEC network and propose three minimal integrating structures. For each minimal structure, we summarize the current advances in terms of their research topics, after which we discuss the lessons learned and future directions of the minimal structure. Finally, we outline potential research issues to envision a more intelligent, more secure, and greener integrated satellite-MEC network.