A Survey on Technologies, Standards and Open Challenges in Satellite IoT

TLDR

The Internet of Things is poised to enhance services from transportation to agriculture, but massive connectivity over large or remote areas remains a key challenge, making satellite‑based solutions a promising option for wide‑area coverage and affordable connectivity. This survey examines current satellite‑based solutions for deploying IoT services in remote or rural regions. We analyze various architectures and technical approaches, highlighting their features, limitations, and real‑world test cases. Low‑orbit satellites provide an efficient long‑range IoT solution with a favorable coverage‑latency trade‑off, while also revealing open issues, emerging challenges, and innovative technologies constrained by existing IoT standardization frameworks.

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to bring new opportunities for improving several services for the Society, from transportation to agriculture, from smart cities to fleet management. In this framework, massive connectivity represents one of the key issues. This is especially relevant when IoT systems are expected to cover a large geographical area or a region not reached by terrestrial network connections. In such scenarios, the usage of satellites might represent a viable solution for providing wide area coverage and connectivity in a flexible and affordable manner. Our paper presents a survey on current solutions for the deployment of IoT services in remote/rural areas by exploiting satellites. Several architectures and technical solutions are analyzed, underlining their features and limitations, and real test cases are presented. It has been highlighted that low-orbit satellites offer an efficient solution to support long-range IoT services, with a good trade-off in terms of coverage and latency. Moreover, open issues, new challenges, and innovative technologies have been focused, carefully considering the perimeter that current IoT standardization framework will impose to the practical implementation of future satellite based IoT systems.