T9: Integrating Terrestrial and Non-terrestrial Networks: 3D Opportunities and Challenges

This tutorial will be delivered virtually.

Organizer:  Giovanni Geraci, Pompeu Fabra University, Spain

Abstract: Integrating terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks has the potential of connecting the unconnected and enabling disruptive new services for the already-connected, with technological and societal implications of the greatest long-term significance. A convergence of ground, air, and space wireless communications also represents a formidable endeavor for the mobile and satellite communications industries alike, as it entails defining and intelligently orchestrating a new 3D wireless network architecture. In this tutorial, we present the key opportunities and challenges arising from this (r)evolution by illustrating its disruptive use-cases, introducing its key building blocks, and reviewing the relevant standardization activities. Through original results, we showcase how terrestrial networks could be re-designed to cater for non-terrestrial terminals, and opportunistically complemented by non-terrestrial infrastructure to augment their current capabilities. We further discuss the main hurdles that stand in the way to an integrated 3D wireless network and point out key open problems worthy of further research.

 

Giovanni Geraci

Bio: Giovanni Geraci is an Assistant Professor and the Head of Telecommunications Engineering at Univ. Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. He was previously with Nokia Bell Labs, holds a dozen patents on wireless technologies, and is a co-Editor of the book “UAV Communications for 5G and Beyond” by Wiley–IEEE. Giovanni has been serving as Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Communications Society and the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society and he received the 2018 IEEE ComSoc EMEA Outstanding Young Researcher Award as well as Best Paper Awards at IEEE PIMRC’19 and IEEE Globecom’22.