A Space-Air-Ground Enabled Edge Computing Architecture for the Internet of Things

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) devices can produce data and exchange messages continuously via complex networks, which brings challenges to the traditional communication system. Currently, terrestrial networks cannot provide reliable high-data-rate services for IoT devices with different latency requirements and seamless global coverage. Considering this, this paper proposes a novel space-air-ground enabled edge computing (SAGEEC) architecture, where satellites can provide seamless coverage. And UAVs can enhance data processing capacity to support terrestrial IoT services. To support the edge computing functionalities of SAGEEC, we propose two novel frameworks for satellites and UAVs named intelligent enhanced satellites (ieSat) and intelligent enhanced UAVs (ieUAV), respectively. Then, we list three typical application scenarios where SAGEEC can support and specify the duty of each segment. Furthermore, challenges and potential directions are discussed for future research.