Massive Access in Space-Based Internet of Things: Challenges, Opportunities, and Future Directions

The integration of fifth generation (5G) mobile network and satellite communication promises a promotion on the interconnection of everything, and has become one of the key development directions of beyond 5G and even 6G. As an inevitable development trend of mobile communication, the space-based Internet of Things (S-IoT) is expected to be commercially available in building an integrated information infrastructure network of the space, air, ground and oceans, and so on. However, the tremendous growth in the number of connected user equipments poses a fundamental rethinking of conventional multiple access technologies, which is considered one of the open challenges in future S-IoT networks. In this article, we first review the main challenges of massive access in S-IoT. Then, we present and discuss how to develop a scalable massive access S-IoT network by leveraging introduced technologies, including intelligent hybrid non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) transmission, grant-free superimposed pilot NOMA random access and multi-slot pilot allocation random access protocol. Finally, some exciting future directions of massive access in S-IoT are revealed.