Network Size Estimation for Direct-to-Satellite IoT

The worldwide adoption of the Internet Things (IoT) depends on massive deployment sensor nodes and timely data collection. However, installing required ground infrastructure in remote or inaccessible areas can be economically unattractive unfeasible. Cost-effective nanosatellites deployed low Earth orbits (LEOs) are emerging as an alternative solution: on-board IoT gateways provide access to devices, according direct-to-satellite (DtS-IoT) architectures. One main challenges DtS-IoT is devise communication protocols that scale thousands highly constrained devices served by likewise orbiting gateways. In this article, we tackle issue first estimating (varying) size device set underneath (mobile) nanosatellite footprint. Then, demonstrate applicability estimation when used intelligently throttle protocols. Since recent works have shown MAC improve throughput energy efficiency a network available, present, here, novel computationally efficient estimator DtS-IoT: our optimistic collision information (OCI)-based estimator. We evaluate OCI’s effectiveness with extensive simulations scenarios. Results show using estimations, scalability frame-slotted Aloha-based boosted eightfold, serving up $4 \times 10^{3}$ without penalties. also OCI mechanism given realistic detection ratios its computational cost implementation, making it strong candidate for DtS-IoT.