For industries operating in remote regions of the world, connectivity remains a constant challenge. Far away from terrestrial communication towers, operations in these distant areas rely on satellite communications to monitor day-to-day activities and to deliver data generated by connected monitoring devices.
SnT researcher Dr. Ridha Soua explains, for example, that in the case of a natural gas pipeline located in an area such as a desert constant monitoring of the pipeline system is crucial for operations, the environment and workers. One solution is to place monitoring devices along the totality of the pipeline. But in a hostile environment like the desert electronics are prone to fail and present a significant challenge for the network.
Dr. Ridha Soua
That’s why Soua is investigating application protocols for the Internet of Things (IoT) to communicate with satellites from these remote areas more efficiently. “Anything located in these faraway places needs to be extremely reliable and require little maintenance,” says Soua. “Since access to these areas is limited it could take hours or days to reach an affected area.”
The research project, called Machine to Machine Satellite Communication (M2MSat), is a collaboration between the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST), SES Techcom Services, Joanneum Research, and SnT. Together they hope to optimise IoT Application protocols to ensure reliable IoT connectivity in integrated satellite-terrestrial networks.