Integrating Terrestrial and Non-Terrestrial Networks for Reliable Rural Coverage in Agriculture and Smart Grids
Shweta Goyal, Krishna Kumar Gattupalli, Bhaksara Rallabandi, Monish Sai Medarametla
Abstract
In the context of the digital revolution of smart grids and agriculture, it is essential to have a stable connection in the country. Terrestrial networks (TN) also cannot cover very sufficiently since they may be economically and geographically limited, but non-terrestrial networks (NTN) such as Low Earth orbit (LEO) constellation, geostationary satellites (GEO), and high-altitude plat-forms (HAPS) do have wider coverage but have issues with latency, energy consumption, and cost. The paper will arrive at a combined TN-NTN model that will lead to consistent rural connectivity and targets in service level. It will involve the adoption of 5G standalone (SA) and NTN extensions, Low-Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) to serve the low-powered sensors, and satellite backhaul to serve last mile facilities. The metrics applied to measure them include latency, availability, throughput, energy per bit and service restoration time. A review of the use case also explains the use of architecture to bolster some of the most significant uses such as feeder protection, phasor measurement unit (PMU) streaming, smart metering and precision agriculture. The system proposed will provide less than 50 ms or grid protection, less than-minute agricultural telemetry, and 99.99% of service availability which will assist in having sustainable and dependable digital ecosystems in rural underserved communities.