3GPP NB-IOT Coverage Extension Using LEO Satellites

Machine-Type Communications are meeting a growing interest on the consumer market. Dedicated technologies arise to support more robust communications involving a massive number of low cost, low energy-consuming devices. This paper discusses the coverage extension of a Low-Powered Wide Area Network using a Low Earth Orbit satellite constellation, benefiting from the improved performance of a recent standard. The transmission complies with the user equipment specifications standardized as NB-IoT by 3GPP in Release 13. This radio technology is an update on LTE standard with enhanced performances: the supported path loss can be 20 dB higher than with legacy LTE. This improvement makes satellite- compatible the small and energy-constrained devices. A specific unidirectional system is defined, and a link budget is derived. Also, a receiver architecture is presented, that takes into consideration satellite channel specific impairments.

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