Performance Evaluation of Random Access Methods for IoT-over-Satellite

Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations are currently being explored to provide global and seamless coverage for IoT-over-Satellite applications. Random access techniques require low transmission overhead providing a compatible route for IoT-over-Satellite applications, however, coming at the expense of the offered quality-of-service. In this paper, we develop a realistic uplink performance framework that incorporates many practical parameters such as the satellite availability, packet collision and interference, Doppler shift, and impairments experienced in a typical Satellite-to-Ground channel. The framework is capable of assessing multiple key performance indicators of the overall IoT-over-Satellite random access system. The performance is presented in terms of the bit error rate, packet error rate, and the energy wasted per IoT device. To emulate a realistic IoT-over-Satellite network, LoRa modulated traffic is first generated and injected into the Satellite-to-Ground channel. The results indicate high resistance to Doppler shifts even without any Doppler correction and provide some resistance to highly congested environments.