Dynamic Packet Scheduling for Internet of Remote Things (IoRT) devices in 5G Satellite Networks

The continuous rapid growth of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has presented a new model in fourth generation and beyond cellular networks. This continuous growth and the increasing demand in the provision of high transmission rate, delay sensitive and spectrum efficient cellular networks have made the development of fifth generation (5G) networks a reality. The design of the end-to-end 5G networks anticipated the need for terrestrial radio access networks to be complemented by its satellite counterpart in order to ensure that 5G services are provided seamlessly. These 5G services include IoT communications. This has necessitated the need for 5G satellite radio access networks to provide access to IoT devices that are located in remote and rural areas. This type of IoT devices are termed Internet of Remote Things (IoRT) devices. While this remain an appealing solution, many radio resource management issues including packet scheduling for IoRT communications in 5G satellite networks remains undefined. Hence, this paper aims to propose a new dynamic packet scheduling algorithm that will be appropriate for mixed traffic type IoRT communications in 5G satellite networks. The performance evaluation of the proposed packet scheduler is conducted through simulations, using delay, spectral efficiency, throughput and fairness index as the performance indices.