QoS Feasibility Region of Distributed IoT Communications Using LEO Satellites

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) nano-satellites can provide uplink connectivity for large numbers of distributed Internet of Things (IoT) sensing devices. To achieve a target Quality-of-Service (QoS), devices must send packets multiple times, due to collisions. This paper characterises the achievable set of terminal QoS targets, and determines the optimal uplink packet attempt rates. We show that QoS target feasibility is determined by the solution of a linear program (LP), and that the solution gives the optimal packet attempt rates. We show that the QoS targets can be modified using the shadow prices from the LP, to obtain feasibility. We show that our LP based approach can support greater than 30% more ground sensor terminals, compared to existing schemes.