Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface aided Integrated-Navigation-and-Communication in Urban Canyons: A Satellite Selection Approach

2025-07-02

AI Summary

To address severe satellite signal blockage in urban canyons degrading navigation and communication performance, this paper proposes a STAR-RIS-assisted integrated navigation and communication (INAC) architecture for medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellites. The method introduces a novel dual-mode cooperative transmission mechanism—simultaneously supporting reflection and transmission—to serve both outdoor and indoor users; designs a navigation-priority/communication-priority mode-switching strategy; and develops an intelligent satellite selection algorithm integrating position dilution of precision (PDoP) and channel gain. Furthermore, it jointly optimizes positioning accuracy and communication rate via superposition coding (SC) and successive interference cancellation (SIC). Simulation results demonstrate that STAR-RIS substantially restores user positioning capability and improves ergodic rate by up to XX%. However, coverage limitation of a single RIS highlights the necessity of multi-RIS cooperative deployment.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Intelligent Robots: Localization, Mapping, and Navigation
• Search and Optimization: Mixed Discrete/Continuous Search

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Assisted, interactive, and conversational search
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements

Abstract

This study investigates the application of a simultaneous transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surface (STAR-RIS)-aided medium-Earth-orbit (MEO) satellite network for providing both global positioning services and communication services in the urban canyons, where the direct satellite-user links are obstructed. Superposition coding (SC) and successive interference cancellation (SIC) techniques are utilized for the integrated navigation and communication (INAC) networks, and the composed navigation and communication signals are reflected or transmitted to ground users or indoor users located in urban canyons. To meet diverse application needs, navigation-oriented (NO)-INAC and communication-oriented (CO)-INAC have been developed, each tailored according to distinct power allocation factors. We then proposed two algorithms, namely navigation-prioritized-algorithm (NPA) and communication-prioritized-algorithm (CPA), to improve the navigation or communication performance by selecting the satellite with the optimized position dilution of precision (PDoP) or with the best channel gain. The effectiveness of the proposed STAR-RIS-aided INAC network is quantified by analyzing the positioning error for navigation services and by evaluating communication performance through achievable ergodic rate metrics. Our satellite selection approach indicates that: the positioning services at the urban canyon users can be completed with the aid of STAR-RIS. 2) Additionally, it is observed that while a single STAR-RIS array can extend the navigational link, it fails to serve users in indoor scenarios, highlighting a limitation in the current system design.

Problem

• Enabling navigation and communication in urban canyons via STAR-RIS.
• Optimizing satellite selection for improved navigation or communication performance.
• Addressing limitations of STAR-RIS in indoor user scenarios.

Innovation

• STAR-RIS aids satellite navigation and communication
• Superposition coding and SIC for INAC networks
• Navigation-prioritized and communication-prioritized algorithms