Authors
Victor Monzon Baeza, Francesc Xavier Romero Soto, Raúl Parada, Carlos Monzo
Published in
Sensors (Basel, Switzerland). Volume 26. Issue 15. Aug 04, 2026. Epub Aug 04, 2026.
Abstract
Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTNs) are emerging as a promising connectivity solution for Internet of Things (IoT) sensing applications deployed in remote, isolated, or infrastructure-limited environments. However, sparse LEO constellations inherently lead to intermittent connectivity, long service gaps, and frequent disruptions, challenging conventional 5G architectures that assume continuous end-to-end availability. This paper presents and experimentally validates a distributed 5G Core architecture enhanced with Store-and-Forward (S&F) capabilities to enable reliable delivery of IoT sensing data over intermittently connected LEO-NTN scenarios. The proposed architecture distributes selected 5G Core functions between ground and satellite nodes and introduces an S&F module capable of locally buffering uplink IoT data during periods without feeder-link connectivity and forwarding them once the ground connection is restored. A functional prototype is implemented using Open5GS, UERANSIM, and an emulated satellite node, and experimentally evaluated under representative intermittent-connectivity conditions. The results demonstrate that the proposed architecture successfully preserves and delivers IoT sensing data across temporary link disruptions. The experimental findings confirm the feasibility of integrating S&F mechanisms into distributed 5G Core architectures and provide practical insights into the design of resilient IoT sensing services over sparse LEO constellations.
PMID:
42590694
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 13 Aug 2026.
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