Flexible heterogeneous satellite-based architecture for enhanced quality of life applications

The future pervasive communication ecosystem can improve and enhance the quality of our everyday lives by increasing comfort and safety perception, and improving interaction and conditions of activities: remarkable quality and performance will be afforded by the synergistic use of communication, positioning, and monitoring techniques, provided by means of meshed heterogeneous architectures based on satellite and terrestrial segments. In such a scenario satellite communication will represent the missing link of the evolution of services. This article aims to describe a flexible architecture that could be adopted in the future system and discussing the open points in the development of the system as well as of its single building blocks.