Tutorial 1 - Towards Computation-Efficient NTN: Routing, Scheduling, Slicing and Federated Learning

The rapid evolution of Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN), including LEO satellite constellations, is transforming global connectivity by extending communication services to underserved and remote regions. Beyond communication, the integration of distributed computing capabilities into NTN, referred to as computing-efficient NTN, has emerged as a critical paradigm to support data-intensive and latency-sensitive applications such as IoT data aggregation, edge intelligence, and space-air-ground integrated services. However, constructing an efficient NTN computing network is fundamentally challenging due to the highly dynamic topology, intermittent connectivity, limited onboard resources, and the tight coupling between communication and computation. These characteristics render traditional terrestrial cloud-edge architectures and resource management strategies ineffective. This tutorial provides a systematic overview of computing-efficient NTN, highlighting the necessity of in-network computing over satellite constellations and the key design challenges, including dynamic resource orchestration, joint communication-computation optimization, time-sensitive task scheduling. We further discuss how to achieve computing-efficient NTN through routing, scheduling, slicing and federated learning schemes.

  • Corresponding Author Information
    Tony Q.S. Quek, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore
    Tony Q.S. Quek (S'98-M'08-SM'12-F'18) received the B.E. and M.E. degrees in electrical and electronics engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1998 and 2000, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008. Currently, he is the Cheng Tsang Man Chair Professor with Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) and ST Engineering Distinguished Professor. He also serves as the Director of the Future Communications R&D Programme, the Head of ISTD Pillar, and the Deputy Director of the SUTD-ZJU IDEA. His current research topics include wireless communications and networking, network intelligence, non-terrestrial networks, open radio access network, and 6G. He is an IEEE Fellow, a WWRF Fellow, an AIIA Fellow, and a Fellow of the Academy of Engineering Singapore.

  • Speaker 1: Peng Wang, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore
  • Title: Time-varying Graph Based Routing and Scheduling for Computing-Efficient NTN
    Peng Wang received the B. Eng. and Ph.D degrees from Xidian University, Xi’an, China, in 2017 and 2023, respectively. He is currently a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with Information Systems Technology and Design Pillar at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, where he was also a visiting Ph.D student from 2021.5 to 2022.11. His research interests include networking algorithms, scheduling and graph algorithms.

  • Speaker 2: Huiting Yang, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore
  • Title: Network Slicing for Time-Varying Software-Defined NTN
    Huiting Yang received the B.E. degree in Communications Engineering, the M.S. degree in Space Science and Technology, and the Ph.D. degree in Communications Engineering from Xidian University, Xi'an, China, in 2015, 2018, and 2023, respectively. Currently, she is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with Information Systems Technology and Design Pillar at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), where she was an International Research Visitor from 2022 to 2023. Her research interests include resource allocation for non-terrestrial networking, network slicing, and 6G.

  • Speaker 3: Qian Chen, The University of Hong Kong, China
  • Title: Federated Learning Schemes in NTN
    Qian Chen (Member, IEEE) received her B.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Information and Communication Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) in 2018 and 2023, respectively. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Hong Kong. Dr. Chen has been awarded several honors, including the National Scholarship, Outstanding Graduate of Heilongjiang Province and HIT, and the CSC Scholarship. Her doctoral research received the Excellent Doctoral Thesis Nomination Award by the China Education Society of Electronics. Her primary research interests include space-air-ground integrated networks and edge intelligence. She has served as the Student Chair of the IEEE ComSoc Harbin Chapter, Publication Chair for EAI WISATS 2024, and Youth Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Information and Intelligence.