LLM-Enhanced Space-Air-Ground-Sea Integrated Networks

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Authors: Halvin Yang, Sangarapillai Lambotharan, Mahsa Derakhshani, Lajos Hanzo
Cited by: 2
References: 13

Abstract

The space-air-ground-sea integrated networking (SAGSIN) concept promises seamless global multimedia connectivity, yet two obstacles still limit its practical deployment. Firstly, high-velocity satellites, aerial relays and sea-surface platforms suffer from obsolete channel state information (CSI), undermining feedback-based adaptation. Secondly, data-rate disparity across the protocol-stack is extreme: terabit optical links in space coexist with kilobit acoustic under-water links. This article shows that a single large language model (LLM) backbone - trained jointly on radio, optical and acoustic traces - can provide a unified, data-driven adaptation layer that addresses both rapid CSI ageing and severe bandwidth disparity across the SAGSIN protocol- stack. Explicitly, an LLM-based long-range channel predictor forecasts the strongest delay-Doppler components several coherence intervals ahead, facilitating near-capacity reception, despite violent channel fluctuations. Furthermore, our LLM-based semantic encoder turns raw sensor payloads into task-oriented tokens. This substantially reduces the SNR required for high-fidelity image delivery in a coastal underwater link, circumventing the data rate limitation by semantic communications. Inclusion of these tools creates a medium-agnostic adaptation layer that spans radio, optical and acoustic channels. We conclude with promising open research directions in on-device model compression, multimodal fidelity control, cross-layer resource orchestration and trustworthy operation, charting a path from laboratory prototypes to field deployment.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Underwater Vehicles and Communication Systems Optical Wireless Communication Technologies Satellite Communication Systems

Publication details

Journal / source
IEEE Communications Magazine
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Volume
64
Issue
4
Pages
74–81
Publication date
16 February 2026