发表机构
Institute of Photonics, University of Nottingham; Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies, Aston University（诺丁汉大学光子学研究所; 阿斯顿大学阿斯顿光子技术研究所）
机构由 AI 辅助整理，请以论文原文为准。AI 中文总结
本文提出CHAIN框架，将水下、海事、陆地、空中和空间视为单一设计空间，以全光子骨干网和AI编排实现跨介质融合，并识别五个核心开放问题及研究路线图。
AI 中文摘要
下一代连接依赖于数据在单个端到端路径内穿越多种物理介质，然而光纤、自由空间光与无线电无线、非地面网络以及水下通信的研究在很大程度上是孤立推进的。这种碎片化对通信性能、部署和适配产生了更广泛的不利影响，因为下一代连接中最紧迫的开放问题——跨介质信道表征、跨异构时延体制的传输层协议设计以及跨域编排——都位于各领域之间的边界上，只有通过将这些挑战整合到跨域系统中才能解决。空天地一体化网络研究已开始对三个领域进行解析性处理，其近期向海面的扩展是迄今提出的最具雄心的多域框架，但两者均未产生实验结果、部署系统或标准参与。水下和海事领域在这两者中仍然缺失。本文提出了连接异构全介质综合网络（CHAIN），这是一个将水下、海事、陆地、空中和空间领域视为单一设计空间的框架。我们确定全光子网络骨干网作为统一的物理基础设施，人工智能（AI）驱动的编排作为跨域控制层，以及领域之间的连接点作为统一挑战。我们调研了所有领域的最新技术水平和现有跨域文献，开发了CHAIN框架及其技术支柱，刻画了该领域必须解决的五个核心开放问题，并制定了从近期测量活动和测试平台验证，经跨介质现场试验，到全球规模部署的研究路线图。
英文摘要
Next-generation connectivity depends on data traversing multiple physical media within a single end-to-end path, yet research in optical fibre, free-space optical and radio wireless, non-terrestrial networks, and underwater communications has advanced largely in isolation. This fragmentation has a wider adverse impact on communication performance, deployment and adaption as the most demanding open problems in next-generation connectivity, cross-medium channel characterisation, transport-layer protocol design across heterogeneous latency regimes, and cross-domain orchestration, sit at the boundaries between domains and can only be addressed by bringing these challenges together in cross-domain systems. Space-air-ground integrated network research has begun to treat three domains analytically, and its recent extension to the sea surface represents the most ambitious multi-domain framework proposed to date, yet neither has produced experimental results, a deployed system, or a standards engagement. The subsurface and maritime domain remains absent from both. This paper proposes the connected heterogeneous all-medium integrated network (CHAIN), a framework that treats the undersea, maritime, terrestrial, aerial and space domains as a single design space. We identify an all-photonic network backbone as the unifying physical infrastructure, Artificial intelligence (AI)-driven orchestration as the cross-domain control layer, and the joints between domains as a unification challenge. We survey the state of the art across all domains and the existing cross-domain literature, develop the CHAIN framework and its technical pillars, characterise the five core open problems the field must resolve, and set out a research roadmap from near-term measurement campaigns and testbed validation through cross-medium field trials to global-scale deployment.
