# Beyond the Horizon, Backhaul Connectivity for Offshore IoT Devices
## 4 Conclusions and Future Work  
An experimental measurement campaign conducted over the Malaysian Sea region of the South China Sea validates signal propagation at beyond the horizon distances, over the Sea. Average path loss values at 5.8 GHz in the ED channel are measured from 30 km to 80 km distances over the Sea. There is an additional fading associated with measured average path loss as it fluctuates with time and is approximated with Lognormal PDF. Using fade margin with additional slow fading, predicted availability and capacity is calculated using standard off-the-shelf Wi-Fi equipment. At a distance of 60 km, 50 Mbps is achieved with more than 99% availability. At low data rate of 8 Mbps, more than 99% availability is possible at a distance of 100 km and at high data rate of 65 Mbps, an  
Figure 9: Beyond the horizon, backhaul availability vs. capacity of the communication link.  
availability more than 99% is possible up to a distance of only 40 km. A beyond-the-horizon, backhaul link established using ED would require low-cost infrastructure using less energy power. However, there are certain limitations of the proposed system as it highly depends on the ED height and its occurrence. Probability of the occurrence of ED is very high in the tropical regions of the World and remain existent throughout the year as there are no extreme weather variations. Occurrence of ED in colder regions is close to non-existent. Therefore, we conducted our research and gathered measurements in the Malaysian region of the South China Sea, where the occurrence of ED height is very favorable to establish a highly reliable link for the offshore IoT devices connectivity. For future reasearch, we can study on long term path loss variation to implement a high speed backhaul wireless communication link using ED and provide connectivity to offshore IoT devices. This backhaul link using ED can be established in parallel to already established links providing connectivity to offshore oil & gas platforms. Long term measurements will also be able to provide accurate path loss variations in ED. Finally, we would consider levereging emerging IoT [23; 24] techniques to further improve our results.  
Conceptualization, K.S.Z., S.H. and M.J.; methodology, K.S.Z., S.H. and A.N.K.; software, K.S.Z. and S.H.; validation, K.S.Z., S.H., M.J. and A.N.K.; formal analysis, K.S.Z., S.H. and M.J.; investigation, K.S.Z.; resources, S.H.; data curation, M.U.S.K., H.B.P. and R.N.; writing--original draft preparation, K.S.Z., S.H. and M.J.; writing--review and editing, A.N.K., M.U.S.K., H.B.P. and R.N.; visualization, M.J., A.N.K., M.U.S.K. and R.N.; supervision, M.U.S.K., H.B.P. and R.N.; project administration, K.S.Z., M.J., A.N.K., M.U.S.K., H.B.P. and R.N.; funding acquisition, R.N. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This research received no external funding. Not applicable. Not applicable. Not applicable. Not applicable.  
Authors would like to acknowledge the support provided by PETRONAS Research Sdn. Bhd. (PRSB), Malaysia to carry out this work for the WiDUCT project. Furthermore, [PERSON] and [PERSON] are acknowledged for their support.  
The authors declare no conflict of interest.