Abstract
With the rapid growth of maritime activity, maintaining reliable ship-to-shore connectivity faces growing challenges from shadowing caused by passing tall vessels, offshore structures, and other maritime obstructions. An analysis of data for one month from the Norwegian Coastal Administration Automatic Identification System (AIS) shows that shadowing occurs in more than 60% of transmissions in Norwegian coastal waters. These frequent Non-Line-of-Sight (NLoS) conditions cause severe signal attenuation and undermine communication reliability. To address this, we investigate the use of Simultaneously Transmitting and Reflecting Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces aided Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (STAR-RISNOMA) to enhance both coverage in 360° NLoS regions and system capacity. By simultaneously transmitting and reflecting incident signals, STAR-RIS can effectively reduce signal blockage and combat fading, while the integration of NOMA further enhances spectral efficiency. Simulation results show that STARRIS aided NOMA consistently delivers gains over conventional OMA schemes, improving near-user capacity by up to 5bps/Hz in shadowed maritime scenarios. These results highlight STAR-RIS-NOMA as a scalable and practical solution for high-capacity, shadowing-resilient ship-to-shore communications.