Wireless options for IoT
Workshop on LPWAN Solutions for the Internet of Things
February 17-21 Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
Ermanno Pietrosemoli
Goals
• Expose the specific requirements of IoT and why
traditional wireless technologies fail to meet them.
• Describe the technologies that can be used to
build IoT networks.
• Describe LPWAN solutions currently with more
traction and those poised to attain it.
2
Many IoT nodes can accept:
• Low throughput
• Very sparse datagrams
• Delays
• Long Sleeping times
3
Capacity of a communications channel
The maximum range is determined by the energy
per bit received, and depends on the effective
transmitted power, receiver sensitivity,
interference and data rate.
LoRa and Sigfox represent different strategies to
achieve long range.
4
Technology Sensitivity Data rate Spectrum
WiFi -95 dBm 1-54 Mb/s Wide Band
(802.11 b,g,h)
Bluetooth -97 dBm 1-2 Mb/s Wide Band
BLE -95 dBm 1 Mb/s Wide Band
SigFox -126 dBm 100 b/s Ultra Narrow
Band
LoRa -136 dBm 18 b/s - 37.5 Narrow Band
kb/s
Cellular data -104 dBm Up to 1.4 Mb/s Narrow Band
(2G,3G)
Constraints of legacy cellular in IoT
• 3G and 4G have focused on increasing
transmission speed at the price of high energy
consumption
• The handset must be in constant connection
with the cellular B.S.
• 2G is being discontinued in many countries
• Charging a monthly fee for each SIM card is too
expensive for IoT applications in which there is a
big number of devices that generate little traffic
Energy efficiency Vs. cost
Energy Efficiency
SigFox
LoRa
LTE-M
NB-IoT
WPAN:Bluetooth
Legacy Cellular
Satellite Based
Cost
7
Some solutions
• WiFi (legacy, af, ah and WiFi 6)
• Bluetooth and BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy)
• New Cellular based (3GPP Release 13 and up)
Extended coverage GSM (EC-GSM)
LTE-M
NB-IoT
8
IEEE 802.11 Amendments
9
802.11ah (WiFi HaLow)
• Sub 1 GHz, most commonly 900 MHz
• Low power, long range WiFi, less attenuated by walls
and vegetation.
• Up to 1 km range.
• Lower power consumption thanks to sleep mode
capabilities.
• 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 MHz channels.
• Competes with Bluetooth, speed from 100 kb/s to 40
Mb/s.
• Support of Relay AP to further extend coverage.
10
802.11ah (WiFi HaLow)
•Down sampled 802.11a/g specification to provide up to 26
channels.
•More efficient modulation and coding schemes borrowed
from 802.11 ac.
•Relay (AP) capability, an entity that logically consists of a
Relay and a client station (STA) which extends the coverage
and also allows stations to use higher MCSs (Modulation
and Coding Schemes) while reducing the time stations stay
in Active mode, therefore improving battery life.
•To limit overhead, the relaying function is bi-directional and
limited to two hops only.
11 11
Bluetooth
• Based on IEEE 802.15.1
• Smart Mesh.
• 79 channels 1 MHz wide and frequency hopping
to combat interference in the crowded 2.4 GHz
band.
• Used mainly for speakers, health monitors and
other short range applications.
12
Bluetooth architecture
Master node controls up to 7 active
slave nodes and up 255 inactive nodes,
forming a piconet.
• Several piconets can form a scatternet by
leveraging bridging nodes associated to more
than one master.
• Slaves must communicate through the master
node.
13
Bluetooth Architecture
14
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) or Smart
Bluetooth
• Based on IEEE 802.15.1
• Subset of Bluetooth 4.0, but stemming from an
independent Nokia solution.
• Smart Mesh.
• Support for IOS, Android, Windows and
GNU/Linux.
• 40 channels 2 MHz wide and frequency hopping
to combat interference.
• Used in smartphones, tablets, smart watches,
health and fitness monitoring devices.
15
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) or Smart
Bluetooth
• Data channels used for bidirectional traffic.
• Beacon mode, where low power, transmit-only
sensors periodically transmit in one of three
dedicated “advertising channels”.
• BLE compatible receiving devices must
periodically listen in each of the tree advertising
channels
• Transmitter consumption is 2.9 mW and
receiver's is 2.3 mW.
16
Two main categories of solutions
• Cellular based (3GPP standardized)
• Legacy
• LTE-M
• NB-IoT
• Proprietary or based on de facto standards
LPWAN
• SigFox
• LoRa
17
3GPP data
LTE cat 0 LTE cat LTE cat EC-GPRS LTE cat 1 GSM 900
M1 NB1
(eMTC) (NB IoT)
DL BW 20 MHz 1.4 MHz 180 kHz 200 kHz 20 MHz 200 kHz
UL BW 20 MHz 1.4 MHz 180 kHz 200 kHz 20 MHz 200 kHz
DL Peak 1 Mb/s 1 Mb/s 250 kb/s 10 kb/s 10 Mb/s 22.8 kb/s
rate
UL Peak 1 Mb/s 1 Mb/s 250 kb/s 10 kb/s 5 Mb/s 22.8 kb/s
rate (Multitone)
20 kb/s
(Single
tone)
Duplex half or full half or full half half full full
18
Low Power Wide Area Network
(LPWAN)
Optimized for IoT and Machine to Machine (M2)
applications
Trade throughput for coverage (up to several
kilometers)
Star or star of stars topology
Low power consumption
Low on board processing power
19
Battery duration
• LoRa, SigFox: up to years
Devices sleep most of the time, low
rate and limited messages per day
• 2G, a few days
• 802.15.4, months
• WiFi, a few days
• Energy scavenging schemes are being pursued
• Inductive powering
• Photovoltaic
20
Spectrum Usage
• Frequencies allocation country dependent
• Cellular uses costly exclusive licensed spectrum
• Alternatives use ISM bands, without fee payment,
but subject to interference
Interference addressed by limiting power and:
– Listen Before Talk (LBT)
– Duty Cycle limitations
– Spatial confinement
• Use high directivity antennas
• Frequencies subjected to high attenuation (60GHz)
• Light communication blocked by walls
21
Short Range Devices spectrum access
(applies to LoRa and SigFox)
G1: 868,000 MHz to 868,600 MHz with 25 mW EIRP (14 dBm) and 1 % duty cycle.
G2: 868,700 MHz to 869,200 MHz with 25 mW EIRP (14 dBm) and 0,1 % duty cycle.
G3: 869,400 MHz to 869,650 MHz with 500 mW EIRP (27 dBm) and 10 % duty cycle.
http://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_tr/103000_103099/103055/01.01.01_60/tr_103055v010101p.pdf
22
LPWAN spectrum usage
Africa and Europe: 863 to 868 MHz and 434 MHz
Duty cycle limitations: 0.1%, 1% and 10%
Max EIRP: 14 dBm, 27 dBM in G3 sub-band
US: 902 to 928 MHz
400 ms max dwell time per channel (SF 7 to SF
10 at 125 kHz)
Max EIRP: 21 dBm on 125 kHz, 26 dBm on 500
kHz channel
23
Sigfox
• Ultra narrowband technology designed for low
throughput and few messages/day.
• Low consumption, low cost
• High receiver sensitivity: -134 dBm at 600 b/s or -
142 dBm at 100 b/s on a 100 Hz channel, allows
146 to 162 dB of link budget.
• Each message transmitted 3 times in 3 different
frequencies offering resilience to interference.
24
Sigfox
• Unlicensed frequencies: 868 MHz in Africa and
Europe, 915 MHz in US.
• Maximum of 140 uplink messages/day with 12
octets payload, 26 octets total with overhead.
• Maximum of 4 downlink messages/day with 8
octets payload.
• Robust modulation: BPSK Uplink, GFSK
Downlink.
• Mobility restricted to 6 km/h.
• One hop star topology.
25
Sigfox
• Partnerships with cellular providers with an aim to
worldwide penetration.
• Many network operators worldwide offer Sigfox
services on a subscription basis.
• Cloud managed leveraging SDR to offer many
services.
• Coarse geolocation capability without GPS.
• Roaming capability.
26
LoRa
• LoRA is a physical layer proprietary
scheme for LPWAN based on spread
spectrum, trading bandwidth for S/N.
• It achieves long range and deep indoor
penetration.
• Uses linearly varying frequency pulses
called “chirps” inspired in radar signals.
• Several vendors offer devices built on the
chip owned by Semtech.
27
LoRa modulation
Up-chirp:
sinusoidal signal of
linearly
increasing frequency
Down-chirp:
sinusoidal of linearly
decreasing frequency
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LoRa physical layer
Preamble: at least 10 Data: Information
up-chirps followed by transmitted by the
2.25 down-chirps Instantaneous
frequency transitions
Beginning of data
29
Parameters of LoRa physical layer
• Bandwidth (BW): 125 KHz, 250 kHz or 500 kHz
• Spreading Factor (SF): 6, 7,8,9,10,11,12
• Coding Rate (CR): 5/4, 6/4, 7/4/ 8/4
• payload size (PL): maximum 255 octets
A LoRa symbol is composed of 2SF chirps
• The number of symbols transmitted depends
also on the number of symbols in the
preamble and whether a header and CRC are
present.
30
Parameters of LoRa physical layer
• Coding Rate (CR): 5/4, 6/4, 7/4/ 8/4
The coding rate (CR) is the fraction of transmitted bits
that actually carry information. So if CR is 4/8 we are
transmitting twice as many bits as the ones containing
information.
A symbol can encode SF bits of information.
The duration of a symbol is Ts=(2^SF)/BW, so the
useful bit rate is Rb=SF*CR/Ts.
31
Spreading Factors and duration
Fmax
SF 7
SF 9
Symbol
period
Fmin
time
32
Adaptive Data Rate (ADR)
at 125 kHz BW
Sprd. S/N bit rate ms per ten
Factor dB bit/s byte packet
7 -7.5 5469 56
8 -10 3125 103
9 -12.5 1758 205
10 -15 977 371
11 -17.5 537 741
12 -20 292 1483
33
LoRa parameters interaction
34
Range
• LoRa and SigFox: many kilometers
• 2G, typically 3 km, maximum 30 km
• 802.15.4 less than 100 m
• WiFi, typically 100 m, much higher values
attainable with high gain antennas
316 km
35
LoRa duty cycle example
A device in Europe transmits a 0.75 s long frame
at 868.3 MHz in the G1 (868 to 868.6 MHz) sub-
band.
The whole sub-band (868 – 868.6) will be
unavailable for 73.25 seconds, but the same
device can hop to another sub-band meanwhile.
In US, the device would be violating the 400 ms
maximum dwell time.
36
Effect of LoRa SF on consumption
37
LoRa and LoRaWAN
LoRa is strictly physical layer, and is proprietary. Chip
manufacturers include Semtech and Hope RF.
LoRaWAN is an open standard promoted by the LoRa
Alliance that adds the MAC, networking and application
layers that provide required functionalities like managing
medium access, security and so on.
38
Satellites
• Satellite communications have been very
successful for broadcasting applications
and also for two way communications, but
the associated costs have precluded them
to find extensive usage in IoT.
• The situation is beginning to change, so it
is worth to briefly describe the technology
involved.
Satellites
There are three mayor categories for communications
satellites:
• Geostationary (GEO), orbiting the Earth in an Equatorial
plane at 36000 km.
• Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), with different orbits at
around 20000 km.
• Low Earth Orbit (LEO), at altitudes between 600 and
800 km.
We can also consider High Altitude Platforms (HAPS) at
much less distance from the earth, but they are not yet
commercially available.
Period of any satellite is given by:
T = SQRT(4𝜋2a3/μ)
Where T is orbital period in seconds, a is distance to the
center of earth in km and μ = Kepler's constant
(μ = 3.9861352 x105 km3/s2)
For geostationary satellites, T=23 hours 56 minutes
(82856 s) and a=42164 km above the equator
Closer orbits require higher satellite speeds
Satellites
The satellite is essentially a repeater up in the sky, so an
Earth station connected to the terrestrial network normally
by fiber optic will function as the gateway for all the traffic.
• Gateways communicate with the satellite using the
uplink RF channel.
• The satellite can detect this signal, amplify, change
frequency and beam it back to earth, in what is known
as the “bent-pipe” technology, or:
• It can regenerate the signal thus emulating a gateway in
the sky.
Satellites for IoT
Satellites can be used to communicate the IoT gateway
to the respective server, and a number of vendors are
currently offering this kind of service.
LoRa End-Node
868 MHz
8
6
8
Internet
Ground Station
LoRa Gateway
Satellites for IoT
• The novelty lies in the possibility of a direct link from an
end-device to a Gateway up in the sky.
• Both SigFox and LoRa solutions have been proposed
and trials made but no commercial service is yet
available.
LoRa end
node
Lacuna Satellites for LoRa
from:
https://www.semtech.com/company/press/semtech-and-
lacuna-receiving-messages-from-space
• Lacuna Space uses a constellation of polar low-earth
orbiting satellites to receive messages from sensors
integrated with LoRa radios.
• At about 500 km above the ground, the satellites circle over
the poles every 100 minutes and as the earth revolves below
them, they cover the globe.
• The satellites store the messages for a short period of time
until they pass over the network of ground stations.
SigFox Satellite Service with Eutelsat
Located on a sun-synchronous orbit at about 600 km in altitude, the
satellite will collect data from connected objects equipped with the
same omnidirectional antennas used by terrestrial IoT networks.
Data will then be transmitted daily to a ground station located on
Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean
https://www.connectedbaltics.com/ecosystem/sigfox-iot-satellite/
Link calculations
Upnlink from the LoRa end-device to the LEO:
Lfs = 92.4 + 20*log(D) + 20*log(f)
Lfs = 92.4 + 20*log(500) + 20*log(0.868)= 145.9 dB
Assuming a 14 dBm EIRP for the TX, the satellite antenna
will receive a signal of 14 -145.9 = -131.9 dBm
The sensitivity with SF 12 is -136 dBm, so the signal can
be detected even with a 0 dBi antenna.
Note that this is a delay tolerant network (DTN), and the
number of ground stations needed will depend on the
application’s latency requirements.
Conclusions
• IoT requires specific standards.
• Legacy cellular technologies not efficient.
• Cellular based on Release 13 address most of
the shortcomings but the cost is high and
availability limited.
• WiFi , Zigbee and BLE have limited range.
• Several vendors offer alternatives.
• LoRa and SigFox are widely used worldwide for
long distance but with limited data rate.
• Satellites for IoT will offer services in areas that
do not have Internet connectivity.
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