Cellular Internet of Things

From Massive Deployments to Critical 5G Applications

Olof Liberg, Marten Sundberg, Eric Wang, Johan Bergman, Joachim Sachs, Gustav Wikström, Y.-P. Eric Wang

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780081029039
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Computer Networking
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Cellular Internet of Things: From Massive Deployments to Critical 5G Applications, Second Edition, gives insights into the recent and rapid work performed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and the Multefire Alliance (MFA) to develop systems for the Cellular IoT. Beyond the technologies, readers will learn what the mMTC and cMTC market segments look like, deployment options and expected performance in terms of system capacity, expected battery lifetime, data throughput, access delay time and device cost, regulations for operation in unlicensed frequency bands, and how they impact system design and performance.This new edition contains updated content on the latest EC-GSM IoT, LTE-M and NB-IoT features in 3GPP Release 15, critical communication, i.e. URLLC, specified in 3GPP Release 15 for both LTE and NR, LTE-M and NB-IoT for unlicensed frequency bands specified in the Multefire Alliance (MFA), and an updated outlook of what the future holds in Industrial IoT and drone communications, amongst other topics.- Provides ubiquitous wireless connectivity for a diverse range of services and applications, describing their performance and how their specifications were developed to meet the most demanding requirements- Describes licensed and unlicensed technologies based on 2G, 4G and 5G technologies and how they have evolved towards the Cellular IoT- Presents the Narrowband Internet of Things technology and how GSM, LTE and NR have been designed to provide Cellular Internet of Things services- Provides use cases that cover ultra-low complex systems connecting billions of devices (massive MTC, mMTC), critical MTC and cMTC based on Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communications (URLLC) to meet strict latency and reliability requirements

Chapter 1

The Internet of Things

Abstract

This chapter introduces the overall content of the book. It contains an introduction to the massive and critical machine-type communications (mMTC, cMTC) categories of use cases, spanning a wide range of applications. When discussing these applications, consideration is given to the service requirements associated with mMTC and cMTC for example in terms of reachability and reliability. The chapter introduces the concept of the cellular Internet of Things which is defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) technologies: Extended Coverage Global System for Mobile Communications Internet of Things (EC-GSM-IoT), Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT), Long-Term Evolution for Machine-Type Communications (LTE-M) and ultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC). The final part of the chapter looks beyond the 3GPP technologies and discusses a range of solutions that provides IoT connectivity in unlicensed spectrum.

1. 1.1 Introduction
2. 1.2 IoT communication technologies
   1. 1.2.1 Cellular IoT
   2. 1.2.2 Technologies for unlicensed spectrum
3. 1.3 Outline of the book
4. References

1.1. Introduction

The Internet of Things (IoT) is part of a transformation that is affecting our entire society: industries, consumers and the public sector. It is an enabler in the broader digital transformation of the management of physical processes. It provides better insights and allow for more efficient operation. The IoT provides the capability to embed electronic devices into physical world objects and create smart objects that allow us to interact with the physical world by means of sensing or actuation. IoT enables networking among smart objects, applications and servers.

Fig. 1.1 depicts the instance of an IoT system. On the left-hand side there are physical assets – like machines, lights, meters; on the right-hand side there are applications interacting with the physical world. There can be a variety of different applications. If we assume as example, that the physical assets are sensors that monitor the vehicle flow on a street at different locations in a city, then the application could be to monitor traffic flows throughout the city in a traffic control center. In case that the physical assets include traffic lights, which can be activated via actuators, then the application could also steer the red-green periods of individual traffic lights, e.g. based on the observed traffic flow. This shows a simple example of digital transformation. A traffic infrastructure with traffic lights with fixed configuration is transformed into a smarter traffic infrastructure, where insights about the system states are collected and smart decisions are being taken and executed within the infrastructure. The applications themselves are running in the digital domain. A representation of the physical system (i.e. streets in the city) is created, based on a model (like a street map), and it is updated with information from the traffic sensors. The management and configuration of the traffic infrastructure (i.e. the traffic lights) is made in the traffic center and the execution is transferred back to the physical world, by means of switches in the traffic lights that steer the red-green phases.

The IoT system is the enabler for the service in the above example. IoT devices are connected to the physical assets and interact with the physical world via sensors and actuators. The IoT system connects the IoT devices to the specific application of the service and enables the application to control the physical assets via actuators connected to IoT devices. The IoT platform provides common functionality, which includes device and object identification and addressing, security functions, and management of IoT devices. The IoT connectivity, which is the focus of this book, provides a generic platform that can be used by many different services, as shown in Fig. 1.2.

Fig. 1.1 IoT system providing connectivity, services and a digital representation of the physical world.

1.2. IoT communication technologies

A significant number of communication technologies have been developed over the last two decades with significant impact on the IoT. In particular, machine-to-machine (M2M) communication solutions were developed to connect devices with applications. Most M2M communication solutions are purpose-build and designed to satisfy a very particular application and communication needs. Examples are connectivity for remote-controlled lighting, baby monitors, electric appliances, etc. For many of those systems the entire communication stack has been designed for a single purpose. Even if it enables, in a wider sense, an environment with a wide range of connected devices and objects, it is based on M2M technology silos, usually without end-to-end IP connectivity and instead via proprietary networking protocols. This is depicted on the left-hand side of Fig. 1.3. It is quite different from the vision of the IoT depicted on the right-hand side in Fig. 1.3, which is based on a common and interoperable IP-based connectivity framework for connecting devices and smart objects, which enables the IoT at full scale.

Fig. 1.2 IoT system as a platform to enable many services.

Fig. 1.3 From M2M silos to the IoT.

1.2.1. Cellular IoT

In recent years the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) have evolved their cellular technologies to target a wide variety of IoT use cases. The second, third and fourth generations cellular communication systems provided since earlier connectivity for the IoT, but 3GPP is since its Release 13 developing technologies that by design provide cellular IoT connectivity. The 3GPP standardization of cellular networks is trying to address the requirements of novel IoT use case, in order to ensure that the technology standards evolution is addressing future market needs. It has become clear that the breadth of IoT use cases cannot be described with a simple set of cellular IoT requirements. In the standardization of the fifth generations (5G) cellular system, three requirements categories were defined to be addressed (see Fig. 1.4) [1]. Two of them are focused on machine-type communication (MTC), essentially addressing the IoT.

Massive MTC (mMTC) is defined for addressing communication of large volumes of simple devices with a need of small and infrequent data transfers. It is assumed that mMTC devices can be massively deployed, so that the scalability to many connected devices is needed, as well as the support to reach them with the network wherever they are located. The ubiquity of the deployment in combination with a need to limit deployment and operation cost motivates ultra-low complex IoT devices that may need to support non-rechargeable battery powered operation for years. Examples of mMTC use cases are utilities metering and monitoring, fleet management, telematics and sensor sharing in the automoti...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Biography
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. The Internet of Things
• Chapter 2. Global cellular IoT standards
• Chapter 3. EC-GSM-IoT
• Chapter 4. EC-GSM-IoT performance
• Chapter 5. LTE-M
• Chapter 6. LTE-M performance
• Chapter 7. NB-IoT
• Chapter 8. NB-IoT performance
• Chapter 9. LTE URLLC
• Chapter 10. LTE URLLC performance
• Chapter 11. NR URLLC
• Chapter 12. NR URLLC performance
• Chapter 13. Enhanced LTE connectivity for drones
• Chapter 14. IoT technologies in unlicensed spectrum
• Chapter 15. MulteFire Alliance IoT technologies
• Chapter 16. Choice of IoT technology
• Chapter 17. Technical enablers for the IoT
• Chapter 18. 5G and beyond
• Index