31st Workshop – Wireless Technologies for IoT Connectivity: Where are we Today?

VIRTUAL EDITION – WEBINAR : Wednesday 17 June 2020


TOPIC OF THIS WORKSHOP

In this workshop we will present the latest advances in low-power long-range wireless connectivity for IoT applications, such as NB-IoT, LoRa, Sigfox, WiFi HaLow and IEE802.15.4.
Local companies will share their experiences with the design and application of IoT devices (with NB-IoT connectivity) for diverse use cases.

Several innovations will be demonstrated.

The workshop is open to all players in wireless technology, from technology providers and system integrators, to providers and end-users of solutions for IoT applications.

Location

Virtual edition due to corona outbreak.

Programme: Presentations and Demos

10h00Introduction
Kris Hermus, Coordinator Wireless Community & Innovation Program Manager, imec
Eli De Poorter, Professor, imec-IDLab-UGent
slides (members only, login required)
10h10
























IoT CONNECTIVITY IN INDUSTRIAL CONTROL APPLICATIONS

Wireless connection of sensors and actuators in industrial environments not only enables wireless monitoring and actuation, it also enables coordination of production stages, connecting mobile robots and autonomous transport vehicles, as well as localization and tracking of assets. However, different technologies significantly differ in performance and capabilities, none being capable to support all industrial use cases. When designing a network solution, one must be aware of the capabilities and the trade-offs that prospective technologies have.

Which IoT communication technologies are suited for the control of industrial processes? (20min)
Amina Sefaragic, PhD Researcher, imec-IDLab-UGent
slides (members only, login required)

In this first part, we will discuss technologies potentially suitable for Industrial Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks covering an entire industrial site with limited infrastructure cost and consider their trade-offs in an effort to provide information for choosing the most suitable technology for the use case of interest. Further, it will zoom in on the ability of IEEE 802.11ah (Wi-Fi HaLow) to support control loops.


Low-latency multi-hop routing in IEEE 802.15.4e (20min)
Glenn Daneels, PhD Researcher, imec-IDLab-UA
slides (members only, login required)

In the second part, we will present a short introduction to the recurrent low-latency scheduling function (ReSF) for IEEE 802.15.4e TSCH sensor networks that daisy-chains resources towards the sink to minimise latency and only activates these resources when sensor data is expected to minimise energy consumption.
10h50






Over-the-Air Software Updates in the Internet-of-Things: An Overview of Key Principles
Jan Bauwens, PhD Researcher, IDLab-Gent
slides (members only, login required)

Which IoT connectivity standards are suited for over-the-air SW updates? The focus will be on system-level requirements and implementation aspects. We will explain which SW parameters can/should be updated, and illustrate the impact on energy-consumption (for battery-powered devices).
11h10Time for coffee – short break
11h30















Testimonials on the use of (multi-tech) IoT devices
Contributions from KU Leuven, Telenet and imec (15 min each)

In our local ecosystem we currently see the market introduction of the first IoT-products with NB-IoT connectivity. The developers of these products will discuss why they have chosen for NB-IoT, and share with us the design and operational challenges they have faced.

Liesbet Van der Perre, Professor, KU Leuven
slides (members only, login required)
Smart bicycle lock with NB-IoT
IoTrailer with LoRa connectivity

Boris Leekens, Program Manager Design Services, imec
slides (members only, login required)
RomWare, industrial tracker with NB-IoT/LTE-M connectivity
– Shayp: water leakage monitoring with Sigfox connectivity

Mohamed Abdo, Product Owner Mobile Access Engineering, Telenet
slides (members only, login required)
– NB-IoT & LTE-M deployment
– IoT technical features (Coverage, performance, positioning, power savings).
– IoT Platform & business applications.
12h15Time for lunch
13h00





























OPTIMIZING THE PERFORMANCE OF NB-IoT NETWORKS

Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) is a new LTE technology released by 3GPP. The primary goals of NB-IoT are improved coverage, massive capacity, low cost, and long battery life. In order to improve coverage, NB-IoT has promising solutions, such as increasing transmission repetitions, decreasing bandwidth, and adapting the Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS).

Coverage enhancement of NB-IoT networks, and interference classification (20min)
Guido Dolmans, Scientific Director at imec-NL, and Professor, TU/e
slides (members only, login required)

In the first part of the presentation, we will present an implementation of coverage enhancement features of NB-IoT in NS-3, an end-to-end network simulator. Resource allocation and link adaptation are modified to comply with new features of NB-IoT, with the goal to improve network reliability and latency. The results show that the proposed algorithm for link adaptation is 8x faster than an exhaustive search approach and yields similar latency.

We further focuses on interference classification, with having in mind that cellular technologies are expected to move to unlicensed spectrum in the near future. NS3 network predictions of LTE/WiFi and LTE/LoRa interference scenarios give insights in potential mitigation solutions.

Modelling and optimizing the energy-latency trade-off in NB-IoT  (15min)
Ashish Sultania, Researcher, IDLab-Antwerp
slides (members only, login required)

In the second part, we will discuss two novel techniques that have been introduced by NB-IoT to optimize the energy-latency trade-off, namely extended Discontinuous Reception (eDRX) and Power Saving Mode (PSM). The User Equipment (UE) is free to configure the different eDRX and PSM parameters. However, different configurations can lead to vastly different energy consumption and DL latency. Thus, considering different IoT use cases, the optimal parameters need to be calculated. We will present our insights into proper configuration of these NB-IoT parameters for a variety of use cases.
13h35







Combining multiple LPWAN technologies in IoT devices for seamless connectivity
Jeroen Hoebeke, Professor, IDLab-Gent
slides (members only, login required)

Combining multiple LPWAN technologies – e.g. Sigfox, LoRa, Dash7,… – into one IoT product can be a good strategy to ensure the best possible connectivity, with the lowest possible energy consumption, in diverse operating conditions. Even over-the-air software updates can be possible.
In this presentation we will discuss the trade-offs between overhead and benefits to support multiple technologies.
14h00End of the workshop





IDEAL-IoT workshop (access to user committee members only)

On Tuesday June 23 we will provide a more in depth overview of research innovations in the domain of LPWA connectivity, obtained by the partners imec, UA and UGent in the FWO SBO-project IDEAL-IoT.
Click here for the full programme.


Registration

The registration has been closed on June 16 at 16h45.
Please send an email to wireless-community@imec.be for more information.