IoT Access Technologies

IEEE 802.15.4g and 802.15.4e

• IEEE 802.15.4e-2012 enhanced the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC
layer capabilities in the areas of frame format, security,
determinism mechanism, and frequency hopping.
• IEEE 802.15.4g seeks to optimize large outdoor
wireless mesh networks for field area networks (FANs).
• Standardization and Alliances - 802.15 Task Group 4
standards body authors, maintains, and integrates
them into the next release of the
core specification.
 Physical Layer
• PHY mechanism
• Multi-Rate and Multi-Regional Frequency Shift Keying (MR-FSK):
Offers good transmit power efficiency due to the constant
envelope of the transmit signal
• Multi-Rate and Multi-Regional Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing (MR-OFDM):
Provides higher data rates but may be too complex for low-cost
and low-power devices
• Multi-Rate and Multi-Regional Offset Quadrature Phase-Shift
Keying (MR-O-QPSK):
Shares the same characteristics of the IEEE 802.15.4-2006 O-
QPSK PHY, making multi-mode systems more cost-effective and
easier to design
 MAC Layer
• Main enhancements to the MAC layer
proposed by IEEE 802.15.4e-2012
• Time-Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH)
• Information elements
• Enhanced beacons
• Enhanced beacon requests
• Enhanced Acknowledgement
 Topology
• Deployments of IEEE 802.15.4g-2012 are mostly based
on a mesh topology.
• This is because a mesh topology is typically the best
choice for use cases in the industrial and smart cities
areas where 802.15.4g-2012 is applied
• Security
• Both IEEE 802.15.4g and 802.15.4e inherit their
security attributes from the IEEE 802.15.4-2006
specification. Therefore, encryption is provided by AES,
with a 128-bit key.
 IEEE 1901.2a
• IEEE 1901.2a-2013 is a wired technology that
is an update to the original IEEE 1901.2
specification.
• This is a standard for Narrowband Power Line
Communication (NB-PLC)
 Physical Layer
• NB-PLC is defined for frequency bands from 3 to
500 kHz.
• IEEE 1901.2a supports the largest set of coding and
enables both robustness and throughput.
• The standard includes tone maps and modulations,
such as robust modulation (ROBO), differential
binary phase shift keying (DBPSK), differential
quadrature phase shift keying (DQPSK), differential
8-point phase shift keying (D8PSK)
 MAC Layer
• The MAC frame format of IEEE 1901.2a is based
on the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC frame but integrates
the latest IEEE 802.15.4e-2012 amendment
• Topology - NB-PLC deployments use some sort
of mesh topology.
• Mesh networks offer the advantage of devices
relaying the traffic of other devices so longer
distances can be segmented.
 Security
• IEEE 1901.2a security offers similar features to
IEEE 802.15.4g. Encryption and authentication
are performed using AES.
• In addition, IEEE 1901.2a aligns with 802.15.4g
in its ability to support the IEEE 802.15.9 Key
Management Protocol
 IEEE802.11ah
• IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi is certainly the most successfully
deployed wireless technology.
• This standard is a key IoT wireless access
technology, either for connecting endpoints or for
deploying Wi-Fi backhaul infrastructures
• Three main use cases
– Sensors and meters covering a smart grid
– Backhaul aggregation of industrial sensors and meter
data
– Extended range Wi-Fi
 Physical Layer
• IEEE 802.11ah essentially provides an
additional 802.11 physical layer operating in
unlicensed sub-GHz bands.
• IEEE 802.11ah uses channels of 2, 4, 8, or 16
MHz
 MAC Layer
• IEEE 802.11ah MAC layer is optimized to support the new
sub-GHz Wi-Fi PHY while providing low power consumption
and the ability to support a larger number of endpoints
• Enhancements and features
– Number of devices
– MAC header
– Null data packet (NDP) support
– Grouping and sectorization
– Restricted access window (RAW)
– Target wake time (TWT)
– Speed frame exchange
 Topology
• IEEE 802.11ah is deployed as a star topology, it
includes a simple hops relay operation to
extend its range.
• This relay option is not capped, but the IEEE
802.11ah task group worked on the
assumption of two hops.
• It allows one 802.11ah device to act as an
intermediary and relay data to another
 Sectorization
• Sectorization is a technique that involves partitioning
the coverage area into several sectors to get reduced
contention within a certain sector.
• This technique is useful for limiting collisions in cells
that have many clients. This is similar to a mesh, and
it is important to note that the clients and not the
access point handle the relay function.
• This relay operation can be combined with a higher
transmission rate or modulation and coding scheme
• (MCS).
 Security
• No additional security has been identified for
IEEE 802.11ah compared to other IEEE 802.11
specifications.
 LoRaWAN
• New set of wireless technologies -> Low-
Power Wide-Area (LPWA)
• An example of an unlicensed-band LPWA
technology, known as LoRaWAN
LoRaWAN Layers
 Physical Layer
• Semtech LoRa modulation is based on chirp
spread spectrum modulation, which trades a
lower data rate for receiver sensitivity to
significantly increase the communication
distance.
• LoRaWAN 1.0.2 regional specifications
describe the use of the main unlicensed sub-
GHz frequency bands of 433 MHz, 779–787
MHz, 863–870 MHz, and 902–928 MHz
 MAC Layer
• This layer takes advantage of the LoRa physical
layer and classifies LoRaWAN endpoints to
optimize their battery life and ensure
downstream communications to the
LoRaWAN endpoints.
• Three classes of LoRaWAN devices
– Class A
– Class B
– Class C
 Topology
• LoRaWAN topology is often described as a
“star of stars” topology
LoRaWAN Architecture
 Security
• LoRaWAN endpoints must implement two
layers of security, protecting communications
and data privacy across the network.
LoRaWAN Security
 Network Layer
IoT constrained nodes can be classified as follows:
• Devices that are very constrained in resources, may
communicate infrequently to transmit a few bytes, and
may have limited security and management capabilities

• Devices with enough power and capacities to implement a

stripped-down IP stack or non-IP stack

• Devices that are similar to generic PCs in terms of

computing and power resources but have constrained
networking capacities, such as bandwidth
 Constrained Networks
• With a constrained network, in addition to limited
bandwidth, it is not unusual for the packet delivery
rate (PDR) to oscillate between low and high
percentages.
• Large bursts of unpredictable errors and even loss
of connectivity at times may occur.
• These behaviors can be observed on both wireless
and narrowband power-line communication links,
where packet delivery variation may fluctuate
greatly during the course of a day.
 IP Versions
• The following are some of the main factors
applicable to IPv4 and IPv6 support in an IoT
solution
• Application Protocol
• Cellular Provider and Technology
• Serial Communications
• IPv6 Adaptation Layer
Optimizing IP for IoT