This paper compares the performance of two IEEE802.15.4 physical layers in the Smart Building context: 2.4 GHz O-QPSK and sub-GHz OFDM. The former has been in the IEEE802.15.4 standard since 2003, the latter was rolled into its 2015 revision. OFDM promises exceptional performance, in particular in environments with high external interference and multi-path fading. This paper starts with a comprehensive overview of IEEE802.15.4 and IEEE802.15.4g, with a particular focus on OFDM, its design drivers and modes of operation. The second half of this paper presents results from an exhaustive benchmarking campaign of both technologies in a building environment, and discusses lessons learnt. We show how OFDM has a higher range, even at 400 kbps and 800 kbps data rates. We then quantify the importance of frequency repetition in OFDM, and of using a wide communication channel, and we show how the use of OFDM can result in a 2-4× decrease in power consumption compared to 2.4 GHz O-QPSK. We conclude by recommending the use of OFDM option 1, with MCS2 for short (<128 B) frames, and MCS3 otherwise.

IEEE802.15.4g is a low-power wireless standard initially designed for Smart Utility Networks, i.e., for connecting smart meters. IEEE802.15.4g operates at sub-GHz frequencies to offer 2–3× longer communication range compared to its 2.4 GHz counterpart. Although the standard offers 3 PHYs (Frequncy Shift Keying, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing and Offset-Quadrature Phase Shift Keying) with numerous configurations, 2-FSK at 50 kbps is the mandatory and most prevalent radio setting used. This article looks at whether IEEE802.15.4g can be used to provide connectivity for outdoor deployments. We conduct range measurements using the totality of the standard (all modulations with all further parametrization) in the 863–870 MHz band, within four scenarios which we believe cover most low-power wireless outdoor applications: line of sight, smart agriculture, urban canyon, and smart metering. We show that there are radio settings that outperform the “2-FSK at 50 kbps” base setting in terms of range, throughput and reliability. Results show that highly reliable communications with data rates up to 800 kbps can be achieved in urban environments at 540 m between nodes, and the longest useful radio link is obtained at 779 m. We discuss how IEEE802.15.4g can be used for outdoor operation, and reduce the number of repeater nodes that need to be placed compared to a 2.4 GHz solution.

Testbeds are a key tool for evaluating and benchmarking IoT solutions. Several public testbeds are being run by institutions around the world. These are built with a variety of tools, and are typically "heavy" installations with dedicated wiring, hard installations, switches, servers, and a reservation and experiment management back-end. To complement those, we have taken the opposite, minimalistic, approach in designing the OpenTestBed. The OpenTestBed features all the tools necessary to build a testbed from off-the-shelf components such as Raspberry Pi single-board computers, OpenMote B low-power wireless devices, and glass domes. Each TestBox in the testbed connects to an MQTT broker over WiFi, no dedicated wiring or back-end is needed. The Inria-Paris OpenTestBed testbed of 80 motes has cost only 9,480 euros, and is open-access. The OpenTestBed is a fully open-source and open-hardware project, which several institutions have already adopted.

In this paper, we experimentally evaluate and compare the robustness against interference of the OQPSK-DSSS (Offset Quadrature Phase Shift Keying -Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum) and the SUN-OFDM (Smart Utility Network -Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) physical layers, as defined in the IEEE 802.15.4-2015 standard. The objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the impact different types of interference produce on these modulations, in terms of the resulting PDR (Packet Delivery Ratio) and depending on the length of the packet being transmitted. The results show that the SUN-OFDM physical layer provides significant benefits compared to the ubiquitous OQPSK-DSSS in terms of interference robustness, regardless of the interference type and the packet length. Overall, this demonstrates the suitability of choosing the SUN-OFDM physical layer when deploying lowpower wireless networks in industrial scenarios, specially taking into consideration the possibility of trading-off robustness and spectrum efficiency depending on the application requirements.