Investigations of the Wireless M-Bus System Resilience under Challenging Propagation Conditions

Abstract

Wireless M-Bus is a short-range wireless telemetry system that plays a vital role in the capillary sector of the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. Similar to any other IoT technology, it is meant to operate in harsh environmental conditions such as production plants, cellars, or other under-ground or indoor metering installations. This paper describes the methodology and outcomes of a carefully designed measurement campaign targeted at investigating this system’s immunity to jamming and extremely fading channels. The former was carried out in an anechoic chamber and the latter in a reverberation chamber, both specifically adapted for these types of measurements. The presented methodology allows for reproducible research. The article demonstrates PER measurements results as a function of CNIR for all throughput modes offered by the tested devices (ranging from 4.8 kb/s to 100 kb/s). The threshold CNIR values are universal and may prove useful in an IoT network design that is based on the Wireless M-Bus technology.