LTE and NB-IoT Performance Estimation Based on Indicators Measured by the Radio Module

Abstract

Monitoring the operating parameters of power grids is extremely important for their proper functioning as well as for ensuring the security of the entire infrastructure. As the idea of the Internet of Things becomes more ubiquitous, there are tools for monitoring the state of the complex electrical grid and means to control it. There are also developed new measuring devices and transmission technologies allowing for the transfer of performed measurements from many places to the network management center. However, there are still no devices that act as data concentrators, which would integrate many transmission technologies and protocols in one device, supporting the communication between those different transmission technologies and which would realize edge computing to assist the management center by prioritizing and combining transmitted data. In this article, the authors present a device that meets the above-mentioned requirements. There are presented research results leading to the development of a decision algorithm, called Multilink—ML, dedicated to the presented device. This algorithm enables the selection between LTE and NB-IoT interfaces for packet transmission without the need to burden the communication system with additional transmissions.

Evaluation of the Use of M2M-Type NB-IoT and LTE Technologies for Maritime Communication Systems

“…The target BLER of 10 -1 is a typical value, considered during the coverage estimation and transmission performance evaluation in 4G systems with packet-switched signal transmission. From our measurements (presented in [9]), it can be seen that, for this value of BLER, the transmission with a relatively small number of packet retransmissions is possible. In general, we can define different BLER target values.…”

“…The KODEŚ data concentrator [9] was developed at the Gdansk University of Technology at the Faculty of Electronics Telecommunications and Informatics. KODEŚ is dedicated to the concentration of data from different systems: AMI, IoT, SCADA and HAN.…”

“…maritime communications. KODEŚ is equipped with functions capable of making independent decisions at the network interface (edge computing), gateway functions and the innovative so-called 'Multilink Function' (MF) [9]. This function enables a choice selection of radio interface for reliable communication using different systems, such as NB-IoT, LTE, UMTS, GSM and, in the future, 5G New Radio and 5G NB-IoT.…”

“…MF decides which communication interface should be used for particular data, based on the importance and amount of data, as well as link quality and availability. From the point of view of this paper, KODEŚ can use different radio interfaces divided into two groups, including cellular-public interfaces (LTE, UMTS, GSM) and NB-IoT [9].…”

“…The standardised models mainly concern the impulse response of the channel and the emulation of the Doppler effect in various propagation environments (urban environments in the case of our equipment). Measurements were performed automatically with the use of proprietary software [9]. The assigned power of the useful signal was changed during the measurements and the block error rate BLER, the obtained bit rate, and the signal delays were measured.…”