NB-IoT: A Candidate Technology for Massive IoT in the 5G Era

Abstract

The existing mobile network infrastructure is currently optimized to support the Narrow-Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT), which is meant to provide numerous services in poor coverage areas, with ultra-low power consumption. The question that arises is whether (and to what extent) NB-IoT can meet the requirement for massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC) in the 5G era. In view of this, we study coverage enhancement in NB-IoT. We describe the subframe structure for various physical channels of NB-IoT and explain the repetition mechanism used for downlink transmissions in poor coverage areas. Focusing on optimizing this mechanism, we analyze how the latency and user blockage can be reduced by a proper selection of the downlink radio resources.

Building Upon NB-IoT Networks: A Roadmap Towards 5G New Radio Networks

“…WHAN, Wi-Fi, and WPAN, examples such as Bluetooth, Mi-Wi, ANT, 6lowpan, ZigBee, and Z-wave) [13] and long-range MTC wireless technologies (e.g. low-power, wide-area networks (LPWAN)), and finally, the MTC services [14].…”

“…Considering the perspective of frequency spectrum licensing, LPWAN can be categorized into two classes, namely; the non-3GPP standards (unlicensed spectrum) and the 3GPP standards (licensed spectrum), [14]. The first category consists of LPWA technologies such as Sigfox LoRa, Weightless, Ingenu RPMA, Z-wave [15], etc.…”

“…The MTC service offers an optimized 3GPP network support to connected devices and services to the potential 5G-IoT as specified in Rel. 14 [19]. The 5G-IoT, is expected to connect more than 70 use cases cutting across a range of new services and markets from IoT to vehicular communications, applications, and control, industrial automation, tactile internet, drone control systems, remote maintenance, and monitoring systems [20], theft prevention and recovery, as well as smart cities [21], smart buildings and surveillance [22], intelligent health systems, smart metering [23], smart grid [24], smart parking, smart lighting, shared bicycle, connected cow [15], [25], and lots of other use cases.…”

An Efficient Polar Coding Scheme for Uplink Data Transmission in Narrowband Internet of Things Systems

“…Release-14 [8]integrates NB-IoT into 5G including low latency reduction, new wake up receiver design for efficient operation, higher density support, and multiple Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) feedback which achieve a better throughput with repetitive transmission. It is expected to achieve long-lasting of battery life (least 10years), enhanced coverage (more than Bluetooth and GPRS), low latency (less than 10 msec), massive connection (about 10,000 devices per cell), low cost (less than $1 per module), and the peak data rate of about 250 kbs per second [9].…”

Programmable manipulation of zeroth‐order resonance based on an active and digitally coding metamaterial antenna

“…We achieve the PZOR (programmable ZOR) with digitally coding through active MTM antenna from 4.72 to 5.27 GHz, by utilising the Micro‐Controller Unit (MCU) board with C Language to implement the programmable voltages for diode switches in each unit. Thanks to the MTM cell consisting of two isolated symmetric parts and both of them can be individually tuned and digitally coded, we can achieve six programmable sliced Narrow‐Bandwidth (NB) spectrum channels [5], which can be applied to NB‐IoT (Internet of Things) for 5G in the near future, such as smart metering, and smart parking.…”