A hybrid network architecture by integrating both 2.4 GHz network and Sub-GHz network and its application in field environment surveillance system

Abstract

Various networks, many of which are composed of embedded systems, are interconnected to form Internet of Things (IoT), in order to cooperate to provide more intelligent service for people. It can be imagined that the networks integration in IoT will be challenged, because different networks are heterogeneous and differ in terms of topology, coverage, data rate, power consumption, etc. That's to say that the key for networks integration will be focused on how to combine the benefits of various networks effectively. In this paper, a hybrid network architecture aiming at combining the benefits of two commonly used wireless networks, 2.4 GHz network and Sub-GHz network, is proposed. The architecture consists of four parts: 2.4 GHz Network, Sub-GHz Network, Cloud-Based Server and Mobile Application. It should be noted that our design intent is to make full use of the advantages of various networks, while minimizing the new standardization or changes to current network specifications. Then a field surveillance environment system is implemented to present proposed architecture's potentiality of being adaptive to complex scenarios, and how to build a practical system based on proposed architecture. Not only the system overall design is presented, in which the specific protocols used in 2.4 GHz network and Sub-GHz network are chosen according to the field environment surveillance scenario, but also the detailed hardware and software implementation of the system is presented. Finally, the experimental performance evaluation of field environment surveillance system is presented. The experimental results show that the proposed architecture and implemented system are adaptive to complex field environment, and have good agreement with our design intent.