Abstract
Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs) play crucial roles in the implementation of low-power and low-cost wide area distributed systems. Currently, two enabling technologies are the main competitors within the connectivity field for the Internet of Things (IoT), primarily because of their scalability, wide range and low power features: Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) and Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT). In this paper, a brand new network architecture is presented, which combines both aforementioned technologies. Such a network accounts for sensor nodes, multi-protocol gateways, an a cloud infrastructure. Sensor nodes may be alternatively provided with LoRaWAN or NB-IoT. Multi-protocol gateways can receive and demodulate LoRaWAN packets and upload them to the cloud via the Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol over NB-IoT. The cloud is transparent with respect to the transmission technology, meaning that data are acquired and stored regardless of the exploited technique (i.e., LoRaWAN or NB-IoT). Indeed, sensor nodes using NB-IoT can send data to the cloud and can directly communicate with other NB-IoT nodes setting up a fog computing paradigm on peer-to-peer subnetworks. This approach may be crucial for the development of complex IoT infrastructures while providing high flexibility.
Highlights
The rapid diffusion of Internet of Things (IoT)-based facilities is leading to the definition of day-by-day more complex technological architectures, encompassing a large number of devices ranging from simple sensor nodes to complex edge computing equipment within single heterogeneous infrastructures
This test aimed to assess the performances of the Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN)-Narrow Band IoT (NB-IoT) Gateway in terms of successfully forwarded packets from the Sensor Nodes Layer to the Cloud Layer
Throughout the test, 3724 LoRaWAN packets were broadcast by the LoRaWAN Node and 3006 packets were correctly forwarded by the gateway to the Cloud Layer
Summary
The rapid diffusion of Internet of Things (IoT)-based facilities is leading to the definition of day-by-day more complex technological architectures, encompassing a large number of devices ranging from simple sensor nodes to complex edge computing equipment within single heterogeneous infrastructures. The different requirements of these elements have paved the way to the adoption of a plethora of different data transmission technologies, of which the technical features are designed to satisfy specific system requisites. They have driven the technological development of IoT data transmission techniques that implement crucial characteristics for a myriad of application scenarios: reduced power consumption, long transmission range and low cost. In the last five years, a number of technologies satisfying these requirements emerged, leading to the definition of the Low. Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) concept. One example concerns the usability of LoRaWAN networks in remote places, where some kind of network connection is required for packet forwarding from LoRaWAN
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