Abstract
The Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging paradigm that enables many beneficial and prospective application areas, such as smart metering, smart homes, smart industries, and smart city architectures, to name but a few. These application areas typically comprise end nodes and gateways that are often interconnected by low power wide area network (LPWAN) technologies, which provide low power consumption rates to elongate the battery lifetimes of end nodes, low IoT device development/purchasing costs, long transmission range, and increased scalability, albeit at low data rates. However, most LPWAN technologies are often confronted with a number of physical (PHY) layer challenges, including increased interference, spectral inefficiency, and/or low data rates for which cognitive radio (CR), being a predominantly PHY layer solution, suffices as a potential solution. Consequently, in this article, we survey the potentials of integrating CR in LPWAN for IoT-based applications. First, we present and discuss a detailed list of different state-of-the-art LPWAN technologies; we summarize the most recent LPWAN standardization bodies, alliances, and consortia while emphasizing their disposition towards the integration of CR in LPWAN. We then highlight the concept of CR in LPWAN via a PHY-layer front-end model and discuss the benefits of CR-LPWAN for IoT applications. A number of research challenges and future directions are also presented. This article aims to provide a unique and holistic overview of CR in LPWAN with the intention of emphasizing its potential benefits.
Highlights
The Internet of Things (IoT) is defined as a communication network that connects things with naming, sensing, and processing abilities [1]
The model to be described is considered following ideas gleaned from three different well known platforms, including Long Range (LoRa), Sigfox, and the Ingenu architectures. In this regard, such a simple cognitive radio (CR)-low power wide area network (LPWAN) PHY layer architecture is presented in Figure 3 wherein the surrounding spectrum is first scanned by the CR-LPWAN system in order to determine whether or not white spaces are available for use
Low power wide area networks (LPWANs) are being widely deployed to interconnect many IoT-based applications, applications that require long transmission ranges, low device/development costs, low power consumption rates, and high scalability, albeit at low data rates. Many of these LPWAN technologies are frequently susceptible to a number of persisting challenges, such as increased interference in the ISM band, spectral inefficiency, and low data rates
Summary
The Internet of Things (IoT) is defined as a communication network that connects things with naming, sensing, and processing abilities [1]. LPWANs are popular for a number of unique characteristics, some of which are: they provide low power consumption rates [4], simplified network topologies, low developmental and purchase cost of devices, long transmission ranges (distance), simple and scalable deployment schemes, thin infrastructure, small data frame sizes, albeit at low data rates [4,5] These characteristics closely align with the aforementioned demands of many IoT applications, thereby serving to motivate the present drive towards the development and performance improvement of new and existing. IoT devices to be connected over LPWAN standards by 2021 [11] In this regard, some notable application areas that aim to benefit from LPWAN technologies include, but are not limited to ocean monitoring, smart city systems, smart grid, smart metering, soil monitoring, home automation, smart industries, wild life survey, intelligent transport systems, and forest management.
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