This paper provides an overview of the Internet of Things (IoT) with emphasis on enabling technologies, protocols, and application issues. The IoT is enabled by the latest developments in RFID, smart sensors, communication technologies, and Internet protocols. The basic premise is to have smart sensors collaborate directly without human involvement to deliver a new class of applications. The current revolution in Internet, mobile, and machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies can be seen as the first phase of the IoT. In the coming years, the IoT is expected to bridge diverse technologies to enable new applications by connecting physical objects together in support of intelligent decision making. This paper starts by providing a horizontal overview of the IoT. Then, we give an overview of some technical details that pertain to the IoT enabling technologies, protocols, and applications. Compared to other survey papers in the field, our objective is to provide a more thorough summary of the most relevant protocols and application issues to enable researchers and application developers to get up to speed quickly on how the different protocols fit together to deliver desired functionalities without having to go through RFCs and the standards specifications. We also provide an overview of some of the key IoT challenges presented in the recent literature and provide a summary of related research work. Moreover, we explore the relation between the IoT and other emerging technologies including big data analytics and cloud and fog computing. We also present the need for better horizontal integration among IoT services. Finally, we present detailed service use-cases to illustrate how the different protocols presented in the paper fit together to deliver desired IoT services.

Internet of Things: A Survey on Enabling Technologies, Protocols, and Applications

Millimeter wave (mmWave) signals experience orders-of-magnitude more pathloss than the microwave signals currently used in most wireless applications and all cellular systems. MmWave systems must therefore leverage large antenna arrays, made possible by the decrease in wavelength, to combat pathloss with beamforming gain. Beamforming with multiple data streams, known as precoding, can be used to further improve mmWave spectral efficiency. Both beamforming and precoding are done digitally at baseband in traditional multi-antenna systems. The high cost and power consumption of mixed-signal devices in mmWave systems, however, make analog processing in the RF domain more attractive. This hardware limitation restricts the feasible set of precoders and combiners that can be applied by practical mmWave transceivers. In this paper, we consider transmit precoding and receiver combining in mmWave systems with large antenna arrays. We exploit the spatial structure of mmWave channels to formulate the precoding/combining problem as a sparse reconstruction problem. Using the principle of basis pursuit, we develop algorithms that accurately approximate optimal unconstrained precoders and combiners such that they can be implemented in low-cost RF hardware. We present numerical results on the performance of the proposed algorithms and show that they allow mmWave systems to approach their unconstrained performance limits, even when transceiver hardware constraints are considered.

Spatially Sparse Precoding in Millimeter Wave MIMO Systems

Millimeter wave (mmWave) holds promise as a carrier frequency for fifth generation cellular networks. Because mmWave signals are sensitive to blockage, prior models for cellular networks operated in the ultra high frequency (UHF) band do not apply to analyze mmWave cellular networks directly. Leveraging concepts from stochastic geometry, this paper proposes a general framework to evaluate the coverage and rate performance in mmWave cellular networks. Using a distance-dependent line-of-site (LOS) probability function, the locations of the LOS and non-LOS base stations are modeled as two independent non-homogeneous Poisson point processes, to which different path loss laws are applied. Based on the proposed framework, expressions for the signal-to-noise-and-interference ratio (SINR) and rate coverage probability are derived. The mmWave coverage and rate performance are examined as a function of the antenna geometry and base station density. The case of dense networks is further analyzed by applying a simplified system model, in which the LOS region of a user is approximated as a fixed LOS ball. The results show that dense mmWave networks can achieve comparable coverage and much higher data rates than conventional UHF cellular systems, despite the presence of blockages. The results suggest that the cell size to achieve the optimal SINR scales with the average size of the area that is LOS to a user.

Coverage and Rate Analysis for Millimeter-Wave Cellular Networks

LTE Release 8 is one of the primary broadband technologies based on OFDM, which is currently being commercialized. LTE Release 8, which is mainly deployed in a macro/microcell layout, provides improved system capacity and coverage, high peak data rates, low latency, reduced operating costs, multi-antenna support, flexible bandwidth operation and seamless integration with existing systems. LTE-Advanced (also known as LTE Release 10) significantly enhances the existing LTE Release 8 and supports much higher peak rates, higher throughput and coverage, and lower latencies, resulting in a better user experience. Additionally, LTE Release 10 will support heterogeneous deployments where low-power nodes comprising picocells, femtocells, relays, remote radio heads, and so on are placed in a macrocell layout. The LTE-Advanced features enable one to meet or exceed IMT-Advanced requirements. It may also be noted that LTE Release 9 provides some minor enhancement to LTE Release 8 with respect to the air interface, and includes features like dual-layer beamforming and time-difference- of-arrival-based location techniques. In this article an overview of the techniques being considered for LTE Release 10 (aka LTEAdvanced) is discussed. This includes bandwidth extension via carrier aggregation to support deployment bandwidths up to 100 MHz, downlink spatial multiplexing including single-cell multi-user multiple-input multiple-output transmission and coordinated multi point transmission, uplink spatial multiplexing including extension to four-layer MIMO, and heterogeneous networks with emphasis on Type 1 and Type 2 relays. Finally, the performance of LTEAdvanced using IMT-A scenarios is presented and compared against IMT-A targets for full buffer and bursty traffic model.

LTE-advanced: next-generation wireless broadband technology [Invited Paper]

Due to the broadcast nature of radio propagation, the wireless air interface is open and accessible to both authorized and illegitimate users. This completely differs from a wired network, where communicating devices are physically connected through cables and a node without direct association is unable to access the network for illicit activities. The open communications environment makes wireless transmissions more vulnerable than wired communications to malicious attacks, including both the passive eavesdropping for data interception and the active jamming for disrupting legitimate transmissions. Therefore, this paper is motivated to examine the security vulnerabilities and threats imposed by the inherent open nature of wireless communications and to devise efficient defense mechanisms for improving the wireless network security. We first summarize the security requirements of wireless networks, including their authenticity, confidentiality, integrity, and availability issues. Next, a comprehensive overview of security attacks encountered in wireless networks is presented in view of the network protocol architecture, where the potential security threats are discussed at each protocol layer. We also provide a survey of the existing security protocols and algorithms that are adopted in the existing wireless network standards, such as the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and the long-term evolution (LTE) systems. Then, we discuss the state of the art in physical-layer security, which is an emerging technique of securing the open communications environment against eavesdropping attacks at the physical layer. Several physical-layer security techniques are reviewed and compared, including information-theoretic security, artificial-noise-aided security, security-oriented beamforming, diversity-assisted security, and physical-layer key generation approaches. Since a jammer emitting radio signals can readily interfere with the legitimate wireless users, we also introduce the family of various jamming attacks and their countermeasures, including the constant jammer, intermittent jammer, reactive jammer, adaptive jammer, and intelligent jammer. Additionally, we discuss the integration of physical-layer security into existing authentication and cryptography mechanisms for further securing wireless networks. Finally, some technical challenges which remain unresolved at the time of writing are summarized and the future trends in wireless security are discussed.

/pdf/a-survey-on-wireless-security-technical-challenges-recent-3uamoalvot.pdf

A Survey on Wireless Security: Technical Challenges, Recent Advances, and Future Trends

A system (100) and methods (400, 500) for alerting user equipment devices (116) in a wireless communication network (102) to broadcasts while limiting the amount of power that must be consumed in order to ascertain if the user equipment devices (116) have subscribed to the broadcasts are provided. A communication indicator (300) that is compatible with UMTS protocols and includes, in addition to paging indicators, one or more broadcast category indicator codes (304) is provided. Devices receiving the communication indicator (300) are able to ascertain based on the broadcast category indicator codes (304) whether there is a need to expend further power in determined whether they are subscribed to the broadcast.

Method and apparatus for broadcast service classification and notification

A cellular communication system (100) comprises a first base station (103) which schedules resource for a user equipment (101). When receiving a resource allocation message, the user equipment (101) transmits a first message comprising a transmit indication to a plurality of base stations (103-109) wherein the transmit indication is indicative of a subsequent transmission of a second message. The user equipment (101) then proceeds to determine a transmit format for the second message; and to transmit the second message to the plurality of base stations (103-109) using the transmit format. When receiving the transmit indication, the plurality of base stations (103-109) proceed to configure their receivers to receive the second message. The first message may be transmitted in a control channel and the second message may be transmitted in a user data channel.

Method and apparatus for uplink communication in a cellular communication system

A method for scheduling and resource allocation in a data communication network ( 104 ) that transports data packets for a plurality of sessions is disclosed The method includes monitoring a packet delay of a session data packet awaiting transport ( 302 ) The method also includes re-evaluating a scheduling priority of the session data packet ( 304 ) The re-evaluation of the scheduling priority is based on one or more functions of the packet delay

Method and system for scheduling and resource allocation in a data communication network

Various embodiments are described to address the need for an apparatus and method of outer-loop power control for enhanced uplink communications that address some of the outstanding problems in the prior art. Generally expressed, a base site (131), while a first uplink channel is inactive, monitors packet retransmissions to generate an uplink quality indicator. Here, packet retransmissions refers to the number of packet retransmissions used by a remote unit (101) to send packets to a base transceiver station (111) via at least one other uplink channel. Also, while the first uplink channel is inactive, the base site adjusts a signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) target for the first uplink channel based on the uplink quality indicator. Then, when the first uplink channel becomes active, the base site begins power controlling the first uplink channel using the SIR target.

Method and apparatus for outer-loop power control for enhanced uplink communications

The Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to reach a massive scale in the next few years and LTE has introduced a feature in Rel-13 called eMTC to support wide-area connectivity for IoT devices. One important trend for IoT is the integration of voice capability into the devices. However, low-cost, low-complexity IoT User Equipment (UE) typically supports only half-duplex communication and low data rates. In this paper, we compare the performance and coverage of low-complexity eMTC UE with legacy non-eMTC UE for delay-sensitive Voice over LTE (VoLTE) service. It is shown that eMTC UE can provide similar coverage to non-eMTC UE using the same delay and block error rate requirements. If the delay budget or quality of service can be relaxed for eMTC, then eMTC can provide slightly better VoLTE coverage. This allows service operators to support voice capability for IoT devices using existing infrastructure footprint.

Rapeepat Ratasuk

Papers

Method and apparatus for broadcast service classification and notification

Method and apparatus for uplink communication in a cellular communication system

Method and system for scheduling and resource allocation in a data communication network

Method and apparatus for outer-loop power control for enhanced uplink communications

Performance Analysis of Voice over LTE Using Low-Complexity eMTC Devices