Experimental Data on Connecting Proprietary IoT Systems to Cellular Networks

Abstract

This paper presents a proof-of-concept experiment on how to connect proprietary IoT systems to the IoT platform in the cellular networks. With billions of IoT devices expected to be connected by 2020, there are increasing concerns on how these devices will interconnect and inter-operate. Proprietary IoT solutions from different manufacturers understand different digital languages and communication procedures, therefore they do not easily inter-operate. With the availability of the NB-IoT and LTE-M protocols in the cellular system, ample opportunities exist for leveraging the cellular networks for IoT transport services. In this paper, methods to connect proprietary IoT systems to the cellular IoT infrastructure were explored. Using off-the-shelf wireless sensor nodes and cell modems, a temperature-monitoring IoT system where sensor data is transported from remote sites to an IoT data processing center located at the customer's premises using cellular network as the transport link was developed. Sensor data received over cellular links were then recorded and plotted for several days of temperature monitoring. Delay analyses for IoT data transmitted to the cell modem were then presented. Measurement and analytical data show that the average delay that a cell modem connection experiences goes up as the spectral efficiency (or data points transmitted per channel use) increase, and that higher delay is experienced for indoor use cases compared to the outdoor use cases. Also, cell modems that are far away from the base station generally experience longer delay compared to those that are closer to the base station, as would be expected.