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Module IV
IOT CONNECTIVITY TECHNOLOGIES
Dr. Rejeesh Rayaroth
Asst. Professor CSE
MITE

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INTRODUCTION
 This Module outlines the main features of fifteen identified commonly used
and upcoming IoT connectivity enablers. These connectivity technologies
can be integrated with existing sensing, actuation, and processing solutions
for extending connectivity to them.
 Some of these solutions necessarily require integration with a minimal form
of processing infrastructure, such as Wi-Fi.
 In contrast, others, such as Zigbee, can work in a standalone mode altogether,
without the need for external processing and hardware support.
 These solutions are outlined in the subsequent sections

IEEE 802.15.4
 The IEEE 802.15.4 standard represents
the most popular standard for low data
rate wireless personal area networks
(WPAN)
 This standard was developed to enable
monitoring and control applications
with lower data rate and extend the
operational life for uses with low-
power consumption.
 This standard uses only the first two
layers—physical and data link—for
operation along with two new layers
above it: 1) logical link control (LLC)
and 2) service-specific convergence
sublayer (SSCS).

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 The additional layers help in the

communication of the lower layers
with the upper layers.
 Figure shows the IEEE 802.15.4
operational layers.
 The IEEE 802.15.4 standard was
curated to operate in the ISM
(industrial, scientific, and medical)
band.

 The direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) modulation technique is used

in IEEE 802.15.4 for communication purposes, enabling a wider bandwidth of
operation with enhanced security by the modulating pseudo-random noise
signal.
 This standard exhibits high tolerance to noise and interference and offers better
measures for improving link reliability.
 The low-speed versions of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard use binary phase shift
keying (BPSK), whereas the versions with high data rate implement offset
quadrature phase shift keying (O-QPSK) for encoding the message to be
communicated.

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 Carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA-CA) is the

channel access method used for maintaining the sequence of transmitted
signals and preventing deadlocks due to multiple sources trying to access the
same channel.
 The IEEE 802.15.4 standard utilizes infrequently occurring and very short
packet transmissions with a low duty cycle (typically, < 1%) to minimize the
power consumption.
 The minimum power level defined is –3 dBm or 0.5 mW for the radios
utilizing this standard. The transmission, for most cases, is line of sight (LOS),
with the standard transmission range varying between 10 m to 75 m. The best-
case transmission range achieved outdoors can be up to 1000 m.

 This standard typically defines two networking topologies: 1) Star and 2)

mesh.
 There are seven variants identified with in IEEE 802.15.4-A, B. C, D, E, F, and
G.
 Variants A/B are the base versions,
 C is assigned for China, and D for Japan.
 Variants E, F, and G are assigned respectively for industrial applications, active
RFID (radio frequency identification) uses, and smart utility systems.

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Supported Devices & Networks in IEEE 802.15.4

 The IEEE 802.15.4 standard supports two
types of devices:
 1) reduced function device (RFD) and
 2) full function devices (FFD).
 FFDs can talk to all types of devices and
support full protocol stacks. However, these
devices are costly and energy consuming due
to increased requirements for support of full
stacks.
 In contrast, RFDs can only talk to an FFD
and have lower power consumption
requirements due to minimal CPU/RAM
requirements.
 Fig. shows the device types and network
types supported by the IEEE 802.15.4
standard

 The IEEE 802.15.4 standard supports two

network types:
 1) Beacon-enabled networks and
 2) non-beacon-enabled networks.
 The periodic transmission of beacon
messages characterizes beacon-enabled
networks. Here, the data frames sent via
slotted CSMA/CA with a superframe
structure managed by a personal area
network (PAN) coordinator.
 These beacons are used for synchronization
and association of other nodes with the
coordinator. The scope of operation of this
network type spans the whole network

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 In contrast, for non-beacon-enabled

networks, unslotted CSMA/CA (contention
based) is used for transmission of data
frames, and beacons are used only for link
layer discovery.
 This network typically requires both source
and destination IDs of the communicating
nodes.
 As the IEEE 802.15.4 is primarily a mesh
protocol, all protocol addressing must
adhere to mesh configurations such that
there is a decentralized communication
amongst nodes.

Frame types associated with the IEEE 802.15.4

 Fig. shows the frame types associated with the
IEEE 802.15.4 standard.
 Beacon frames are used for signaling and
synchronization;
 data transmission is done through the data
frames; and message reception is confirmed
using the acknowledgment frames.
 MAC and command frames are used for
association requests/responses, dissociation
requests, data requests, beacon requests,
coordinator realignment, and orphan
notifications.

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Zigbee
 The Zigbee radio communication is designed for enabling wireless personal
area networks (WPANs). It uses the IEEE 802.15.4 standard for defining its
physical and medium access control (layers 1 and 2 of the OSI stack).
 Zigbee finds common usage in sensor and control networks .
 It was designed for low-powered mesh networks at low cost, which can be
broadly implemented for controlling and monitoring applications, typically in
the range of 10–100 meters .
 The PHY and MAC layers in this communication are designed to handle
multiple low data rate operating devices.
 The frequencies of 2.4 GHz, 902–928 MHz or 868 MHz are commonly
associated with Zigbee WPAN operations.
 The Zigbee commonly uses 250 kbps data rate which is optimal for both
periodic and intermittent full-duplex data transmission between two Zigbee
entities.

Network topologies supported in Zigbee,

 Zigbee supports various network configurations such as master-to-master
communication or master-to-slave communication
 Several network topologies are supported in Zigbee, are the star , mesh ,
and cluster tree .
 Any of the supported topologies may consist of a single or multiple
coordinators.

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Star topology
 In star topology, a coordinator
initiates and manages the other
devices in the Zigbee network.
 The other devices which
communicate with the coordinator
are called end devices.
 As the star topology is easy to
maintain and deploy, it finds
widespread usage in applications
where a single central controller
manages multiple devices

Mesh topology
 A network can be significantly extended
in the Zigbee mesh and tree topologies
by using multiple routers where the root
of the topology is the coordinator.
 These configurations allow any Zigbee
device or node to communicate with
any other adjacent node.
 In case of the failure of one or more
nodes, the information is automatically
forwarded to other devices through
other functional devices.

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Cluster tree
 In a Zigbee cluster tree network, a
coordinator is placed in the leaf node
position of the cluster, which is, in
turn, connected to a parent
coordinator who initiates the entire
network.

 A typical Zigbee network structure can consist of three different device types,
namely the Zigbee coordinator, router, and end device
 Every Zigbee network has a minimum of one coordinator device type who acts
as the root; it also functions as the network bridge.
 The coordinator performs data handling and storing operations.
 The Zigbee routers play the role of intermediate nodes that connect two or
more Zigbee devices, which may be of the same or different types.
 Finally, the end devices have restricted functionality; communication is limited
to the parent nodes.
 This reduced functionality enables them to have a lower power consumption
requirement, allowing them to operate for an extended duration. There are
provisions to operate Zigbee in different modes to save power and prolong the
deployed network lifetime.

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Zigbee protocol stack.

 The PHY and MAC layers of the
IEEE 802.15.4 standard are used to
build the protocol for Zigbee
architecture;
 the protocol is then accentuated by
network and application layers
designed especially for Zigbee.
 Fig. shows the Zigbee protocol
stack.

Different layers of zigbee stack

 The various layer of the Zigbee stack are as follows.
1. Physical Layer
2. MAC Layer:
3. Network Layer:
4. Application Support Sub-Layer
5. Application Framework

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 1)Physical Layer:
 This layer is tasked with transmitting and receiving signals, and performing
modulation and demodulation operations on them, respectively.
 The Zigbee physical layer consists of 3 bands made up of 27 channels:
the 2.4 GHz band has 16 channels at 250 kbps
the 868.3 MHz has one channel at 20 kbps; and
the 902-928 MHz has ten channels at 40 kbps

 2)MAC Layer:
 This layer ensures channel access and reliability of data transmission.
 CSMA-CA is used for channel access and intra-channel interference
avoidance.
 This layer handles communication synchronization using beacon frames.
 3)Network Layer:
 This layer handles operations such as setting up the network, connecting and
disconnecting the devices, configuring the devices, and routing. •

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 Application Support Sub-Layer:

 This layer handles the interfacing services, control services, bridge between
network and other layers, and enables the necessary services to interface
with the lower layers for Zigbee device object (ZDO) and Zigbee application
objects (ZAO).
 This layer is primarily tasked with data management services and is
responsible for service-based device matching.
 Application Framework:
 Two types of data services are provided by the application framework:
 provision of a key-value pair and generation of generic messages.
 A key-value pair is used for getting attributes within the application objects,
whereas a generic message is a developer-defined structure.

Operational modes
 Zigbee handles two-way data transfer using two operational modes
 1) Non beaconmode and 2) beacon mode.
 Non beaconmode :
As the coordinators and routers monitor the active state of the received data
continuously in the non-beacon mode, it is more power intensive.
In this mode, there is no provision for the routers and coordinators to sleep.
 Beacon mode :
A beacon mode allows the coordinators and routers to launch into a very
low-power sleep state in the absence of data communication from end
devices.
TheZigbee coordinator is designed to periodically wake up and transmit
beacons to theavailable routers in the network.
These beacon networks are used when there is a need for lower duty cycles
and more extended battery power consumption

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Thread
 Thread is built upon the IEEE 802.15.4 radio standard; it is used for extremely
low power consumption and low latency deployments.
 Unlike Zigbee, Thread can extend direct Internet connectivity to the devices it
is connected with.
 Thread removes the need for a mobile phone or a proprietary gateway to be in
the range of devices for accessing the Internet.
 It is specially designed for IoT with the need for interoperability, security,
power, and architecture addressed in a single radio platform.

The functional protocol stack of Thread

 Fig. shows the comparison of the Thread stack against the standard ISO-OSI
stack.

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 Thread is built on open standards to

achieve a low-power wireless mesh
networking protocol with universal
Internet Protocol (IP) support
 The standard is easy to set up and
simple to use; it can reliably connect
thousands of devices to the Internet or
a cloud with no single point of failure.
 It has the distinctive feature of self
healing and reconfiguration in the
event of the addition or removal of a
device

Thread network architecture

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 Thread enables IoT interoperability by utilizing a certification application that

validates a device’s conformance to the specification as well as its interoperability
against multiple certified stacks.
 This feature ensures the resilience of connectivity, even with diverse networks, in
turn enabling its users to have consistent operational experience.
 Empowering low-power wireless devices with IP connectivity enables Thread to
seamlessly accommodate itself with larger IP-based networks and be a robust option
for most IoT applications such as smart homes/buildings, connected vehicles,and
others.
 This feature of Thread devices removes the need for Internet-enabled proprietary
gateways and cross-stack translators for connection between other technologies.
 The additional benefits of this feature include better resilience to single point of
failures, highly economical deployments, less complex infrastructure, and enhanced
IoT end-to-end device security on the Internet.
 Thread devices can use common infrastructure similar to Wi-Fi networks and can
connect directly to smartphones or computers if they are on the same IP network,
without any additional setup for Thread.

ISA100.11A
 The ISA100.11A is a very low power communication standard and has been
developed and managed by ISA (International Society of Automation).
 Similar to the previous protocols, it uses the IEEE 802.15.4 standard as a base for
building its protocol.
 The standard was mainly proposed for industrial plant automation systems.
 The ISA100.11A is characterized by an IoT compliant protocol stack, which can also
be integrated with wired networks using Ethernet, support for open access protocols
and device-level interoperability; it boasts of a 128-bit AES (Advanced Encryption
Standard) encryption securing all communications.
 The security in ISA100.11A is in two layers: Transport layer and data link layer.
 ISA100.11A provides extensive support for IPv6 and UDP and uses TDMA (time-
division multiple access)-based resource sharing with CSMA-CA.
 Both IPv6 and UDP as well as star topologies are supported by this standard. The
utilization of IPv6 provides certain distinct benefits to ISA100.11A, such as
increased address sizes, enhanced IPSec-based security measures, savings in network
bandwidth by virtue of multicasting and auto address configuration.

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 An ISA100.11A wireless network utilizes the 2.4 GHz frequency band for
communication, similar to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
 To avoid interference over wirelesschannels in the same band, it uses
frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) over atotal of 16 channels.
 A definitive feature of this protocol is channel blacklisting, whichblacklists the
channels already in use by other protocols.
 This enables the protocol to perform even better by further achieving
immunity from interference.

Network architecture of ISA100.11A

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 The ISA100.11A architecture consists of the following:

 1) field devices and 2) backbone devices.
 Field devices
 may be nonrouting I/O devices, handheld devices, routing
devices, which may or may not be fixed or mobile.
 For industrial usage, the inclusion of portable and mobile
devices is highly desirable as it allows floor supervisors and
workers to keep checking various parts of the plant without the
need for dedicated devices for each part.
 The backbone devices
 include backbone routers, gateways, the system manager, and
the security manager, which are kept fixed and not portable.
 The ISA100.11A architecture provides support for mesh, star,
and star–mesh topologies.
 The connected devices in ISA100.11A are collectively referred
to as the downLink (DL) subnet.
 A wireless industrial sensor network (WISN) gateway connects
the ISA100.11A network to the plant network.

ISA100.11A protocol stack

 The average ISA100.11A protocol
stack consists of five different layers:
1) Application layer,
2) Transport layer,
3) Network layer,
4) Data link layer, and
5) Physical layer.
 Fig. compares the ISA100.11A stack
with the standard ISO-OSI stack
 A central system manager handles
network routing by scheduling
communication.

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 The functionalities of the ISA100.11A protocol stack can be outlined as follows:

 Physical Layer:
 It is built upon the IEEE 802.15.4-2006 standard.
 The physical layer communicates on the 2.4 GHz frequency band using a DSSS
(direct sequence spread spectrum) modulation.
 Data Link Layer:
It handles the creation, maintenance, and forwarding packet functionalities
in addition to typical MAC functionalities.
Additionally, it is responsible for operations dealing with the structure of the
data packet, formation of the frame, detecting the error, and bus arbitration.
A data link control (DLC) layer in ISA100.11A, which uses a graph-based
routing, is responsible for specific distinctive functions such as adaptive
channel hopping, detection and recovery of message loss, and clock
synchronization.

 Network Layer:
The ISA100.11A network layer is 6LoWPAN-compliant and uses IPv6
addressing for an end-to-end routing.
Protocol conversion from IPv6 to 6LoWPAN and 6LoWPAN to IPv6 is
executed at this layer by a router.
 Transport Layer:
The ISA100.11A transport layer supports UDP-based connectionless
services.
 Application Layer:
The ISA100.11A stack only specifies system managementapplication in this
layer.

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WirelessHART
 WirelessHART can be considered as the wireless evolution of the highway
addressable remote transducer (HART) protocol
 It is a license-free protocol, which was developed for networking smart field
devices in industrial environments.
 The lack of wires makes the adaptability of this protocol significantly
advantageous over its predecessor, HART, in industrial settings.
 By virtue of its highly encrypted communication, wireless HART is very
secure and has several advantages over traditional communication protocols.
 Similar to Zigbee, wirelessHART uses the IEEE 802.15.4 standard for its
protocols designing

WirelessHART network architecture

 Fig. shows the WirelessHART network
architecture. WirelessHART can communicate
with a central control system in any of the two
ways:
 1) Direct and 2) indirect.
 Direct communication is achieved when the
devices transmit data directly to the gateway in a
clear LOS (typically 250 m).
 Indirect communication is achieved between
devices in a mesh and a gateway when messages
jump from device to device until it reaches the
gateway.
 WirelessHART communication is 99.999%
reliable due to the maintenance of a tight
schedule between message transmissions.
 All wirelessHART devices are back-compatible
and allow for the integration of legacy devices as
well as new ones.

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 The HART encompasses the most number of field devices incorporated in any
fieldnetwork.
 WirelessHART makes device placements more accessible and cheaper
 The wired and unwired versions differ mainly in the network, data link, and
physical layer. The wired HART lacks a network layer.
 HART ensures congestion control in the 2.4 Ghz ISM band by eliminating
channel 26 because of its restricted usage in certain area.
 Theuse of interference-prone channels is avoided by using channel switching
after every transmission. The transmissions are synchronized using 10 ms
time-slots.
 During each time-slot, all available channels can be utilized by the various
nodes in the network, allowing for the simultaneous propagation of 15 packets
through the network, which also minimizes the risk of collisions between
channels.

 Anetwork manager supervises each node in the

network and guides them on when and where to
send packets.
 This network manager allows for collision-free
and timelydelivery of packets between a source
and the destination.
 It updates information regarding neighbors,
signal strength, and information needing a
delivery receipt.
 This network manager also decides which nodes
transmit, which nodes listen, and the frequency
to be utilized in each time-slot.
 It also handles code-based network security and
prevents unauthorized nodes from joining the
network.

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wirelessHART protocol stack

 Fig. shows the comparison of the
wirelessHART protocol stack against
thestandard ISO-OSI stack.
 The various layers of the
wirelessHART stack are outlined
asfollows:
 Physical Layer:
 The IEEE 802.15.4 standard specification
is used for designing the physical layer of
this protocol.
 Its operation is limited to the use of the
2.4 GHz frequency band.
 The channel reliability is significantly
increased by utilizing only 15 channels of
the 2.4 GHz band.

 Data Link Layer:

The data link layer avoids collisions by the use of TDMA.
The communication is also made deterministic by the use of superframes.
WirelessHART superframes consist of 10 ms wide time-slots that are
grouped together.
The use of superframes ensures better controllability of the transmission
timing, collision avoidance, and communication reliability.
This layer incorporates channel hopping and channel blacklisting to increase
reliability and security.
A characteristic feature of the wirelessHART is channel blacklisting. This
feature identifies channels consistently affected by interferenceand removes
them from use.

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 Network and Transport Layers:

 The network and the transport layer work in
tandem to address issues of network traffic,
security, session initiation/termination, and
routing.
 WirelessHART is primarily a mesh-based network,
where each node can accept data from other nodes
in range and forward them to the next node.
 All the devices in its network have an updated
network graph, which defines the routing paths to
be taken.
 Functionally, the OSI stack’s network, transport,
and session layers constitute theWirelessHART’s
network layer

 Application Layer:
The application layer connects gateways and devices through various
command and response messages.
 This layer enables backcompatibility with legacy HART devices as it does
not differentiate between the wired and wireless versions of HART.

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RFID
 RFID stands for radio frequency identification.
 This technology uses tags and readers for communication. RFID tags have data
encoded onto them digitally.
 The RFID readers can read the values encoded in these tags without physically
touching them.
 RFIDs are functionally similar to barcodes as the data read from tags are stored in a
database.
 RFID does not have to rely on line of sight operation, unlike barcodes. The
automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) technology can be considered as
the precursor of RFID.
 Similar to AIDC techniques, RFID systems are capable of automatically categorizing
objects.
 Categorization tasks such as identifying tags, reading data, and feeding the read data
directly into computer systems through radio waves outline the operation of RFID
systems

NFC
 Near field communication (NFC) was jointly developed by Philips and Sony
as ashort-range wireless connectivity standard, enabling peer-to-peer (P2P)
data exchangenetwork.
 Communication between NFC devices is achieved by the principle of
magnetic induction, whenever the devices are brought close to one another.
 NFC can also be used with other wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi after
establishing and configuring the P2P network.
 The communication between compatible devices requires a pair of transmitting
and receiving devices.
 The typical NFC operating frequency for data is 13.56 MHz, which supports
data rates of 106, 212, or 424 kbps

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Outline of the RFID operation and Communication

 Typically, RFID systems are made
up of three components:
1) RFID tag or smart label,
2) RFID reader, and
3) an antenna.
 Figure shows the various RFID
components.

 In RFID, the tags consist of an integrated

circuit and an antenna, enclosed in a
protective casing to protect from wear and
tear and environmental effects.
 These tags can be either active or passive.
 Passive tags find common usage in a
variety of applications due to its low cost;
however, it has to be powered using an
RFID reader before data transmission.
 Active tags have their own power sources
and do not need external activation by
readers. Tags are used for transmitting the
data to an RFID interrogator or an RFID
reader. The radio waves are then converted
to a more usable form of data by this
reader.

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 A host computer system accesses the

collected data on the reader by a
communication technology such as Wi-
Fi or Ethernet.
 The data on the host system is finally
updated onto a database. RFID
applications span across domains such
as inventory management, asset
tracking, personnel tracking, and supply
chain management.

NFC types, components, and its usage

 NFC devices can be grouped into two types: 1) passive NFC and 2) active
NFC.
 Figure shows the various NFC types, components, and its usage

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 A small electric current is emitted by the

NFC reader, which creates a magnetic
field that acts as a bridge in the physical
space between two NFC devices.
 The generated EM (electromagnetic) field
is converted back into electrical impulses
through another coil on the client device.
 Data such as identifiers, messages,
currency, status, and others can be
transmitted using NFCs.
 NFC communication and pairing are
speedy due to the use of inductive
coupling and the absence of manual
pairing

 Passive NFC devices do not need a power source for communicating with the
NFC reader.
 Tags and other small transmitters can act as passive NFC devices.
 Passive devices cannot process information; they simply store information,
which is read by an NFC reader.
 In contrast, active NFC devices can communicate with active as well as
passive NFC devices.
 Active devices are capable of reading as well as writing data to other NFC
terminals or devices.
 Some of the most commonly used NFC platforms are smartphones, public
transport card readers, and commercial touch payment terminals.

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NFC Information Exchange Modes:

 NFC currently supports three information exchange modes:
1.peer-to-peer,
2.read/write, and
3. card emulation.
 The peer-to-peer mode is commonly used in NFC modes; it enables two NFC
devices to exchange information.
 In the peer-to-peer mode of information exchange, the transmitting device
goes active while the receiving device becomes passive.
 During the reverse transfer, both devices change roles.

 The read/write mode of information exchange allows only one-way data

transmission.
 An active NFC device connects to a passive device to read information from it
 The Card Emulation Mode enables an NFC device (generally, smartphones)
to act as a contactless credit card and make payments using just a simple tap
on an NFC reader

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DASH7
 The DASH7 protocol is based on an active RFID standard .
 It operates in the 433 MHz frequency band and is being rapidly accepted in
agriculture, vehicles, mobiles, and other consumer electronics-related
applications.
 The messages in DASH7 are modulated using FSK (frequency shift keying)
modulation before transmission over the 433 MHz frequency band.
 A very crucial aspect of DASH7 is its capability to use its 433.92 MHz
operational band to enable communications with NFC devices.
 Recall, as the NFCs operate in the 13.56 MHz band, they can communicate
with DASH7 radios by temporarily modifying/altering their antenna to access
the higher-order harmonics of the DASH7 band (433.92/13.56 = 32 or 25 )

DASH7 network architecture.

 Figure shows the DASH7 network
architecture.
 Compared to the IEEE 802.15.4 and
its dependent technologies, the
DASH7 protocol has a fully defined
and complete OSI stack.
 This enables the DASH7 stack to be
made adaptable to the physical
layers of technologies such as Sigfox
or LoRa

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DASH7 PROTOCOL stack

 DASH7 stack includes support for cheap
processing systems by virtue of its
integrated file system.
 Figure shows the protocol stack of DASH 7
in comparison to the ISO OSI stack.
 DASH7 gateways can query devices in
proximity to it without waiting for pre-
defined time-slots to listen to end-device
beacons

 DASH7 is capable of very dense deployments, has a low memory footprint,

consumes minuscule power, and considered by many as a bridge between NFC
and IoT communication systems.
 It can also be used to enable tag-to-tag communication without needing the
tags to pass their information through a base station or a tag reader.
 This feature of DASH7 is quite synonymous with the multinode hopping mesh
networks found in Zigbee and Z-wave.
 The reported range of DASH7 is between 1 to 10 km and a typical querying
latency of 1 to 10 seconds.

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Z-Wave
 Z-Wave is an economical and less complicated alternative to Zigbee.
 It was developed by Zensys, mainly for home automation solutions .
 It boasts of a power consumption much lower than Wi-Fi, but with ranges
greater than Bluetooth.
 This feature makes Z-Wave significantly useful for home IoT use by enabling
inter-device communication between Z-wave integrated sensors, locks, home
power distribution systems, appliances, and heating systems.

Network architecture of the Z-Wave protocol

 Figure shows the network architecture of the Z-Wave protocol.

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Z-Wave protocol stack

 Figure shows the stack for this protocol.
 The Z-Wave operational frequency is in the range
of 800–900 MHz, which makes it mostly immune
to the interference effects of Wi-Fi and other
radios utilizing the 2.4 GHz frequency band.
 Z-wave utilizes gaussian frequency shift keying
(GFSK) modulation, where the baseband pulses
are passed through a Gaussian filter before
modulation.
 The filtering operation smoothens the pulses
consisting of streams of –1 and 1 (known as pulse
shaping), which limits the modulated spectrum’s
width.
 A Manchester channel encoding is applied for
preparing the data for transmission over the
channel

 Z-wave devices are mostly configured to connect to home-based routers and

access points.
 These routers and access points are responsible for forwarding Zwave
messages to a central hub.
 Z-wave devices can also be configured to connect to the central hub directly if
they are in range.
 Z-wave routing within the home follows a source-routed mesh network
topology. When the Z-wave devices are not in range, messages are routed
through different nodes to bypass obstructions created by household
appliances or layouts.
 This process of avoiding radio dead-spots is done using a message called
healing. Healing messages are a characteristic of Z-wave

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 A central network controller device sets

up and manages a Z-wave network ,
where each logical Z-wave network has
one home (network) ID and multiple node
IDs for the devices in it.
 Each network ID is 4 bytes long, whereas
the node ID length is 1 byte.
 Z-Wave nodes with different home IDs
cannot communicate with one another.
 The central hub is designed to be
connected to the Internet, but their
quantities are limited to one hub per
home.

 Each home can have multiple devices, which can talk to the hub using Z-
Wave.
 However, the devices themselves cannot connect to the Internet.
 The Z-wave can support 232 devices in a single home deployment (a single
hub).
 This technology has been designed to be backward compatible. As Z-wave
uses a source-routed static network, mobile devices are excluded from the
network; only static devices are considered

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Weightless
 Weightless is yet another emerging open standard for enabling networked
communication in IoT; it is especially useful for low-power wide area networks.
 It was designed for useful for low-power, low-throughput, and moderate to high
latency applications supporting either or both public and private networks.
 The operating frequency of Weightless is restricted to sub-GHz bands, which are also
exempted from the requirements of licensing such as 138 MHz, 433 MHz, 470 MHz,
780 MHz, 868 MHz, 915 MHz, and 923 MHz.
 Initially, three standards were released for Weightless:
 Weightless P,
 Weightless N, and
 Weightless W..

 Weightless P is the only currently accepted and used standard as it has features
for bi-directional communication over both licensed as well as unlicensed ISM
bands.
 Weightless N was designed as an LWPAN uplink-only technology, whereas
Weightless W was designed to make use of the TV whitespace frequencies for
communication
 As Weightless P was the most commonly adopted and accepted standard
among the three Weightless standards, it came to be referred to merely as
Weightless.
 Weightless provides a true bi-directional and reliable means of
communication, where each message transaction is validated using an
acknowledgment message.

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 Weightless networks can be optimized to attain ultra-low-power consumption

status compared to cellular networks.
 This is at the cost of network latency and throughput with data rates in the
range of 0.625 kbps to 100 kbps

Typical components of the Weightless standard and its

protocols
 Weightless has been identified with
three architectural components: end
devices, base stations, and base
station network .
 The end devices (ED) form the leaf
nodes in the Weightless network.
 These devices are typically low
complexity and low cost.
 The duty cycle of EDs is also low,
with a nominal transmitting power
of 14 dBm (which can be increased
up to 30 dBm).

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 The base stations (BS) act as the central

coordinating node in each cell. A star
topology is deployed to connect the EDs
to the BS.
 The transmit powers of a typical BS lie in
the range of 27 dBm to 30 dBm.
 Finally, the base station network (BSN)
is responsible for connecting all the BS
of a single network.
 This enables the BSN to manage the
allocation and scheduling of radio
resources across the network.
 Additional tasks of the BSN include
addressing authentication, roaming, and
scheduling responsibilities

Sigfox
 Sigfox is a low-power connectivity solution, which was developed for various
businesses such as building automation and security, smart metering, agriculture,and
others.
 It uses ultra-narrowband technology (192 kHz wide) for accessing and
communicating through the radio spectrum.
 The typical data rates achieved in Sigfox is in the range 100–600 bits per second.
 A binary phase shift keying (BPSK) is used for encoding the message transmission
by changing the phase of the carrier waves, where each message is 100 Hz wide.
 Sigfox in Europe utilizes the 868 and 868.2 MHz spectrum, whereas it uses 902 and
928 MHz elsewhere.
 As the Sigfox receiver has to access only a very tiny part of the spectrum for
receiving messages, the effects of noise are significantly reduced.
 It can even communicate in the presence of jamming signals, making this standard
quite resilient.

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The network architecture of sigfox

 Fig. shows the network architecture of
Sigfox.
 Sigfox has an exciting message
forwarding principle called random
access, which ensures the high quality
of services in this standard.
 Each Sigfox device emits a message
at an arbitrary frequency; it
simultaneously sends two replicas of
the same message at different
frequencies;
 It’s time using a principle known as
time frequency diversity

 Although the Sigfox devices are relatively less complicated, the base stations
are very complicated as they monitor the whole 192 kHz spectrum looking for
UNB (ultra narrow band) transmissions for demodulation.
 The base stations in Sigfox follow a cooperative reception principle.
 The messages in Sigfox are not attached to any base station, and any base
station in the vicinity of the device can receive messages from it.
 This is called the principle of spatial diversity in Sigfox.
 The time and frequency diversity, along with the spatial diversity, ensures
excellent quality of service for Sigfox.

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The Sigfox protocol stack

 Fig shows the comparison of the Sigfox
stack with the standard ISO-OSI stack.
 The Sigfox communication is bi-directional
and asynchronous with a significant
difference between the uplink and downlink
speeds.
 As the devices are less complex than the
base stations, the uplink budget (device to
base station) is high compared to the
downlink budget (base station to device). It
is mainly due to this reason that the Sigfox
was designed to have small message
lengths ranging from 0 to 12 bytes.
 This 12-byte payload supports the
simultaneous transfer of sensor data, the
status of an event/alerts, GPS coordinates,
and even application data.

 Sigfox boasts of excellent security features with support for authentication,

integrity, and anti-replay on messages transmitted through the network.
 These collective features of Sigfox enables it to be a low-power and resilient
standard.
 Due to the low data rates and asynchronous links, it is better utilized in
applications requiring infrequent communication with small bursts of data.
 The Sigfox architecture and range supports wide and dense deployments
depending on topologies and is better suited for indoor use; however, mobility
is not an aspect associated with it.

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LoRa
 LoRa or long range is a patented wireless technology for communication
developed by Cycleo of Grenoble, France for cellular-type communications
aimed at providing connectivity to M2M and IoT solutions.
 It is a sub-GHz wireless technology that operationally uses the 169 MHz, 433
MHz, 868 MHz, and 915 MHz frequency bands for communication.
 LoRa uses bi-directional communication links symmetrically and a spread
spectrum with a 125 kHz wideband for operating.
 Applications such as electric grid monitoring are typically suited for utilizing
LoRa for communications.
 Typical communication of LoRa devices ranges from 15 to 20 km, with
support for millions of devices.

LoRa network architecture

 Fig. shows the LoRa network architecture

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 LoRa is a spread spectrum technology with a broader band (usually 125 kHz
or more).
 LoRa achieves high receiver sensitivity by utilizing frequency-modulated chirp
coding gain.
 LoRa devices provide excellent support for mobility, which makes them very
useful for applications such as asset tracking and asset management.
 In comparison with similar technologies such as NB-IoT, LoRa devices have
significantly higher battery lives, but these devices have low data rates (27 to
50 kbps) and longer latency times

LoRa protocol stack

 Fig. shows the LoRa protocol stack.

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 LoRa devices make use of a network referred to as

LoRaWAN, which enables the routing of messages
between end nodes and the destination via a
LoRaWAN gateway.
 Unlike Sigfox, LoRaWAN has a broader spectrum
resulting in interference, which is solved using
coding gains of the chirp signals
 Additionally, unlike Sigfox, the LoRaWAN end
nodes and the base stations are quite inexpensive.
 The LoRaWAN protocol is designed for WAN
communications and is an architecture that makes
use of LoRa, whereas LoRa is used as an enabling
technology for a wide area network

 Messages transmitted over LoRaWAN is

received by all base stations in proximity to the
device, which induces message redundancy in the
network.
 This enhances the resilience of the network by
ensuring more messages are successfully
delivered between entities in the network.
 A LoRa network follows the star topology and is
made up of four crucial entities:
 end points/nodes, gateways, network server,
and a remote computer.
 The end nodes deal with all the sensing and
control solutions.
 The gateways forward messages from end nodes
to a backhaul network.

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 The LoRa network can comprise both or either of wired and wireless
technologies.
 The gateways themselves are connected to the network server utilizing IP-
based connections (eitherprivate or public).
 The LoRa network server is responsible for scheduling message
acknowledgments, modifying data rates, and removing message redundancies.
 Finally, the remote computers have control over the end nodes and act as data
sinks for data originating from these nodes.
 The LoRa network security is achieved through various mechanisms such as
unique network key, which ensures security on the network level, unique
application key, which ensures an end-to-end security on the application level
and device specific key.

NB-IoT
 NB-IoT or narrowband IoT is an initiative by the
Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to
develop a cellular standard, which can coexist with
cellular systems (2G/3G/4G), be highly interoperable
and that too using minimum power
 It is reported that a major portion of the NB-IoT
applications can support a battery life of up to ten years.
 NB-IoT also boasts of significant improvements in
reliability, spectrum efficiencies, and system
capacities.
 NB-IoT uses orthogonal frequency division
multiplexing (OFDM) modulation, which enhances the
system capacity and increases spectrum efficiency.
 Device complexities of NB-IOT are quite high.
 NB-IoT also provides support for security features such
as confidentiality, authentication, and integrity.

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NB-IoT protocol stacks

 Fig. shows the protocol stacks of the various components
of NB-IoT.
1. UE (User Equipment):
1. NAC (Non-Access Stratum): Manages signaling and control
functions.
2. RRC (Radio Resource Control): Handles connection
establishment, maintenance, and release.
3. PDCP (Packet Data Convergence Protocol): Ensures data
integrity and security.
4. RLC (Radio Link Control): Manages data transfer reliability.
5. MAC (Medium Access Control): Controls access to the physical
transmission medium.
6. PHY (Physical Layer): Deals with the actual transmission and
reception of data.
2. eNB (Evolved Node B):
1. RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC, PHY: Similar functions as in UE,
facilitating communication between UE and the network.
3. MME (Mobility Management Entity):
1. NAC: Manages mobility and session states.

 The coverage of NB-IoT supports deployments in indoor environments as well

as in dense urban areas.
 When compared with technologies such as LoRa, NB-IoT ensures a higher
quality of service as well as reduced latencies.
 Because of its design principles, the transfer of large messages is not efficient.
NB-IoT is better suited for static deployments such as energy metering, fixed
sensors, and others.
 Mobility support is not provided in this standard. NB-IoT communication can
either make use of the available 200-kHz GSM (global system for mobile
communications) bands or be allocated resource blocks on the guard bands by
LTE base stations.
 This ensures that the NB-IoT can achieve more extensive coverage while
coexisting with cellular systems.

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 NB-IoT was developed for non-IP based applications requiring quite small
volumes of daily data transactions, typically in the range of a few tens to a
hundred bytes of data per device daily.
 Unlike technologies such as Sigfox and LoRa, the use of OFDM (orthogonal
frequency division multiplexing’s) faster modulation rates ensures higher data
handling capacities for NB-IoT.

Wi-Fi
 Wi-Fi or WiFi is technically referred to by its
standard, IEEE 802.11, and is a wireless technology
for wireless local area networking of nodes and
devices built upon similar standards
 Wi-Fi utilizes the 2.4 GHz ultra high frequency
(UHF) band or the 5.8 GHz super high frequency
(SHF) ISM radio bands for communication.
 For operation, these bands in Wi-Fi are subdivided
into multiple channels.
 The communication over each of these channels is
achieved by multiple devices simultaneously using
time-sharing based TDMA multiplexing.
 It uses Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision
Avoidance (CSMA/CA) for channel access

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Various versions of IEEE 802.11

 Various versions of IEEE 802.11 have been popularly adapted, such as
a/b/g/n.
 The IEEE 802.11a achieves a data rate of 54 Mbps and works on the 5 GHz
band using OFDM for communication.
 IEEE 802.11b achieves a data rate of 11 Mbps and operates on the 2.4 GHz
band.
 Similarly, IEEE 802.11g also works on the 2.4 GHz band but achieves higher
data rates of 54 Mbps using OFDM.
 Finally, the newest version, IEEE 802.11n, can transmit data at a rate of 140
Mbps on the 5 GHz band

 Wi-Fi devices can network using a

technology referred to as wireless
LAN (WLAN), as shown in Figure .
 A Wi-Fi enabled device has to
connect to a wireless access point,
which connects the device to the
WLAN.
 WLAN is then responsible for
forwarding the messages from the
devices to and fro between the
devices and the Internet.

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Bluetooth
 Bluetooth is defined by the IEEE 802.15.1 standard and is a short-range
wireless communication technology operating at low power to enable
communication among two or more Bluetooth-enabled devices.
 It was initially developed as a cable replacement technology for data
communication between two or more mobile devices such as smartphones and
laptops.
 This standard allows the transmission of data as well as voice-over short
distances.
 Bluetooth functions on the 2.4 GHz ISM band and has a range of
approximately 10 m.
 The transmission of data is done through frequency hopping spread spectrum
(FHSS), which also reduces the interference caused by other devices
functioning in the 2.4 GHz band.

 The data is divided into packets before transmitting them by Bluetooth.

 The packets are transmitted over the 79 designated channels, each 1MHz
wide in the 2.4 GHz band.
 Adaptive frequency hopping (AFH) enables this standard to perform 800
hops per second over these channels.
 Initial versions of this standard followed Gaussian frequency shift keying
(GFSK) modulation, which was known as the basic rate (BR) mode, and was
capable of data rates of up to 1 Mbps.
 However, with the development of newer variants, modulation schemes such
as π/4 DQPSK (differential quadrature phase shift keying) and 8-DPSK
(differential phase shift keying) were adopted, which enabled data rates of 2
Mbps and 3 Mbps respectively.

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 Bluetooth follows a master–slave

architecture.
 It enables a small network, which can
accommodate seven slave devices
simultaneously with a single master node.
 A slave node in one piconet cannot be part
of another piconet at the same time, that is,
it can have a single master node at a time.
This network is known as a personal area
network (PAN) or piconet.
 All the devices in a piconet share the
master node’s clock. Two piconets can be
joined using a bridge.
 The whole network is also referred to as a
scatternet.

 Piconet
 Definition: A piconet is a basic Bluetooth network formed by one
master device and up to seven active slave devices.
 Structure: It consists of one master and multiple slaves. The master
controls the communication and timing within the piconet.
 Coverage: Typically covers a small area.
 Usage: Suitable for simple, short-range communication between a few
devices

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 Scatternet
 Definition: A scatternet is a network of multiple interconnected piconets.
 Structure: Devices in a scatternet can participate in multiple piconets, acting
as a master in one and a slave in another, effectively bridging the piconets.
 Coverage: Provides larger coverage and supports more devices compared to a
single piconet.
 Usage: Useful for more complex networking scenarios where multiple devices
need to communicate over a larger area

 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), the advanced variant of Bluetooth has 2 MHz
wide bands, which can accommodate 40 channels.
 Its features include low energy consumption, low cost, multivendor
interoperability, and an enhanced range of operations
 Bluetooth connections are encrypted and prevent eavesdropping of
communications between devices.
 The inclusion of service-level security adds an additional layer of security by
restricting the usage and device features and activities

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Bluetooth Protocol stack

 The Bluetooth standard consists of four
parts: 1) core protocols, 2) cable
replacement protocols, 3) telephony
control protocols, and 4) adopted
protocols.
 Figure shows the Bluetooth protocol stack.
 Link Manager Protocol (LMP), Logical
Link Control and Adaptation Protocol
(L2CAP), Host Controller Interface (HCI),
Radio Frequency Communications
(RFCOMM), and Service Discovery
Protocol (SDP) are some of the well-
known protocols associated with
Bluetooth.
 These protocols can be enumerated as
follows:

1. Link Manager Protocol:

 It manages the establishment, authentication, and links configuration.
 LMPs consist of some protocol data units (PDU), between which transmission
occurs for availing services such as name requests, link address requests,
connection establishment, connection authentication, mode negotiation, and
data transfer.
2. Host Controller Interface:
 It enables access to hardware status and control registers and connects the
controller with the link manager.
 The automatic discovery of Bluetooth devices in its proximity is one of the
essential tasks of HCI

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3. L2CAP:
 It multiplexes logical connections between two devices. It is also tasked with
data segmentation, flow control, and data integrity checks.
4. Service Discovery Protocol:
 It is tasked with the discovery of services provided by other Bluetooth devices.
5. Radio Frequency Communications:
 It is a cable replacement protocol, which generates a virtual stream of serial
data.
 This protocol supports many telephony related profiles as AT commands and
Object Exchange Protocol (OBEX) over Bluetooth..

6. Telephony Control Protocol – Binary (TCS BIN):

 It is a bit-oriented protocol to control call signaling prior to initiation of voice
or data communications between devices

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