Wireless Connectivity Fabric for Internet of Things

当今社会越来越依赖数字平台。在一个网络化的社会中，只要连接提供附加值，一切都将连接起来。不仅人类通过互联网连接，而且数十亿物理设备通过收集和交换数据相互联网并相互交互，形成物联网（IoT）。爱立信预测，到2022年将有180亿台物联网设备，物联网有望改变几乎所有垂直行业：运输和物流、医疗保健、能源、农业、汽车、城市和基础设施、公共安全和安保、消费者应用等。需要可扩展、高效和普及的连接结构来连接数十亿设备，其中一部分将严重依赖创新的无线技术。各种物联网应用在数据速率、延迟、功耗、覆盖范围、移动性和成本方面对通信基础设施有着不同的要求。在频谱的一端，使命关键应用需要高可靠性和极低的延迟，其中一些用例导致大量数据需要由高数据速率传输来支持。这被称为关键IoT。 另一方面，大量的物联网应用程序只有非常少量的数据传输，以低成本在电池供电下运行多年。这被称为大规模IoT。在这两个极端之间，有各种不同的应用要求。这种现象提出了重大的设计挑战，没有一种通用的解决方案。对于服务提供商来说，重要的是提供异构连接服务，其中连接服务对开发人员和最终用户基本上是透明的。在该提案中，通用物联网系统架构由三个域组成：毛细管连接域、广域连接域和数据域。拟议的研究计划将集中在几个关键的使能无线通信技术与潜在的高影响力：1）大规模多输入多输出（MIMO）天线系统; 2）频谱共享和聚合; 3）在毛细管边缘网络的能量收集; 4）安全性。 这些目标涵盖了高数据速率广域连接领域和低功耗毛细管连接领域的关键技术。成功完成拟议的研究将为商业物联网产品开发提供理论和实践指导，塑造物联网系统和网络的构建方式，并有助于形成行业标准。 所产生的知识产权将成为未来开发大量无线物联网应用的基础，这些应用将改变现有的垂直行业，提高加拿大商业和就业机会的竞争力，并改善人们的生活质量。

Today's society is increasingly dependent on the digital platform. In a networked society, everything will become connected wherever connectivity provides added value. Not only humans are connected by Internet, but also billions of physical devices are inter-networked and interacting with one another by collecting and exchanging data, forming the Internet of Things (IoT). Ericsson forecasts that there will be 18 billion IoT devices by 2022, and IoT is expected to transform almost every vertical industry: transportation and logistics, healthcare, energy, agriculture, automobile, cities and infrastructure, public safety and security, consumer applications, etc. A scalable, efficient and pervasive connectivity fabric is needed to link billions of devices, part of which will heavily rely on innovative wireless technologies. Various IoT applications have diverse requirements on communications infrastructure in terms of data rate, latency, power consumption, coverage, mobility and cost. On one end of the spectrum, mission critical applications need high reliability and extremely low latency, with some use cases incurring a large volume of data to be supported by high data rate transmission. This is referred to as critical IoT. On the other side of the spectrum a massive number of IoT applications have very small amount of data for transmission, run on battery power for years with low cost. This is called massive IoT. Between the two extremes there are a variety of different application requirements. This phenomenon presents significant design challenges and there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. For service providers, it is important to offer heterogeneous connectivity services in which the connectivity services are largely transparent to the developers and end users.***In this proposal, the generic IoT system architecture is comprised of three domains: the capillary connectivity domain, the wide area connectivity domain and the data domain. The proposed research program will focus on several key enabling wireless communication technologies with potentially high impact: 1) Massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antenna systems; 2) Spectrum sharing and aggregation; 3) Energy harvesting in capillary edge networks; 4) Security. These objectives cover key technologies for high data rate wide area connectivity domain and low power capillary connectivity domain. Successful completion of the proposed research will provide both theoretical and practical guidance to commercial IoT product development, shape the way IoT systems and networks are built, and help to form industry standards. The intellectual property generated will be the basis for future development of vast wireless IoT applications transforming existing vertical industries, increasing the competitiveness of Canadian business and employment opportunities, and improving people's quality of life.