Spectrum Utilization of Cognitive Radio in Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks - A Review

The increasing demand for intelligent control and automation in industry requires better use of the radio spectrum due to the use of industrial wireless sensor networks (IWSNs). Cognitive Radio (CR) is a promising technology to improve the spectrum utilization by sensing spectrum holes. Research in this area is still in its infancy, but it is progressing rapidly. In this paper, industrial environment with different wireless technology, such as WirelessHART and ISA 100.11a is investigated. Various sensing schemes and the challenges associated for the cognitive radio are reviewed. In addition, the paper discussed the methods relevant to industrial applications, covering architecture, spectrum access, interference management, spectrum sensing and spectrum sharing

Sub-GHz LPWAN Network Coexistence, Management and Virtualization: An Overview and Open Research Challenges

The IoT domain is characterized by many applications that require low-bandwidth communications over a long range, at a low cost and at low power. Low power wide area networks (LPWANs) fulfill these requirements by using sub-GHz radio frequencies (typically 433 or 868 MHz) with typical transmission ranges in the order of 1 up to 50 km. As a result, a single base station can cover large areas and can support high numbers of connected devices (> 1000 per base station). Notorious initiatives in this domain are LoRa, Sigfox and the upcoming IEEE 802.11ah (or "HaLow") standard. Although these new technologies have the potential to significantly impact many IoT deployments, the current market is very fragmented and many challenges exists related to deployment, scalability, management and coexistence aspects, making adoption of these technologies difficult for many companies. To remedy this, this paper proposes a conceptual framework to improve the performance of LPWAN networks through in-network optimization, cross-technology coexistence and cooperation and virtualization of management functions. In addition, the paper gives an overview of state of the art solutions and identifies open challenges for each of these aspects