Practical remarks on power consumption in WLAN access points

The article presents the power consumptions measurements performed for three wireless routers operating in IEEE 802.11n standard. A typical consumer-class device Asus RT-AC66U was chosen, an operator-class Gateworks Laguna GW2387 and a router built based on the Raspberry Pi3 platform. The aim of experiments was to test the influence of the beacon interframe interval, a client association (joining) in the network and the transmission itself, on the lifetime of battery-powered devices. Theoretical calculations were also performed for the influence of the analyzed scenarios on the battery-powered devices

Review of applications of the Laboratory for Electromagnetic Compatibility infrastructure

This article provides a thorough description of a range of non-standard application cases in which EMC laboratories can be used other than those traditionally associated with this kind of facilities. The areas covered here include investigations of: wireless and radio systems (such as IoT and broadband radio systems) also that require ultra-high operational dynamic range, emulation of interference-free and/or heavily-multipath propagation environment, shielding effectiveness of cabinets and materials (i.e. thin, light and flexible as textiles as well as heavy and thick such as building construction elements)

Analysis of the Single Frequency Network Gain in Digital Audio Broadcasting Networks

The single frequency network (SFN) is a popular solution in modern digital audio and television system networks for extending effective coverage, compared to its traditional single-transmitter counterpart. As benefits of this configuration appear to be obvious, this paper focuses on the exact analysis of so-called SFN gain—a quantitative effect of advantage in terms of the received signal strength. The investigations cover a statistical analysis of SFN gain values, obtained by means of computer simulations, with respect to the factors influencing the coverage, i.e., the protection level, the reception mode (fixed, portable, mobile), and the receiver location (outdoor, indoor). The analyses conclude with an observation that the most noteworthy contribution of the SFN gain is observed on the far edges of the networks, and the least one close to the transmitters. It is also observed that the highest values of the SFN gain can be expected in the fixed mode, while the protection level has the lowest impact

Modelling of ML-Enablers in 5G Radio Access Network-Conceptual Proposal of Computational Framework

The fifth generation (5G) of mobile networks connects people, things, data, applications, transport systems, and cities in smart networked communication environments. With the growth in the amount of generated data, the number of wirelessly connected machines, traffic types, and associated requirements, ensuring high-quality mobile connectivity becomes incredibly difficult for technology suppliers. Mobile operators and network vendors enrolling in 5G face far more rapid demands than any technology before, and at the same time need to ensure efficiency and reliability in the network operations. In fact, intelligent forecasting and decision-making strategies are several of the centerpieces of current artificial intelligence research in various domains. Due to its strong fitting ability, machine learning is seen to have great potential to be employed to solve telecommunication networks’ optimization problems that range from the design of hardware elements to network self-optimization. This paper addresses the question of how to apply artificial intelligence to 5G radio access control and feed ML techniques with radio characteristic-based automatic data collection to achieve ML-based evaluation of 5G performance. The proposed methodology endorses ML tools for the 5G portfolio scenarios requirements assessment and integrates into the mature methods for network performance optimization: self-organizing networks (SON) and minimization of drive tests (MDT). In this context, the proposed treatment guides future network deployments and implementations adopted on a 3GPP standard basis

LoRa Performance under Variable Interference and Heavy-Multipath Conditions

LoRa (or LoRaWAN) is by far the best known representative of narrowband communication systems designed for the Internet of Things. As a system dedicated specifically for long-range operations, it possesses a considerable processing gain for the energetic link budget improvement and a remarkable immunity to multipath and interference. The paper describes outcomes of measurement campaigns during which the LoRa performance was tested against these two factors, that is, a heavy-multipath propagation and a controlled, variable interference generated, respectively, in a reverberation chamber and an anechoic chamber. Results allow quantitative appraisal of the system behavior under these harsh conditions with respect to LoRa’s three major configurable parameters: the spreading factor, bandwidth, and code rate. They also allow dividing LoRa configurational space into three distinct sensitivity regions: in the white region it is immune to both interference and multipath propagation, in the light-grey region it is only immune to the multipath phenomenon but sensitive to interference, and in the dark grey region LoRa is vulnerable to both phenomena

On Vulnerability of Selected IoT Systems to Radio Jamming—A Proposal of Deployment Practices

Weightless and SigFox are both narrowband communication systems designed for the Internet of Things, along with some other counterparts such as LoRa (Long Range) and narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT). As systems dedicated specifically for long-range operations, they possess considerable processing gain for energetic link budget improvement and a remarkable immunity to interference. The paper describes outcomes of a measurement campaign during which the Weightless and SigFox performance was tested against variable interference, generated in an anechoic chamber. Results allow the quantitative appraisal of the system behavior under these harsh conditions with respect to different operational modes of the two investigated IoT systems. The outcomes are then investigated with respect to an intentional radio jammer attempting to block a base station (BS) operation by directly radiating an interfering signal towards it. An Interference Margin is proposed for a quantitative expression of a system’s resilience to jamming. This margin, calculated for all available configuration settings, allows the clear assessment of which combination of a system’s operational parameters does and which does not provide immunity to this type of radio attack

Telecommunication Platforms for Transmitting Sensor Data over Communication Networks—State of the Art and Challenges

The importance of constructing wide-area sensor networks for holistic environmental state evaluation has been demonstrated. A general structure of such a network has been presented with distinction of three segments: local (based on ZigBee, Ethernet and ModBus techniques), core (base on cellular technologies) and the storage/application. The implementation of these techniques requires knowledge of their technical limitations and electromagnetic compatibility issues. The former refer to ZigBee performance degradation in multi-hop transmission, whereas the latter are associated with the common electromagnetic spectrum sharing with other existing technologies or with undesired radiated emissions generated by the radio modules of the sensor network. In many cases, it is also necessary to provide a measurement station with autonomous energy source, such as solar. As stems from measurements of the energetic efficiency of these sources, one should apply them with care and perform detailed power budget since their real performance may turn out to be far from expected. This, in turn, may negatively affect—in particular—the operation of chemical sensors implemented in the network as they often require additional heating