Software-Defined NB-IoT Uplink Framework—The Design, Implementation and Use Cases

Abstract

In the radiocommunication area, we may observe a rapid growth of new technology, such as 5G. Moreover, all the newly introduced radio interfaces, e.g., narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT), are strongly dependent on the software. Hence, the radiocommunication software development and optimization, as well as the 3GPP technical specification, should be introduced at the academic level of education. In this paper, a software-defined NB-IoT uplink framework in the field of design is presented, as well as its realization and potential use cases. The framework may be used as an academic tool for developing, investigating, and optimizing the digital transmitter paths. The proposed realization is focused on the key elements in the physical layer of the NB-IoT interface used in the sensor devices. Furthermore, the paper also highlights the need of the data processing optimization to minimize the power consumption and usage of the resources of the NB-IoT node during transmitting gathered telemetric data.