ZCNET: Achieving High Capacity in Low Power Wide Area Networks

Abstract

In this paper, a novel LPWAN technology, ZCNET, is proposed, which achieves significantly higher network capacity than existing solutions, such as LoRa, Sigfox, and RPMA. The capacity boost of ZCNET is mainly due to two reasons. First, a ZCNET node transmits signals that occupy a small fraction of the signal space, resulting in a low collision probability. Second, ZCNET supports 8 parallel root channels within a single frequency channel by using 8 Zadoff-Chu (ZC) root sequences. The root channels do not severely interfere with each other, mainly because the interference power is spread evenly over the entire signal space. A simple ALOHA-style protocol is used for medium access, with which a node randomly chooses the root channel and the range it occupies within the root channel. ZCNET has been extensively tested with both real-world experiments on the USRP and simulations, and the results confirm that ZCNET achieves significant gains over LoRa, Sigfox, and RPMA. ZCNET will likely better accommodate the explosive growth of IoT network sizes and meet the demand of IoT applications.

LoRa meets IP: a Container-based Architecture to Virtualize LoRaWAN End Nodes

“…LPWANs are designed to offer affordable connectivity to a large number of constrained devices distributed over large areas (e.g., different plants of the same production site). To this end, various LPWAN technologies are available, such as (just to name a few) Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) [13,14], Sigfox [15], and LoRa [16]. LoRa refers only to the physical (PHY) layer in the LPWAN stack and does not provide sufficient reliability mechanisms to be used as-is in IoT contexts.…”

Golden Modulation: A New and Effective Waveform for Massive IoT

“…This feature is enabled by using the Zadoff-Chu sequences to carry information rather than (as is usually done) for synchronization and/or channel estimation in the headers of a packet in a digital communication link (see, e.g., [18]). In particular, although the use of Zadoff-Chu sequences for signaling was recently discussed in IoT scenarios [19], [20], we are the first to recognize their potential to provide a large number of distinct logical channels and to precisely characterize their interference properties, proposing them as an effective solution for true massive access in the IoT. The efficient implementation of GM is also described in this paper on both the transmitter and receiver sides.…”