According to analyst Statista, the cellular IoT technologies, NB-IoT, and LTE-M, already make up 47% of the low power wide area network (LPWAN) market[1]. That makes the technology the market-leading LPWAN for secure and reliable long-range connectivity and a foundational part of the IoT.
However, despite its traction, cellular IoT has traditionally been complex to build, deploy, and maintain. Moreover, many companies have struggled to adopt the technology due to the engineering difficulties presented by chipsets based on stripped down mobile handset technology. These devices are clunky, offer poor battery life, and provide less-than-robust connectivity.
Moreover, the supply chain is convoluted because one company might supply the cellular module, while another supplies the modem, another the microprocessor, and yet another the power management. This fragmentation also makes design more complex, pushes up the power consumption because the component parts are not optimised to work together, and adds costs.
In turn, customers can be confused as to where to turn for engineering tools and technical support for their cellular IoT development. And if that wasn’t enough, things are made more complicated by the requirement to engage a Cloud services provider to look after IoT products in the field.
But now, a new end-to-end cellular IoT solution from a single supplier addresses these challenges, easing design complexity and accelerating time-to-market.
Martin Lesund, Technical Product Manager, Nordic Semiconductor further explores.
Cellular for massive IoT
Massive IoT describes future networks of millions of devices per square kilometer. The technology will support applications demanding a huge volume and density of devices providing wide coverage. Examples include utility meters, smart streetlights, and cargo asset trackers.
To reach this potential, massive IoT must be based on a networking technology that supports scalability and versatility. Moreover, the technology demands bidirectional end-to-end communication with the Cloud without the need of a gateway. Cellular IoT, specifically LTE-M and NB-IoT, meets these challenges.
By accessing cellular IoT silicon, software, development tools and engineering services from a single company, developers can save considerable time, money, engineering resources, and frustration that result from dealing with traditional fragmented supply chains. In turn that accelerates time-to-market for cellular IoT applications.
Nordic Semiconductor is the first wireless IoT company to offer a commercial end-to-end cellular IoT solution for massive IoT (plus DECT NR+ (NR+) for large scale, ultra-reliable private 5G networking). At the heart of the offering is the company’s nRF91 Series SiPs, including the new nRF9151. The nRF9151 is globally precertified making it possible to use a single device across the world for either cellular IoT or NR+. The SiP is also the first device in the company’s lineup to be US-tariff free country of origin as well providing a 20 percent smaller footprint compared to the nRF9160.
Intuitive development tools and seamless Cloud services
While designing cellular IoT products isn’t trivial, the development process with Nordic’s SiPs is eased through the company’s unified and scalable software development kit, nRF Connect SDK. Additional development tools are offered through nRF Connect for Desktop software. These tools include those for optimising power consumption and evaluating, monitoring, and debugging network connectivity.
Deploying and maintaining large fleets of cellular IoT products such as asset trackers or smart meters demands specialised infrastructure. The infrastructure ensures best performance across the IoT product’s service life, through frequent supervision and maintenance. Examples include diagnostics, configuration updates, security updates, and software and firmware over-the-air updates. There will also be occasions when IoT devices fail and require troubleshooting and repair.
As part of its end-to-end solution, Nordic offers device management through nRF Cloud. nRF Cloud is optimised to work with the company’s wireless IoT solutions and brings lower power, higher security, and flexibility to IoT device management. The Cloud solution offers a connectivity platform and services solution from onboarding to decommissioning. In addition, two new sets of services, nRF Cloud Security Services and nRF Cloud Device Management, offer secure remote provisioning, cryptographic identity authentication, device state monitoring, and protocol agnostic connectivity options.
For asset tracking applications, nRF Cloud Location Services offers Assisted GPS (reducing satellite time-to-first-fix (TTFF) from minutes down to seconds and resulting in precise positioning and increased battery life); Predictive GPS (similar to Assisted GPS but with satellite data valid for up to two weeks – enabling the device to stay offline longer and still benefit from the assistance data); Service Set Identifier (SSID) Wi-Fi scans of nearby Wi-Fi access points to determine location (accuracy down to 20 meters while working inside and out); multi-cellular locationing (neighborhood accuracy of 500 meters); and single-cellular locationing (accuracy of one kilometer).
With nRF Cloud Location Services, a developer can combine these techniques or pick just one to trade-off accuracy against power consumption.
Addressing design complexity and supply chain challenges
Designing and implementing cellular IoT applications has traditionally been tough. But by offering an end-to-end solution Nordic has removed much of the design complexity, supply chain, and deployment challenges.
With the company’s nRF91 Series, customers can take advantage of high performance, low power consumption cellular IoT solutions certified for global use. Advanced development tools and technical expertise ease the design process while a comprehensive IoT device management platform aids seamless deployment and maintenance.
The McKinsey Global Institute, an economics research firm, has estimated that by 2030 the IoT could enable $5.5 trillion to $12.6 trillion in value globally, including the value captured by consumers of IoT products and services[2]. If the IoT is to realise this forecast potential, it will need to be a robust and capable digital platform. By introducing end-to-end support for cellular IoT, Nordic is among the leaders in helping developers build the foundations for that platform.
References
1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1244778/lpwa-market-share-by-technology/
2. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/iot-value-set-to-accelerate-through-2030-where-and-how-to-capture-it
