Title: 5G-based LPWAN standard technologies, design characteristics, architectures, applications and open research challenges: a technical perspective

Authors: Bimal Patel; Jalpesh Vasa; Dhaval Patel

Addresses: K D Patel Department of Information Technology (KDPIT), Chandubhai S. Patel Institute of Technology (CSPIT), Faculty of Technology & Engineering (FTE), Charotar University of Science and Technology (CHARUSAT), Changa, Gujarat, India ' K D Patel Department of Information Technology (KDPIT), Chandubhai S. Patel Institute of Technology (CSPIT), Faculty of Technology & Engineering (FTE), Charotar University of Science and Technology (CHARUSAT), Changa, Gujarat, India ' K D Patel Department of Information Technology (KDPIT), Chandubhai S. Patel Institute of Technology (CSPIT), Faculty of Technology & Engineering (FTE), Charotar University of Science and Technology (CHARUSAT), Changa, Gujarat, India

Abstract: The Internet of Things is rapidly gaining traction, infiltrating new industries, expanding functionality and communicating more data. At this stage of IoT development, the ever-changing nature of communication technologies is defined by exponential growth combined with the unpredictability of possible uses. New technologies are constantly being developed, and existing ones are evolving. As the world moves from 4 to 5G technology, LPWAN will be critical in making it a reality. Because of the lightweight protocol stack, LPWAN technologies with properties such as wider coverage area, low-power consumption and lost cost make it possible and going to remain in the long run to fulfil IoT and M2M-based smart applications. The market's most widely used proprietary and standard-based LPWAN technology solutions are presented. Among these are LoRaWAN and D7A which are based on Spread Spectrum (SS), Sigfox which is the proprietary solution on concept Ultra Narrowband (UNB) and NB-IoT which applies cellular 3GPP standards. Further common network architecture and state-of-the-art efforts in terms of various characteristics are compared. Finally, open research challenges for LoRaWAN, Sigfox, NB-IoT and D7A are presented, along with its enabled smart applications, so that the LPWAN research community can address them further.

Keywords: IoT; 5G technology; LPWAN technologies; LoRaWAN; D7A; Sigfox; NB-IoT.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWMC.2023.132430

International Journal of Wireless and Mobile Computing, 2023 Vol.25 No.1, pp.76 - 83

Received: 31 Oct 2022
Accepted: 02 Mar 2023
Published online: 19 Jul 2023 *

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