A low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) or low-power wide-area (LPWA) network or low-power network (LPN) is a type of wireless telecommunication wide area network designed to allow long-range communications at a low bit rate among things (connected objects), such as sensors operated on a battery.
LPWAN (Low-Power Wide-Area Network), also known as LPWA (Low-Power Wide-Area) or LPN (Low-Power Network, low-power network), is a kind of Battery-powered sensors), wireless networks that can communicate over long distances at low bit rates.
Low power requirements, low bit rates, and timing of use can be used to distinguish LPWAN from wireless wide area networks. Wireless wide area networks are designed to connect businesses or users, which can transmit more data but also consume more energy. The transmission rate of each channel of LPWAN ranges from 0.3 kbit/s to 50 kbit/s.
LPWAN can be used to build a private wireless sensor network, but it can also be a service or infrastructure provided by a third party, which allows the owner of the sensor to directly deploy the sensor without having to invest in the gateway construction.
Features of 3 LPWAN technologies
LPWAN technology is an internationally revolutionary technology for Internet of Things access in recent years. Long-distance, low power consumption and low operation and maintenance are the biggest features of LPWAN technology. Compared with the existing Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, and other technologies, LPWAN has truly achieved a broad development and can realize the low-cost and complete coverage of the Internet of Things.
Wide area coverage
LPWAN technology enables the communication distance between IoT devices to reach 3-20 kilometers. The use of low-power LPWAN technology allows data to be transmitted over long distances in smart cities.
Low power consumption
One of the main advantages of using LPWAN is low power consumption. With LPWAN, when the IoT device is not in use, the device will automatically enter sleep mode. And the Internet of Things devices consume very little power when in sleep mode, so this advantage helps to save power. Low power consumption and low usage have caused a chain reaction. The battery life of these IoT devices using LPWAN is expected to be 5 to 10 years.
Reduce costs
The application of LPWAN technology has greatly reduced the related costs of IoT devices. The feature of low power consumption allows IoT devices to use batteries to reduce the cost, and the cost of IoT devices is also reduced accordingly.
In addition, the maintenance cost of the equipment has also been greatly reduced. In addition, the number of gateways that transmit data through LPWAN will be reduced accordingly, thereby further reducing infrastructure costs.
3 mainstream LPWAN technologies
LPWAN technology is a wireless communication solution that can solve many previously unsolvable needs, but various types of technologies have appeared in the current LPWAN market. The main LPWAN technologies currently on the market include NB-IoT, eMTC, and Lora.
NB-IoT is an emerging technology in the field of the Internet of Things, which supports cellular data connections for low-power devices in wide-area networks. It is also called Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN). NB-IoT supports effective device connection, long standby time, and high network connection requirements. It is said that the battery life of NB-IoT devices can be increased to at least 10 years.
The eMTC is an application scenario of the Internet of Things. It has the characteristics of ultra-reliability and low latency. The eMTC is mainly used in communication requirements between devices.
Lora is a proprietary technology and Semtech provides chips for it. Lora technology changes the previous trade-off between transmission distance and power consumption and provides users with a simple system that can achieve long-distance, long battery life, and large capacity, and then expand the sensor network.
At present, compared with NB-IoT, Lora is currently the most mature and stable narrowband IoT communication technology. Its free network dedicated network is far superior to the NB network that operators continue to charge, and Lora does not require lifetime payments. However, the application of Lora in the development of IoT communications is difficult, and long-term, and barriers to entry are high. Operators will adopt NB-IoT and eMTC, while Lora will focus on enterprise-level applications.
3 applications of LPWAN technology
LPWAN technology can play a pivotal role in the construction of smart cities. For example, smart street lights, humidity sensors, smart meters, and smart parking lots do not require high data rates but require very extensive coverage. Especially in parking management, smart cold chain, smart meter reading, etc.
Application of LPWAN technology in smart meter reading
In the application of smart meter reading solutions, meter reading terminals such as water, electricity, gas, and heat upload data to the local LoRaWAN base station through the LoRaWAN communication module, which can control thousands of terminals in a LoRaWAN base station, and then through the cellular backbone network, upload the data to the server.
Application of LPWAN technology in smart cold chain
In the smart cold chain solution, the temperature and humidity information is collected by various collectors with LORA transmission modules, and then uploaded to the LORA gateway, the cellular network, and the Internet are uploaded to the cloud platform, and customers can monitor the status in real-time in the background.
Application of LPWAN technology in smart street lights
In the smart street lamp solution, the architecture of the LoRaWAN solution is similar to meter reading. The data of each node needs to be collected through the base station and then uploaded to the cloud through the background management system to realize street lamp failure alarm, safety monitoring, emergency call, and other functions.
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