AIoT Research Institute has published a report related to cellular IoT - "Cellular IoT Series LTE Cat.1/LTE Cat.1 bis Market Research Report (2023 Edition)". In the face of the industry's current shift in views on the cellular IoT model from the "pyramid model" to the "egg model", AIoT Research Institute puts forward its own understanding:
According to AIoT, the "egg model" can only be valid under certain conditions, and its premise is for the active communication part. When passive IoT, which is also being developed by 3GPP, is included in the discussion, the demand of connected devices for communication and connectivity technology still follows the law of the "pyramid model" in general.
Standards and Industrial Innovation Drive the Rapid Development of Cellular Passive IoT
When it comes to passive IoT, the traditional passive IoT technology caused quite a stir when it appeared, because it does not require power supply characteristics, to meet the needs of many low-power communication scenarios, RFID, NFC, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LoRa and other communication technologies are doing passive solutions, and passive IoT based on the cellular communication network was first proposed by Huawei and China Mobile in June last year, and at that time it was also known as "eIoT". Known as "eIoT", the main target is RFID technology. It is understood that eIoT contains a wider application coverage, lower cost and power consumption, support for location-based functions, enabling local/wide-area networking and other characteristics, to fill most of the shortcomings of RFID technology.
Standards
The trend of combining passive IoT and cellular networks has received more and more attention, which has led to the gradual development of relevant standards research, and the relevant representatives and experts of 3GPP have already started the research and standardisation work of passive IoT.
The organisation will take cellular passive as the representative of the new passive IOT technology into the 5G-A technology system, and is expected to form the first cellular network-based passive IOT standard in the R19 version.
China's new passive IoT technology has entered the standardisation construction stage since 2016, and is currently accelerating to seize the new passive IoT technology standard high ground.
- In 2020, the first domestic research project on new cellular passive technology, "Research on Passive IoT Application Requirements Based on Cellular Communication", led by China Mobile in CCSA, and the related technical standard establishment work has been carried out in TC10.
- In 2021, the research project "Environmental Energy Based IoT Technology" led by OPPO and participated by China Mobile, Huawei, ZTE and Vivo was carried out in 3GPP SA1.
- In 2022, China Mobile and Huawei proposed a research project on cellular passive IoT for 5G-A in 3GPP RAN, which started the international standard-setting process for cellular passive.
Industrial Innovation
At present, the global new passive IOT industry is in its infancy, and China's enterprises are actively leading industrial innovation. In 2022, China Mobile launched a new passive IOT product "eBailing", which has a recognition tag distance of 100 meters for a single device, and at the same time, supports continuous networking of multiple devices, and can be used for integrated management of items, assets and people in medium- and large-scale indoor scenarios. It can be used for the comprehensive management of goods, assets, and personnel in medium and large indoor scenes.
At the beginning of this year, based on the self-developed Pegasus series of passive IoT tag chips, Smartlink successfully realized the world's first passive IoT chip and 5G base station communication intermodulation, laying a solid foundation for the subsequent commercialization of the new passive IoT technology.
Traditional IoT devices require batteries or power supplies to drive their communication and data transmission. This limits their usage scenarios and reliability, while also increasing device costs and energy consumption.
Passive IoT technology, on the other hand, greatly reduces device costs and energy consumption by utilizing radio wave energy in the environment to drive communication and data transmission. 5.5G will support passive IoT technology, bringing a wider and more diverse range of application scenarios for future large-scale IoT applications. For example, passive IoT technology can be used in smart homes, smart factories, smart cities, and other areas to achieve more efficient and intelligent device management and services.
Is cellular passive IoT starting to hit the small wireless market?
In terms of technological maturity, passive IoT can be divided into two categories: mature applications represented by RFID and NFC, and theoretical research routes that collect signal energy from 5G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, LoRa and other signals to power terminals.
Even though cellular passive IoT applications based on cellular communication technologies such as 5G are in their infancy, their potential should not be ignored, and they have numerous advantages in applications:
First, it supports longer communication distances. Traditional passive RFID at a longer distance, such as tens of metres apart, then the energy emitted by the reader due to loss, can not activate the RFID tag, and passive IoT based on 5G technology can be a long distance from the base station can be
successful communication.
Second, it can overcome more complex application environments. In reality, metal, liquid to signal transmission in the medium of greater impact, based on 5G technology passive Internet of things, in practical applications can show strong anti-interference ability, improve the recognition rate.
Third, more complete infrastructure. Cellular passive IoT applications do not need to set up additional dedicated reader, and can directly use the existing 5G network, compared to the need for reader and other equipment such as traditional passive RFID, the chip in the application of the convenience as well
as the system's infrastructure investment costs also has a greater advantage.
From the application point of view, in the C-terminal can do for example, personal asset management and other applications, the label can be directly affixed to the personal assets, where there is a base station can be activated and entered into the network; B-terminal applications in warehousing, logistics,
asset management and so on are not a problem, when the cellular passive IoT chip combined with all kinds of passive sensors, to achieve more types of data (for example, pressure, temperature, heat) collection, and the collected data will be passed through the 5G base stations into the data network,
enabling a wider range of IoT applications. This has a high degree of overlap with other existing passive IoT applications.
From the point of view of the progress of industrial development, although the cellular passive IoT is still in its infancy, the speed of development of this industry has always been amazing. On the current news, there are some passive IoT chips have emerged.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers announced the development of a new chip using the terahertz frequency band, the chip as a wake-up receiver, its power consumption is only a few micro-watts, can to a large extent to support the effective operation of miniature sensors, further
expanding the scope of application of the Internet of Things.
- Based on the self-developed Pegasus series of passive IoT tag chips, Smartlink has successfully realised the world's first passive IoT chip and 5G base station communication linkage.
In Conclusion
There are statements that passive Internet of Things, despite the development of hundreds of billions of connections, the current situation, the pace of development seems to be slowing down, one is due to the limitations of the adaptive scene, including retail, warehousing, logistics and other vertical
applications have been left on the stock market; the second is due to the traditional passive RFID communication distance constraints and other technological bottlenecks, resulting in the difficulty of expanding a wider range of application scenarios. However, with the addition of cellular communication
technology, may be able to quickly change this situation, the development of a more diversified application ecosystem.
Post time: Jul-21-2023