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Cellular IoT

This tutorial section on IoT (Internet of Things) covers following sub topics:
Main tutorial  IoT section  IoT article  Cellular IoT  Components  Sensors  INDIAN companies  Antenna Types  Wireless technologies  IoT transceiver  SoC 

We all know about internet which is collection of computers connected together to share the information and resources. It is also referred as Inter-Connection of Networks. Internet basically connects only people. Internet of Things basically connect all the things/devices/objects into the internet world as explained later with figure-1. IoT has changed the concept of "connecting people" to "connecting Every-Things".

Extending the present internet and providing connection,communication and inter-working between physical devices or things is the simplest definition of Internet of Things(IoT).

IoT market is increasing day by day. As per Cisco there will be about 50 billion connected devices based on IoT technology by 2020. To achieve this all the wireless devices and networks will be made compatible to support IoT.

Cellular IoT

As mentioned in the figure.1 sensors are interfaced with the IoT device. IoT device will be connected with PAN or LAN or WiFi(wireless LAN) or cellular network. Cellular network can be any existing one such as GSM,LTE,CDMA etc.

As IoT standard has not yet been finalized, companies are working towards converting their existing IPs compliant for IoT support. There will be change in the physical layer and upper layer protocol stack will remain same.

As mentioned in fig.1 IoT device gets connected with device gateway on the network side which inturn interfaced with internet via WAN connection. This way two IoT devices can communicate with each other.

IoT Applications are enormous. Out of these medical,retail,industrial and automotive sectors will be a big market for IoT. IoT is considered to be of 4 layers. It consists of sensing and identification layer, network construction(as information to be converted to be suitable for wireless cellular connection or to any network as required),information processing and application layer. Refer IoT article.

Major IoT Device requirements

IoT device

Figure.2 depicts typical IoT device. This will be powered by battery which should last long. The physical layer need to be slightly modified to accomodate converstion of received sensor information into the form suitable to be transmitted over the cellular network. The companies are working towards following primary requirements for the IoT devices to be successful in the market.

•  As mentioned device battery should last long. The life of battery should be atleast about 10 years.

•  It should have better receiver sensitivity level compare to normal devices.

•  It should have support for large number of devices in the entire system.

•  Not but the least it should be lesser in the cost may be less than $5 to address the major market share.

Companies such as Ericsson and Huawei is taking initiative to provide cellular solutions to address the huge requirements of IoT devices. Ericsson is looking into GSM and LTE while Huawei is looking towards narrowband M2M solution based on FDM concept. Refer difference between FDM and OFDM to know the FDM and OFDM concepts. One can also refer wireless physical layer article to understand the different modules.


This page on IoT sensors cover different types of sensors used in IoT. It include optical sensor,ambient light sensor,proximity sensor,gesture sensor,temperature,pressure,inertia,humidity,touch and fingerprint based MEMS sensors, Read more.

IoT components page covering Op-Amp,Battery monitoring IC,sensors,supply regulator,RFIC,processor used for IoT device manufacturing, Read more.

The article describing about IoT, how does it work, IoT stack,Internet of Things applications and will discuss whether IoT is boon or curse for the mankind,Read more.

To know about cellular IoT basics and primary requirements of IoT device interfacing with cellular networks such as GSM,LTE,M2M etc., Read more.

IoT Wireless Technologies

WLAN    ➤THREAD    ➤EnOcean    ➤LoRa    ➤SIGFOX    ➤WHDI   

RF and Wireless Terminologies

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