A flexible, ultra-narrowband transceiver has been developed at the Department of Communication Systems. It can be used with the SIGFOX toolbox for rapid development of experiments using a visual editor. An innovative approach combining an embedded CPU and a software defined radio allows the use of original binary modem firmware while at the same time enabling simple modifications to the transmitted waveform and packet data.
A commercial SIGFOX base station has also been installed at the out-door testbed located at the Jožef Stefan Institute campus in Ljubljana. Together with the experimental transceiver, this setup allows for data collection, modeling and optimization of ultra-narrowband low-power wide-area networks.
Jožef Stefan Institute and SIGFOX are partners in the Horizon 2020 project eWINE. eWINE is focusing on improvements to current technologies that would enable dense and dynamic wireless networks of the future. One of the active areas of research is coexistence of different low-power wide-area networks in unlicensed bands. These networks provide connectivity to a large variety of small, constrained devices such as sensors and smart meters, and are predicted to grow considerably with the Internet of Things.
Link to this lecture.
