In the age of the digital Internet of Things (IoT), the way to measure and transmit data such as meter and water levels, the tightness of pipelines or the preload of screw connections is via connected sensors and wireless communication. A major Bavarian city such as Nuremberg, with an area of approximately 187 km2, has up to an estimated 1 million IoT devices in operation, assuming an average of two devices (such as digital water meters or heating controls) per household. A base station with a range of about 2.5 kilometers can receive data from up to 110,000 such devices.

 
3.5 million data telegrams and only one base station for smart metering 

However, not all devices transmit their data at the same time, and so they are not constantly using the available radio channels. The extremely small data packets, known as telegrams, that the mioty technology uses for Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs) can receive up to 150 telegrams simultaneously and achieve a transmission capacity of around 3.5 million telegrams per day.

This high number of transmissions is made possible by systematically improved algorithms, which have been optimized to such an extent that they now run on the energy-saving ARM processors that have long been in widespread use.
 
“After our initial calculations of many applications that are already using our mioty technology in the field, we have now performed new tests and calculations to improve the technology even further. The result is optimization of still greater numbers of messages, plus enhanced energy efficiency of transmission and a robust protocol,” says Josef Bernhard, technical project manager in the development of the technology. “The high number of data telegrams per day that we are now achieving in practice provides an optimum starting point for use in smart city and smart building applications, where a high number of sensors transmit simultaneously. This spurs us on to continue to push the rollout of mioty together with our partners from industry and from the mioty alliance, not only in these areas, but in agriculture and industry as well.”
 

Convincing advantages: Reliable, energy efficient and “retrofittable”

mioty is a standardized technology of the European Telecommunication Standards Institute ETSI, an independent body of private companies and research institutes. A telegram splitting method, which was also developed by Fraunhofer scientists, makes it possible to ensure complete, reliable data transmission even if up to half the telegrams fail or are transmitted incorrectly. This is achieved by splitting the overall data into small data packets/telegrams and transmitting them redundantly over several frequencies in the band. In addition, the method uses less energy than conventional methods. With the evaluation kit, any interested company can learn about the advantages of the technology in a practical way. Two of these advantages stand out: one, this technology is especially well-suited for retrofitting into existing setups; and two, it can be used in parallel with other radio technologies. These features and more make mioty a promising option for many existing applications as well as an investment in the future of IoT applications.

mioty® is a trademark of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft e.V.