Emiliano Sisinni

University of Brescia
Dept. Inf. Engineering
 Who am I?

• Professor of Electronics @ University of Brescia (Dept. Inf. Engineering)

• Member of IEC SC65WG16, WG17 and TC65C WG17

• Member of ES3 research group

 Let’s start from the beginning…

• What is the Internet of Things?

Internet of Things Strategic Research Agenda

The Internet of things (IoT) is about “smart things”

(i.e., intelligent objects) exchanging data each other
over the Internet

E. Sisinni – University of Brescia

 The IoT vision

• What do I need to create an intelligent object?

SOURCE: University of Cambridge

E. Sisinni – University of Brescia

 When is IoT useful?
Interesting question…

• Applications requiring multi-

organisation (object) sensed data
sharing

• High variety & distribution of

sensors / sensed data / data
sources emerging School of Management - Politecnico di Milano (2018)

• Cloud (Internet) based application

for managing items in (many)
homes, offices etc…

• Applications involving
personalisation / customisation of
products / orders / items ("smarter Smart metering ins an ideal candidate!!
things")
E. Sisinni – University of Brescia
 How is IoT implemented

• IoT can be described from many

different points of view

• In each one, different «layers» are

identified

 Each layer offer some funtionalities to

the next one

 Each layer is decoupled from the others

• In the simplest one, there are three

layers each one centered around
one key element: from the Things
towards the Cloud using Gateways

E. Sisinni – University of Brescia

 Choosing the communication «pipe»
• IoT is an irreversible trend in utilities
Communication Requirements

 Smart Meter hardware consists of “two things”: Speed (kb/s) Latency

1) Metrology and processing, 2) Communication

• Selecting the right communication “pipe” is

becoming a real challenge, as it’s not only
about technology:

 depending on the requirements of the intended

use cases

• but about business process changes as

well:

 outsource ICT As a Service, (call it

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), OPEX
oriented approach) ?

 build and run owned communication and IT

infrastructure (CAPEX oriented) ?
Communication requirements
(e.g. for the gas/water smart meters)
E. Sisinni – University of Brescia
 Non-technical challenges
• It’s a chicken and egg dilemma! Device makers Network infrastructure

 Smart Meters R&D mostly well attached

to HW (SoC) providers Network infrastructure End-users

 IoT solution providers offer “Device

Management”, in order to make the
communication pipe maintenance free
from user point of view

• Is any common interest between AMI

players and IoT solution provider to
mutually cooperate?

• The giant international smart metering

players are moving toward mostly
solution provider covering backend
software and system integration
(project management, rollout etc).
The smart meter-IoT Value Chain (e.g. for the
smart grid scenario)
https://www.quectel.com/infocenter/news/405.htm

E. Sisinni – University of Brescia

 Technical challenges

• First and foremost, the (I)IoT is infrastructure—it enables and

supports communication based on “Internet”

1. How can we access data in

the Cloud?

2. How can we reach field

devices?

E. Sisinni – University of Brescia

 Technical challenges
• IoT requires data producers and data consumers Publisher 1 Publisher 2
to be decoupled

• Normally achieved by publish/subscribe Software bus

paradigm
Subscriber 1 Subscriber 2 Subscriber 3

 Entities can publish data under certain names

 Entities can subscribe to updates of such named data

• Conceptually: Implemented by a software bus

 Software bus stores subscriptions, published data; names used as filters;
subscribers notified when values of named data changes

• Generally leveraging on a “Message Broker”

E. Sisinni – University of Brescia

 Technical challenges
• What if the “wires” are missing?

• There is no “one-size-fits-all”
solution…

• LPWANs are emerging as a

viable approach for IoT
applications

A Survey on LPWAN Technologies in WBAN for Remote Health-Care Monitoring, November 2019, Sensors 19(23):5268 DOI: 10.3390/s19235268

Tradeoffs: data rate / link budget / unlicensed

E. Sisinni – University of Brescia

 The LoRaWAN example

• Star topology (private or public cellular networks)

• Data are opaque for the Gateway

Commissioning, Provisioning
• Nwk and Apk keys Network Security, Data Integrity

Gateway

applications
End user
Unique AppID
E2E Encryption
LoRaWAN nodes Network and Applicatio
(motes) Servers (NS and BS)
Encapsulate and MQTT
Application Forward Application
Message Queue Telemetry Transport
LoRaWAN LoRaWAN TCP/IP TCP/IP (better than HTTP for IoT simplicity)
based based
LoRa LoRa backhaul backhaul

E. Sisinni – University of Brescia

 Decreto semplificazioni

• Permanent deployments of LPWANs are now permitted!

https://lora-alliance.org/in-the-news/lorawanr-investment-unlocked-italy

E. Sisinni – University of Brescia

Thank you!

emiliano.sisinni@unibs.it
 An experimental characterization
• D. F. Carvalho, A. Depari, P. Ferrari, A. Flammini, S. Rinaldi and E. Sisinni, "On the feasibility of mobile sensing and
tracking applications based on LPWAN," 2018 IEEE Sensors Applications Symposium (SAS), Seoul, 2018, pp. 1-6, doi:
10.1109/SAS.2018.8336765.

• Test bed goal: evaluating the delay from event to end-user

• An NTP-synchronized IOT2040 triggers mote (@ T1) and receives subscribed data (@ T2)

• The Network Server (which is synchronized as well) assigns T3 when a new message is received from the Gateway

• Metrics: Network delay ND = T3-T1, Appl. Delay AD = T2-T3

• IOT2040: Intel Quark x1020, running Yocto

Linux, kernel release 2.2.1.
• Mote: a Microchip LoRaWAN dev kit
(DM164138 with LoRa modem RN2483).

E. Sisinni – University of Brescia

 An experimental characterization
• Patavina backend servers: the AS exposes data (8B) via an MQTT broker (120 messages @ 1 /min, 2 hours total)

• Mobile node (4G) vs Fixed (ADSL) positions for comparison

(marked with red crosses in the map)

• Time on air < 60 ms (fastest data rate)

• Area coverage: 1-8 reacheable gateways

Maps with the itinerary (4km) used

during the experiments.

Null Packet Error Rate for

the whole experiment
duration
E. Sisinni – University of Brescia
 An experimental characterization
• Mobile node and fixed nodes P0, P3, P5 have same results

• The use of wireless Internet worsens the Application Delay

• The Average Network Delay AND, related to LoRaWAN radio, is always the same with mobile or
fixed nodes (AND = 250ms)

• Results are promising for non-time critical mobility applications (500 ms of delay at 36kmh=10m/s is
an estimation error of 5m in the position)

LoRaWAN Network Delay (ms) LoRaWAN Application Delay (ms)
25.0%
16.0%
14.0% 20.0%
12.0%
10.0% 15.0%

8.0%
10.0%
6.0%
4.0% 5.0%
2.0%
0.0%
0.0%
10 90 170 250 330 410 490 570 650 730 810 890 970
10 60 110 160 210 260 310 360 410 460

ND_P0 ND_P5 ND_Mobile ND_P3 AD_P0 AD_P5 AD_Mobile AD_P3

E. Sisinni – University of Brescia

Thank you!

emiliano.sisinni@unibs.it
 Choosing the communication «pipe»
• IoT is an irreversible trend in utilities
Communication Requirements
Smart Grid Use Cases
 Smart Meter hardware consists of “two things”: Speed (kb/s) Latency
1) Metrology and processing, 2) Communication
1 Smart Meter 1Phase 10-20 Minutes

• Selecting the right communication “pipe” is 2 Smart Meter 3Phase-DC 20-50 Seconds to Minutes
becoming a real challenge, as it’s not only
about technology: 3 Smart Meter 3Phase-CT/PT 50-100 Seconds

4 Demand Response 14-100 500 ms to Minutes

 depending on the requirements of the intended
use cases 5 Renewable and Distributed Energy 10-60 20 ms to 15 s

• but about business process changes as 6 Storage Systems 10-60 20 ms to 15 s

well:
7 Electrical Vehicle Charging Station 10-100 2 s to 5 Minutes

 outsource ICT As a Service, (call it
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), OPEX
oriented approach) ?
 build and run owned communication and IT
8 Alarms and Monitoring (RTU) 600-1500 20-200 ms
Communication use cases
(e.g. for the smart grid scenario)
https://www.quectel.com/infocenter/news/405.htm

infrastructure (CAPEX oriented) ?