IoT Device Address Bundling for Base Station Capacity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current cellular communication systems face capacity issues when serving a large number of IoT devices in real-time due to limited base station resources, as they were not designed to handle millions of sensors simultaneously.
Innovation Solution
The system addresses this by defining IoT device groups with a primary device managing communications between the base station and secondary devices using a mobile network protocol, where the primary device modifies messages to include identifiers for secondary devices, reducing the load on base stations and enabling efficient backhaul services for the entire group.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If base stations directly communicate with each IoT device individually, then communication reliability is maintained, but base station resource capacity is overwhelmed when serving millions of IoT devices
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a gateway as an intermediary component that mediates between IoT devices and the base station. The gateway collects data from multiple IoT devices locally and performs preliminary processing, then communicates with the base station on behalf of all devices in its group. This intermediary approach maintains communication reliability by providing a dedicated communication path while dramatically reducing base station workload by aggregating multiple device communications into single gateway-base station interactions.
2Speed
If base stations manage communications with all IoT devices directly, then real-time communication is achieved, but device complexity and management overhead increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the IoT network into hierarchical groups, where each gateway manages a specific group of IoT devices. This segmentation divides the monolithic management task into smaller, manageable units. Each gateway maintains real-time communication with its local devices while the base station only needs to manage gateway connections. This hierarchical segmentation preserves real-time communication capabilities within groups while dramatically reducing overall system management complexity.
3Measurement precision
If individual IoT device identifiers are used in all communications, then device identification precision is maintained, but communication overhead and data size increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the identification function by using a single gateway identifier to represent multiple IoT devices in communications with the base station. Instead of including individual device identifiers in every message, the gateway consolidates multiple device identities under its own identifier for uplink communications and distributes incoming messages to appropriate devices using local identification. This merging approach maintains precise device identification within the gateway's local context while eliminating redundant identifier transmission overhead in wide-area communications.
Data Source
AI summary
Various embodiments comprise systems, methods, and apparatus enabling communications between a mobile network node (e.g., base station, eNB, gNB) and a large number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices by defining IoT device groups comprising at least one primary IoT device and a plurality of secondary IoT devices. The mobile network node communicates directly with group primary IoT devices via a mobile network protocol, and the group primary IoT devices further communicate with the secondary IoT devices via a local wireless protocol. Identifiers are used to identify secondary IoT devices that are the source of transmitted uplink messages, or the target/destination of downlink messages. Identifiers may be bundled or concatenated such that the primary IoT devices can manage messages or other communications to/from the base station, which in turn handles all backhaul services necessary to support the group of IoT devices.