With the continuous advancement of information and communication technology (ICT), communication network, as an important foundation of information and communication technology, has developed from person-to-person communication to person-to-thing and thing-to-thing (M2M), and has gradually tended to evolve from vertical partial thing-to-thing communication. The connection of things transitions to the horizontal cross-application and cross-region Internet of Things (IoT). And how to use existing network resources to build a reasonable Internet of Things that can be operated and managed so that various network resources can cooperate and integrate with each other. Maximizing performance is an important problem facing operators.
Where are IoT gateways used?
(1) Smart agriculture: By accurately monitoring humidity and nutrients, the system can prompt watering and fertilizing times, thereby saving water and fertilizer costs while significantly increasing output value. Practice has proven that when used in conjunction with weather forecasts, the system can bring real benefits to farmers.
(2) Intelligent street lights: By monitoring parameters such as ambient light and traffic flow, municipal managers can control the brightness and switching time of street lights, saving a lot of electricity. If a street light breaks down, the system will immediately report for repair, reducing the risk of accidents or crime rates.
(3) Smart home: These applications allow users to remotely monitor security equipment and home appliances, and can also improve energy efficiency, for example, automatically turning off the power of home appliances when users go out.
(4) Smart parking lots: Smart parking lots based on proximity detection sensors are another IoT application that can send empty parking space information to drivers in advance to avoid traffic congestion and make pricing based on parking time more accurate.
Comparison between traditional communication networks and emerging short-range communication networks
The concept of the Internet of Things was proposed in 1999. Its definition is very simple, that is, all items are connected to the Internet through information sensing equipment such as radio frequency identification (RnD), infrared sensors, global positioning systems, laser scanners, etc., to exchange information and communicate, and to achieve intelligent identification and positioning. , tracking, monitoring and management. The Internet of Things is the third wave of the international information industry after computers and the Internet. The first two waves were represented by PCs and information processing respectively, and this wave will build on the accumulation of technical achievements in the first two waves of science and technology and further extend the reach of information acquisition to the perception layer to achieve wider interconnection and interoperability. .
Gateway manageability: As a network element connected to the network, the IoT gateway itself must have certain management functions, including registration and login management, permission management, task management, data management, fault management, status monitoring, remote diagnosis, parameter Inquiry and configuration, event processing, remote control, remote upgrade, etc. If it is necessary to realize the management of the entire network, it is not only necessary to realize the management of the gateway device itself, but also to further realize the management of each node in the subnet through the gateway, such as obtaining the node’s identity, status, attributes and other information, as well as remote wake-up, control, Diagnosis, upgrade and maintenance, etc. Although the skill standards vary depending on the subnet. Depending on the complexity of the agreement, the content that can be handled varies greatly.
at present. With the development of communication skills. The exchange of information between people has become increasingly simple and convenient. However, existing telecommunications networks are mainly used to transmit information between people, and are rarely used between things and things, and between people and things. This is caused by many reasons: if many communications between sensing nodes are transmitted by telecommunications networks. The cost will be very expensive, and it is technically difficult for the telecommunications network to ensure simultaneous online communication of a large number of nodes in the region: many sensing nodes work in very harsh environments, and generally require long-term operation without replacement of batteries. These are also difficult to guarantee with existing telecommunications network skills; in addition. Communication between many objects does not require all nodes to have the long-distance communication capabilities of telecommunications networks.
in this case. Wireless sensor networks (WSN), RFID and other short-range communication technologies have emerged. And it has been widely used in a short period of time. Wireless sensor networks have the characteristics of low power consumption, large scale, self-organizing network, multi-hop routing, dynamic networking, data-centric, and application-related, which effectively make up for the shortcomings of telecommunications networks at the perception level. Therefore, communication between many sensing nodes generally uses short-range communication technologies such as wireless sensor networks and RFID. By building a self-organized wireless network between nodes. In a low-cost, high-efficiency way, communication between people and things, and things between things is realized.
Of course, in the era of the Internet of Things. Traditional communication operators must make certain changes to the existing network architecture and operation model. In order to meet new application needs. On the one hand, it is necessary to seamlessly integrate the existing communication network and the capillary sensing network in terms of network architecture. On the other hand, it is necessary to strengthen the operation and management of sensing networks and terminal nodes. Improve value-added service capabilities. In this way, a new network element device—the Internet of Things Gateway (iOTCW)—came into being, which better handles these problems.
But. Because of the particularity of the usage scenarios of commonly used skills in the field of information perception, its skill advantages can also be considered as its inherent shortcomings from another perspective. These perceptual network skills are generally used in certain areas where communication between networks cannot occur. In this way, isolated islands of information are formed, and there is still a certain distance before the realization of comprehensive interconnection and collaborative sensing. For example, existing sensor network technology. Because nodes are generally powered by batteries, the power consumption must be very low. Computing and storage resources must be limited, and communication bandwidth, transmission distance, coverage range must be reduced, and a series of other characteristics. In addition, there are many types of perceptual skills. And choose different communication protocols. Interconnection cannot be completed at all.
Utilizing the nationwide wired and wireless communication networks that have been built by major operators, we can meet the requirements for high bandwidth and long-distance data transmission. Through the powerful combination of traditional communication networks with sensor networks, RFID and other sensing technologies, the problem of long-distance interconnection of sensing nodes can be effectively solved.
Keywords: Internet of Things gateway