Cellular IoT

M2m Communications

Cellular technology has been used for some time to connect mobile or remote autonomous devices to business applications. This technology was originally called “machine to machine” or m2m and was based largely on 2G GSM technology largely due to the low cost of implementing GSM devices. This term is now being superceded  by “Internet of Things” or IoT and there is a shift going on from the use of 2G GSM technology towards 4G and 5G.

4G/5G IoT standards include three major innovations:

• Low power device classes to facilitate devices operating for up to 10 years on battery
• Increased coverage for IoT devices, up to 20 dB coverage advantage over standard cellular devices
• Massive IoT device number support, 100,000 devices supported per base station

Druid’s Raemis™ technology platform has been used to deliver m2m solutions in the past and is now being used to deliver innovative solutions for business IoT communications challenges.

IOT Service Provider

Deploying a dedicated wide area mobile IoT network is expensive and relying on a single mobile network partner limits coverage footprint, is vulnerable to single operator failure and can lead to costly lock in.

Druid’s IoT Service Provider solves the problem by allowing the radio networks of multiple operators to service the IoT devices of the customers giving the best possible coverage footprint and providing redundancy in the case of a failure of one or more of the operator networks. It may also be combined with the Druids “IoT reach” solution to provide coverage in black spots where no available partner network has coverage.

Some examples of vertical markets for this solution are Public Utilities, Shipping & Logistics, Automotive tracking, flood protection, IoT Service Providers.

IOT Reach

Global footprint mobile IoT applications suffer from black spots in coverage where IoT devices can no longer be monitored.

Druid’s IoT Reach solution lights up these black spots with coverage for IoT devices. IoT reach can operate in licensed or unlicensed spectrum depending on the specific use case. It acts as an inbound roaming network for IoT devices and provides a real time management interface to identify the IoT devices present on its radio resources.

IoT Reach is complementary to the IoT Service provider solution in that it can light up black spots where the IoT Service provider network partners are not doing so.

Some sample vertical markets for IoT reach include Maritime Container tracking, telemetry for Utilities, mining, Gas fields, pipelines.

Industrial Campus Automation

Current mobile wireless communications solutions fail to deliver the quality of service necessary for Industrial Automation applications.

Druid’s Industrial Campus Automation solution delivers the highest quality of service possible by distributing core network elements to the campus site, lowering latency to a minimum and providing resilience to network failure in its capability to operate autonomously from operator core networks. It implements the wireless mobile coverage using 4G cellular radio technology and either licensed or unlicensed cellular spectrum depending on the use case.

Wifi is the other technology attempted for this kind of use case but has major limitations when it comes to outdoor or wide area coverage, high quality mobility and is subject to interference. These drawbacks make it unsuitable for Industrial campus automation where failures or unreliability convert directly into loss of revenue.

Verticals

Some example vertical markets include:

• Maritime
• Hospitals
• Elderly Care
• Ports
• Manufacturing
• Mining