Higher Layer Design for 3GPP Ambient Internet of Things

Ambient Internet of Things (A-IoT) is a new third-generation partnership project (3GPP) IoT communication technology relying on ultra-low complexity devices powered by ambient sources of energy with ultra-low power consumption. It is aimed to address very-low end IoT applications and scenarios that cannot otherwise be fulfilled by existing 3GPP IoT technologies. Integration of such extremely constrained IoT devices into 3GPP ecosystem promises benefits such as A-IoT deployment in large market areas with cellular infrastructure, upgradability, and security, while rendering various new design challenges. This article provides an overview of A-IoT and a comparison with the existing 3GPP IoT technologies from a perspective of higher layer protocol design. Then it summarizes the ongoing 3GPP Release 19 study on A-IoT covering aspects such as architecture, protocol stacks, simplified functionalities, and procedures. It outlines new design challenges stemming from communication characteristics of A-IoT as well as highlights key design principles A-IoT should follow to be able to benefit from being part of the 3GPP ecosystem. As an important design principle, the article analyzes whether and how to register A-IoT devices to the network leveraging the device context information in subsequent communications.