A Cellular-Modem-Hosted Low-Cost Single-Shot Dual-Mode Assisted-GNSS Receiver for the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to bring about many new applications resulting in an exponentially increasing number of connected devices within the next decade. Two key technologies for the IoT era are wireless connectivity and world-wide positioning enabling applications such as asset tracking or sensor nodes for smart farming. With applications only being limited by cost, power consumption, and form factor unprecedented integration levels are required that cannot be met with off-the-rack cellular modems and Global-Navigation-Satellite-System (GNSS) receivers. This contribution embraces this challenge by integrating a low-cost Assisted-GNSS (A-GNSS) receiver supporting GPS and BeiDou into a dual-mode cellular IoT modem RF-System-on-Chip (RF-SoC). The GNSS-related overhead in terms of silicon area is limited to 2% by taking full advantage of synergies arising from this integration and by exploiting missing real-time requirements of many IoT applications while achieving 25-m position accuracy.