On High-Density Resource-Restricted Pulse-Based IoT Networks

For the realization of an Internet of Things (IoT) with high densities of nodes it is necessary that wireless communication protocols are developed that offer (1) low energy consumption, (2) simplicity of encoding and decoding, (3) an asynchronous mode of communication, and (4) an effective but simple method to deal with interference between transmissions. This paper presents the implementation, experimentation, and analysis of a protocol on the MAC sublayer that is based on the encoding of information by the silent intervals between pulses. This encoding allows for few conflicts between messages that are broadcast on the same band overlapped in time. This is demonstrated experimentally, while no adverse effect is detected on transmissions from broadcasts of a different group of nodes using the same 315 MHz band but with a different code length as coding parameter. Theoretical analysis confirms that the probability of conflicts between messages is low, even if the number of nodes increases to the order of ten thousand. This protocol facilitates the implementation of IoT nodes that are restricted in terms of hardware and energy resources.