Design and Implementation of IEEE 802.11ah (HaLow) Dongle for IoT Wireless Networking

In this paper, we present an IEEE 802.11ah (HaLow) dongle that provides sub-1 GHz wireless channel and USB (universal serial bus) interface for power supply and wired data link for easy Internet of Things (IoT) wireless networking. The HaLow dongle is implemented using CC1352P1 sub-1GHz smart RF chipset that provides 50Kbps ~ 4Mbps in 10m ~ 1Km range. The major advantages of the HaLow dongle include i) easy installation using USB interface, ii) energy efficient wireless networking with flexible channel selection and Tx rate/power adjustments, and iii) user-friendly API (application programming interface) for raw-socket-based application developments. The functional architecture of IEEE 802.11ah (HaLow) dongle is explained in detail and the performance is analyzed in practical environments.