A Smart Communication System for 5G-IoT Networks

Many initiatives are listed in the Smart City blueprint 2.0 from HKSAR government. One major initiative is infrastructure: full Wi-Fi, 5G, and IoT network coverage to form the backbone of the Smart City. This infrastructure can facilitate different industries including communication, education, transportation, environment, manufacturing, reindustrialization, etc. 5G can provide high throughput (up to 1.3Tbps) and low latency but requires smaller miniature base stations to be set up every 250 meters. Meanwhile, IoT networks (including LoRa, NB-IoT, Sigfox) allow a longer transmission range and can carry large amounts of data from different sensors serving different applications. The idea of this project is to merge these two totally different types of network technologies by both hardware and software design. We will design a new IoT gateway with a compatible communications interface with the 5G gateway, including the hardware connection and the communication protocol. To solve the latency and missing packet issues of the IoT network (a common problem for low-data-range and long-range one- way communication), we will use diversity coding for providing smart, smooth and reliable data communication. Thus, the new system can leverage the advantages of two different networks with highly efficient performance and high reliability to support many smart city applications.