Nb-Wifi: Ieee 802.11 And Bluetooth Low Energy Combined For Efficient Support Of Iot

Key features of the two dominating standards for the unlicensed bands, IEEE 802.11 and Bluetooth Wireless Technology, are combined to obtain a physical layer (PHY) with several desirable features for internet of things (IoT). The proposed PHY, which is referred to as Narrow-band WiFi (NB-WiFi) can be supported by an OFDM transceiver available in an IEEE 802.11 access point (AP). In addition, NB-WiFi supports concurrent use of low data rate IoT application and high data rate broadband using IEEE 802.11ax technology, based on a single IFFT/FFT in the AP. In the sensor node, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) hardware can be reused, making it suitable for dual mode implementation of BLE and NB-WiFi. The performance of the proposed PHY is simulated for an AWGN channel, and it achieves about 10 dB improved sensitivity compared to a typical BLE receiver, due to the lower data rate.