IoT System with Switchable GSM, LoRaWAN, and Sigfox Communication Technology for Reliable Data Collection to Open-Source or Industrial Cloud Platforms

This paper describes a new methodology for hybrid data collection from IoT (internet of things) devices by three separate technologies: GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) (LTE-M/NB-IoT (Long-Term Evolution for Machines/Narrowband Internet of Things)), Sigfox, and LoRa/LoRaWAN. We discuss experiments involving event-based switching with actual monitoring of the different IoT communication technologies’ signal quality. The experiments demonstrated that combination of IoT technology can provide stable data flow from a production process to cloud platform systems. We tested the signal quality in a highly urbanized environment and a more sparsely inhabited environment by monitoring errors during travel between two towns. The next area of study is the problem of connection and transformation of digitalized data to a cloud platform with adequate synchronization. The tested open-source cloud platform was built on an InfluxDB database using the Grafana visualization framework. Data from industrial devices—for example, RFID (radiofrequency identification) and vision—can be transferred by a local network with an IoT gateway and an OPC (Open Platform Communications) server to commercial cloud platforms.