5G Advanced to Support Self-Powered Sensors

In the manufacturing sector, extended IoT solutions could be used to greatly reduce the need for paper trails by enabling an automatic inventory system. “An extended IoT solution could, for example, be used to count 100,000 stock items in a warehouse with an accuracy is 99.99%,” says John Gao. Such a solution would save manpower and increase the efficiency of warehouse stocktaking.

“The logistics of goods from the supplier to the factory usually goes through four steps: dock, floor, sorting area, and production line,” explains John Gao. “Currently, a thermal paper needs to be pasted in each link, so that there is a lot of manual participation in the link, and the efficiency is low. Adopting an unique electronic code for goods will greatly reduce manual participation and achieve paper- less and automated turnover.”

In the automobile industry, an extended IoT network could track materials across the whole manufacturing process from the workshop to the warehouse, the repacking and sorting area, and the production line. Such tracking could be conducted every hour automatically.

Extended IoT solutions could also be used in the healthcare sector to monitor the temperature of medicines during cold chain transportation. Other potential wide-area applications include asset management and dangerous goods surveillance. “Global top automotive manufacturers, home appliance manufacturers, and 3C manufacturers are actively promoting industry showcases to explore the maturity of extended IoT in supply chain logistics to achieve paperless strategies,” says John Gao.

Similarly, in the animal husbandry sector, the technology could be used for remote automatic stocktaking and real-time temperature and movement monitoring of livestock. It would allow for battery-free sensors to be small and light enough to be worn comfortably by animals. That would help to accelerate the implementation of precision and smart agriculture. Monitoring animal body temperature and the movement of livestock can, for example, help to detect infections.

In the energy sector, the temperature, humidity and pressure of the power system are key data for predictive maintenance. In many scenarios, however, the collection terminal cannot use batteries because they are too flammable. Yet an extended IoT solution could be used to collect environmental information and the basic data required for predictive maintenance.

Extended IoT could complement other 5G standards being developed by 3GPP, such as conventional NR (New Radio), Redcap (reduced capability) NR and NB-IoT. The goal would be to ensure extended IoT solutions could support continuous local networking and coexist with a standard NR system, through multi-site cooperation and joint scheduling. By taking advantage of the broader cellular network, an extended IoT solution could offer multi-point joint networking to provide seamless read capability in the local area.

Standards body 3GPP intends to define extended IoT in the 5G-Advanced phase, which encompasses 3GPP Release 18 and Release 19. “Extended IoT is being discussed at 3GPP Release 19 and needs to be promoted by multiple parties in the industry,” notes John Gao. “We need to coordinate the development of terminals and networks in advance, plan and develop applications, and provide support for application use.”