Discussion on the technology and standard system framework of Internet of Things lighting

introduction

 

Lighting technical specifications and product standards are an important part of the development of the lighting industry. With the technology cross-border in the lighting industry, lighting technical specifications and product standards are not the things of the lighting industry itself, but the topic of a multidisciplinary and comprehensive multi-industry technology. . I have accumulated nearly 40 years of technology accumulation in the IT industry, the communication industry and the LED lighting industry, and I have explored the lighting technology and standard system framework under the background of the Internet of Things with a thin force. A unilateral view that provides academic discussion and reference.

 

1 question raised

 

The light source or luminaire of the traditional lighting industry began 20 years ago, and was gradually replaced by LED-based lighting sources and lamps belonging to the semiconductor industry. In recent years, the Internet of Things, led by the IT industry, the communications industry, and the electronics industry, has begun to impact the LED lighting that is the mainstay of the semiconductor industry, making the technical specifications and standards of lighting more difficult and complex. Of course, nearly a decade of LED lighting technical specifications and product standards have made great achievements, and began to go international, it is obvious to all. Especially since the promulgation of the National Standards Law not long ago, group lighting technical specifications and product standards have sprung up. It is a good thing that standards have begun to be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people and enterprises. However, the problem has arisen for this, as shown in:

 

1.1 IoT lighting is no longer a single source and fixture. It is a system that integrates optoelectronic technology, sensing technology, communication technology, information technology, big data processing technology and information security technology. The formulation of technical specifications and product standards is still a single industry operation, and there is no synergy.

 

1.2 Traditional and even single-source and luminaire technology and standard frame systems for semiconductor LEDs have not adapted to the technical specifications of IoT lighting and the status quo of product product standard systems, because IoT lighting is a complex system that requires mutual unification. Interfaces (including software and hardware) protocols to coordinate work.

 

1.3 The technical specifications and product standards of the system are a multi-dimensional facade that requires forward-looking and comprehensive multi-faceted planning and guidance.

 

1.4 Technology and products involve multiple industries and multiple fields. There are no norms and standards. Technical integration and product compatibility cannot be achieved. There is no macro-standard and standard system framework, and there is no reasonable uniformity and comprehensiveness of norms and standards.

 

To this end, a technical specification of the IoT lighting and the formation of a product standard system framework are necessary.

 

2 The basic structure of the Internet of Things

 

According to the national model GB/T 33474-2016 "IoT Reference Architecture", the basic structure of the Internet of Things has four levels: four layers: physical sensing layer, transmission network layer, application support layer, Service application layer,

 

 

 

 

2.1 Device sensing layer includes: various sensors on the device (including: light, electricity, gas, weather, environment, speed, motion, infrared, traffic,,,), RFID, smart card, two-dimensional code, reader, biological Identification, video, surveillance, MEMS, GPS, Beidou, etc.

 

2.2 Transmission network layer includes: remote Internet, 2G/3G/4G/5G, NB-IoT, eSIM, eMTC; satellite communication, PLC, short-range Bluetooth, WIFI, UWB, ZigBee, LoRa, Z-wave, etc.

 

2.3 Application support layer includes: various intermediate functions, big data, cloud computing, cloud platform, distributed parallel computing, Web services technology, edge computing, data security, artificial intelligence, etc.

 

2.4 Service application layer includes: intelligent retail, intelligent manufacturing, intelligent logistics, smart home, intelligent security, smart energy, smart agriculture, smart transportation, smart medical, smart building, smart military and so on.

 

2.5 Explain the working process of the Internet of Things by illuminating the Internet of Things as an example:

 

There are also four layers of IoT lighting: physical sensing layer, transport network layer, application support layer, and service application layer.

 

 

 

2.5.1 Lighting the IoT device sensing layer (on street lights and control nodes or centralized controllers) includes: photosensors, motion sensors, GPS with clock (or Beidou positioning), etc.

 

2.5.2 The transmission network layer of the lighting Internet of things includes: wireless short-range communication (such as Zigbee) or wired short-range communication (such as 485), remote wireless communication GPRS or Internet, and so on.

 

2.5.3 Lighting IoT application support layer includes: server and platform software, various intermediate functions, big data, or cloud computing and edge computing.

 

2.5.4 The service application layer of the lighting Internet of Things is mainly the Internet of Things lighting management center. The center includes several system modules:

 

Control module, statistics module, geographic module, file module, setting module, communication module, etc.

 

2.5.5 A simple urban road IoT lighting workflow, there are several main processes:

 

Sensor à single lamp controller à centralized control or monitoring center start à luminaire lighting à state return à various central background monitoring management.

 

Note 1: All “à” symbols indicate a simplex or duplex communication process)

 

Note 2: Sensor: includes ambient brightness sensing, geographic time sensing, motion sensing of people or cars, etc. These conditions are logically related to "and". The specific logical model is determined by the designer and the user.

 

2.5.6 From the above simple work flow chart, it can be seen that IoT lighting is not a luminaire thing, it is a system process, except for the technical specifications and product standards of the sensor, the driving power supply component or the luminaire equipment itself, There is a problem of matching and matching hardware connections, communication protocols, and software data structures between, between components and devices, between components or devices, and between monitoring centers.

 

2.5.7 The technical specifications and product standard system framework of IoT lighting are the technical specifications, communication protocols and product standards that need to be made for components, devices, communications, software platforms, application software, etc., and between them. The interchangeable interface requirements are justified to facilitate the relevant standard workers to understand the work that needs to be done.

 

 

 

 

4 Explanation and explanation of the basic framework

 

4.1 The foundation and idea of ​​the framework is based on the model system of the Internet of Things, and is carried out according to the characteristics of the lighting equipment. It is built horizontally according to the level. There are also vertical and vertical backgrounds, and the application scenarios of the Internet of Things are built one by one, but the vertical construction will produce duplicate framework content.

 

4.2 The framework is divided into five parts according to the basic four layers of the Internet of Things plus the equipment layer. Each part has independent technical specifications and product standards, as well as interface technical specifications and communication protocols for each part.

 

4.3 The parts involved in the framework can be referred to, but not limited to, the national standards, industry standards, group standard standard numbers and names related to IoT lighting, and the frame numbers and names proposed in this paper are compared. See the comparison table.

 

 

 

4.4 Some of the standards in the framework, although some have been released, there are still some areas for revision. For example, in the GB/T 33745-2017 "Internet of Things Terminology" released last year, the most basic term "Internet of Things (IoT system)" is not defined, but it is often found in other IoT related standards.

 

4.5 The only information listed in the framework is the content of the IoT, but it is also the basic system framework of the multi-function street lamp. If other functions (environmental monitoring, security monitoring, WiFi base station, information display, etc.) are added, the technical specifications and product standards are added. The system can form the framework of the multi-function streetlight Internet of Things.

 

4.6 This framework is not complete and there is a lot of room for discussion. It is the purpose of this paper to gather ideas, to contend, and finally to come up with a realistic and current system framework.

 

5. Development trend

 

Currently, IoT applications are concentrated in hot homes such as smart homes, smart cities, car networking, and industrial Internet of Things. These hot areas have led to the development of artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, wireless communications, voice recognition and other technologies. With the maturity of the Internet of Things technology, the iteration speed of IoT products is accelerating, and the application of various industries is deepening, which will lead to more new technologies, new products, new applications, and new models.

 

For the system framework discussed above, there are the following foreseeable changes:

 

5.1 For the transmission network layer of the Internet of Things, as the cost of NB-IOT becomes more and more popular, the transmission network layer will no longer have a short-distance plus remote mode implementation, but directly by NB-IOT and eSIM (or eMTC). The pattern is done in one step.

 

5.2 In the future commercialization of 5G, the transmission network layer will undergo earth-shaking changes, and there is no narrowband and broadband communication mode. Since I have not practiced 5G, I can't describe its changes specifically, but no matter how it changes in bandwidth, performance, and cost, the transmission network layer always exists, and the technology and standard architecture will not change.

 

5.3 The fastest application scenario for edge computing will be on the smart gateway, which will change the current multi-mode multi-protocol local and short-range communication modes.

 

5.4 Edge computing has recently sprung up. Although it is located at the upper or lower end of the communication transport layer, it is a supplement and optimization of cloud computing, making cloud computing a true central computing.

 

5.5 With the development of intelligent street lamps to multi-function street lamps, the author believes that the so-called “smart street lights” can only be called “multi-function street lamps” or “multi-function light poles”. It does not have the degree of wisdom, but separates several previous ones. The application's scene is integrated into the street light pole. Therefore, the above-mentioned IoT lighting system framework has a basic meaning, and the "multi-function street lighting IoT technology and standard system framework" can be revised on this basis.

 

5.6 With the recent implementation of the low-orbit satellite communication system announced by the state, the extension of the Internet of Things will spread all over the earth's mountains and rivers.