Radio for cellular narrowband Internet-of-Things

Important results from the project

To evaluate different radio architectures for an integrated NB-IoT transceiver have been fulfilled. In principle, the transceiver consists of four parts, a receiver (RX), a transmitter (TX), a channel synthesis (SX), and a power amplifier (PA). Suitable architectures for all these parts have been analyzed. NB-IoT is a half-duplex standard, i.e. RX and TX are not simultaneously active. The SX block is therefore shared between the receiver and transmitter.

Expected long term effects

The expected outcome of the project was that Mistbase AB should have the architecture for their integrated transceiver defined, and then apply for a larger funding from VINNOVA´s "Smarta elektroniksystem" to be able to implement this on a test chip and thereby be closer to a final product. Regarding the Mistbase radio architecture, it has received a very positive reception and we have recently sent in a VINNOVA application for funding for implementing the transmitter that was developed in the prestudy.

Approach and implementation

The plan was to analyze the requirements and suitable architectures. The activities have been performed more in parallel. Weekly meetings have been held with Prof.Henrik Sjöland at LTH, to receive feedback on architectures and req. Associate Prof.Ted Johansson in Linköping has contributed in phone meetings. These two key persons are also partners in our new VINNOVA application, and our relation has strengthened during the duration of the prestudy. A number of scientific publications have been studied, mainly regarding PA:s and phase locked loops (PLL:s) for channel synthesis.