Development of M2M Internet of Things standards at home and abroad

Summary

The Internet of Things is called another wave of information industry after computers, the Internet and mobile communication networks. M2M, as the most common application of the Internet of Things at this stage, has received widespread attention from various industries, and is also researched and standardized by major standardization organizations. The focus of work. This article introduces the standard status of M2M in ETSI, the M2M standard work carried out by 3GPP and 3GPP2, and the progress of CCSA in M2M standard.

1 Introduction

The Internet of Things is called another wave of information industry after computers, the Internet and mobile communication networks, and will bring vast new markets to IT and communications.

In 2005, the "ITU Internet Report 2005: Internet of Things" published by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) formally proposed the concept of "Internet of Things". The report states: "The era of ubiquitous Internet of Things communication is coming With the advent, all objects in the world, from tires to toothbrushes, from houses to tissues, can be actively exchanged through the Internet. " In general, the Internet of Things is "a network of things connected". There are two meanings here: first, the information providers and users gradually expand from humans to physical entities, and communication and information exchange between objects through the Internet of Things; second, through various wireless and / or wired, long-distance and / Or the short-distance communication network realizes the interconnection between physical entities, and the communication and transmission processes require no or only limited human intervention.

The European Intelligent System Integration Technology Platform (EPoSS) analyzed and predicted in the "Internet of Things in 2020" report that the future development of the Internet of Things will go through four stages. Before 2010, RFID was widely used in logistics, retail and pharmaceutical fields. In 2015, objects are interconnected, and objects will be semi-intelligent from 2015 to 2020, and objects will be fully intelligent after 2020.

M2M is short for "Machine to Machine" or "Man to Machine". Mainly refers to the transfer of information through the "communication network" to achieve machine-to-machine or human-to-machine data exchange, that is to achieve the interconnection and intercommunication between machines through the communication network. Due to the particularity of the mobile communication network, the terminal side does not require manual wiring and can provide mobility support, which is conducive to cost savings and can meet the communication needs in hazardous environments, so that the M2M service with the mobile communication network as the bearer Has attracted widespread attention in the industry.

M2M, as the most common application form of the Internet of Things at this stage, has been commercialized in Europe, the United States, South Korea, Japan and other countries. Mainly used in security monitoring, machinery service and maintenance business, public transportation system, fleet management, industrial automation, urban informatization and other fields. The mainstream operators providing M2M services include BT and Vodafone in the UK, T-Mobile in Germany, NTT-DoCoMo in Japan, and SK in South Korea. China's M2M application started early and is currently in a stage of rapid development. Major operators are actively researching M2M technology and trying their best to expand the M2M application market.

M2M-related research and standard-setting work in major international standardization organizations are also constantly advancing. Several major standardization organizations have conducted targeted research from different perspectives according to their respective scope of work functions. ETSI starts with typical IoT business use cases, such as smart healthcare, e-commerce, automated cities, smart meter reading and smart grid related research, completes the analysis of IoT business needs, supports the IoT business summary layer architecture design and related Definition of data model, interface and process. 3GPP / 3GPP2 regards mobile communication technology as the core of its work, focusing on 3G, LTE / CDMA networks to provide network optimization related technologies that need to be implemented for the Internet of Things services. The research involves business needs, core and wireless network optimization, and security. CCSA completed the M2M business research report as early as 2009, and other research work related to M2M has begun.

This article mainly introduces the progress of M2M work in international and domestic standardization organizations.

2 Overview of M2M's progress in ETSI

ETSI is an international standardization organization for M2M related research conducted earlier in the world. A special TC was set up in early 2009 to coordinate the research of M2M. . The research scope can be divided into two levels, the first level is for the collection and analysis of M2M application use cases; the second level is based on the use case study, to carry out business requirements analysis of application-unified unified M2M solutions, network Architecture definition and data model, interface and process design work. According to TC's plan, the research work is divided into three stages, see Table 1 for details.

Table 1 ETSI TC M2M research stage table

There are more than ten M2M related standards studied by ETSI. The specific contents include:

(1) M2M business requirements, this research topic describes the requirements for end-to-end system capabilities to support M2M communication services. The report was released in August 2010.

(2) M2M functional architecture, focusing on the network functional architecture that provides M2M services for M2M applications, including defining new functional entities, standard access points and summary-level call flows with other ETSI TB or other standardization organization standards. The output of this research topic will be the starting point of the third phase of the work, and also a reference point for coordination with other standards organizations related research on the Internet of Things. Figure 1 shows the M2M architecture proposed in the report. As can be seen from the figure, M2M technology involves all levels of the communication network from the terminal to the network to the application. The M2M bearer network includes 3GPP, TISPAN and IETF definitions Of various types of communication networks.

Figure 1 ETSI M2M communication function architecture

(3) M2M terms and definitions, define the terms of M2M, so as to ensure the consistency of the terminology of each working group. The preliminary draft is currently under discussion and the official version is expected to be released at the end of the first quarter of 2011.

(4) Smart Metering M2M application case study, this topic describes the use case of Smart Metering. Including the definition of roles and information flow, it will serve as the basis for the definition of smart meter reading business requirements.

(5) eHealth's M2M application case study, this topic demonstrates the enhancement of functions and capabilities of the communication network to support M2M services through the study of smart healthcare, a key IoT application use case. This topic is coordinated with related research in ETSI TC eHEALTH, and the official version is expected to be released in July 2011.

(6) A case study of M2M application of user interconnection. The research report defines the use case of user interconnection as an M2M application. The official version is expected to be released in July 2011.

(7) A case study of M2M applications in urban automation. This topic describes the future needs of M2M-capable networks to support the application and the enhancement of network functions and capabilities by collecting automated city use cases and related features. The first draft is currently under discussion and the official version is expected to be released in July 2011.

(8) A case study of M2M applications based on automotive applications. By collecting automation application use cases and related features, the subject describes the future needs of M2M-capable networks to support the application and the enhancement of network functions and capabilities. The first draft is currently under discussion and the official version is expected to be released in July 2011.

(9) ETSI's work plan and output summary on M / 441. This research is part of the EU Smart Meter project (EU Mandate M / 441). This subject will submit a research report to EU Mandate M / 441. The report includes support Smart Meter application planning and other technical committee output. The first draft is currently under discussion and the official version is expected to be released in July 2011.

(10) The impact of smart grids on the M2M platform. Based on the M2M summary-level architecture framework defined by ETSI, this topic studies the applicability of the M2M platform for smart grids and analyzes the differences between existing standards and actual applications. It is currently in the pre-launch preparation stage and the official version is expected to be released in May 2011.

(11) M2M interface, based on the research of network architecture, this subject mainly completes the work of protocol / API, data model and coding. At present, the above content is combined into one standard. In the future, standards such as this will enter a stable stage, and may be split into multiple standard documents according to different interfaces and published. It is currently in the stage of drafting the first draft, and the official version is expected to be released in February 2011.

3 Overview of M2M's progress in 3GPP standards

As early as September 2005, 3GPP launched a feasibility study on the mobile communication system to support the application of the Internet of Things, and the formal study was initiated at the R10 stage. The corresponding name of M2M in 3GPP is Machine Type Communication (MTC, Machine-Type CommunicaTIon). 3GPP has set up multiple work items (Study Item) or research items (Study Item) in parallel, and different research groups have carried out parallel research on MTC according to their fields. The progress.

(1) FS_M2M: This project is a feasibility study report on M2M communication conducted by 3GPP, and SA1 is responsible for related research work. The research report "Feasibility Study of Supporting M2M Communication in 3GPP System" was established in September 2005 and completed in March 2007.

(2) NIMTC related topics, focusing on the enhancement of mobile communication network requirements for supporting machine type communications, including the enhancement requirements for GSM, UTRAN, EUTRAN, and the enhancement requirements for core networks such as GPRS, EPC, etc. The main projects include:

● FS_NIMTC_GERAN: This project was launched in May 2010, focusing on the enhancement of GERAN system for machine type communication.

● FS_NIMTC_RAN: The project was launched in August 2009, focusing on the enhancement of 3G wireless networks and LTE wireless networks that support machine type communications.

● NIMTC: This research project is a key research topic for machine-type communications. It is responsible for researching network enhancement technologies that support communication between machine-type terminals and Internet of Things application servers located in operator networks, private networks, or on the Internet. SA1, SA2, SA3 and CT1, CT3, CT4 working groups are responsible for the work of their part.

——The 3GPP SA1 working group is responsible for the research on machine type communication service requirements. The technical specification was launched in early 2009 to divide MTC's functional requirements for communication networks into two types of optimizable directions, commonality and characteristics.

——SA2 working group is responsible for the research of mobile core network architecture and optimization technology supporting machine type communication. At the end of 2009, the research report "System Enhancement Supporting Machine Type Communication" was officially launched. The report gives solutions for common technical points and characteristic technical points in the first stage of demand.

——SA3 Working Group is responsible for safety related research. In 2007, the report "Feasibility Study on Remote Control and Modification of M2M Terminal Contract Information" was launched to study the remote contract management of M2M devices when the M2M application is stored in the UICC, including the trusted mode of remote contract, security requirements and the corresponding Solutions, etc. The research report on "Security Features of M2M Communication" launched in 2009 plans to study the security features and requirements of mobile networks supporting MTC communications on the basis of SA2 work.

(3) FS_MTCe: The enhanced research supporting machine type communication is a new research project planned to be established in the R11 phase. Mainly responsible for researching network optimization technologies that support communication between MTC devices located in different PLMN domains. The research of this project needs to be coordinated with the relevant research in ETSI TC M2M.

(4) FS_AMTC: This research project aims to find an alternative to E.164, which is used to identify machine type terminals and routing messages between terminals. It is a newly established research topic in the R11 phase and was launched in February 2010.

(5) SIMTC: System enhancement research supporting machine type communication, this is a new research topic in R11 stage. Based on the FS_MTCe project, study the enhanced version of the R10 NIMTC solution.

The core work of the 3GPP network enhancement research project supporting machine type communication at the R10 stage is the ongoing MTC architecture enhancement study of the SA2 working group. The network optimization technologies that focus on MTC communication include:

● Architecture

The research report proposes modifications to the NIMTC architecture, including the addition of MTC IWF functional entities to enable data and control signaling interaction between the operator network and the Internet of Things servers located on the private network or the public network, and requires the revised architecture Need to provide support for MTC terminal roaming scenarios.

● Congestion and overload control

Since the number of MTC terminals may reach several orders of magnitude above the number of existing mobile phone terminals, the most urgent problem faced by mobile network operators when a large number of MTC terminals simultaneously attach or initiate service requests is network congestion and overload. The research report focuses on this aspect, and discusses that various congestion and overload scenarios require the network to accurately locate the location of congestion and the IoT applications that cause congestion. For different congestion scenarios and types, access is given Layers prevent broadcast, low access priority indication, reset periodic location update time and many other solutions.

● Contract control

The research report analyzes the issues related to MTC contract control and proposes that SGSN / MME has the ability to decide whether to enable or disable certain MTC features based on MTC device capabilities, network capabilities, operator policies, and MTC contract information. At the same time, it also pointed out the problems that need to be further studied, such as the method for the network to obtain the capabilities of the MTC device, and the roaming scenario of the MTC device.

● Identification and addressing

The problem of MTC communication identification has been separately established for detailed study. This report mainly studies the addressing methods of MTC terminals in the MT process. According to the different deployment locations of MTC servers, the report analyzes the requirements of the addressing function in detail, and gives two solutions of NATTT and microport forwarding technology addressing.

● Time control characteristics

The time-controlled feature is suitable for those IoT applications that can complete data transmission and reception within a preset time period. The report pointed out that the home network operator should preset the permitted time period and service prohibited time period of the MTC terminal respectively. The service network operator can modify the permitted time period according to the local policy, set the communication window of the MTC terminal, and so on.

● MTC monitoring features

MTC monitoring is a monitoring service for MTC terminal behavior provided by the operator network for IoT contracted users. It includes complete solutions for monitoring event signing, monitoring event detection, event reporting and follow-up triggering.

4 Overview of M2M standard progress in 3GPP2

In order to promote the research on the M2M support technology of the CDAM system, 3GPP2 approved the M2M project at the Bangkok meeting in January 2010. It is recommended to accelerate the M2M research process from the following aspects.

(1) When an operator deploys an M2M application, it should bring lower operational complexity to the operator.

(2) Reduce the impact and processing workload of processing a large number of M2M device groups on the network.

(3) Optimize the network working mode to reduce the impact on M2M terminal power consumption and other research fields.

(4) Provide operators with services that meet M2M needs and encourage the deployment of more M2M applications.

The research on M2M in 3GPP2 refers to the business requirements defined in 3GPP. The focus of the research is how the cdma2000 network supports M2M communication. The specific content includes 3GPP2 architecture enhancement, wireless network enhancement and packet data core network enhancement.

5 Overview of M2M's progress in CCSA

M2M-related standardization work is mainly carried out by the China Communications Standards Association on the Mobile Communications Working Committee (TC5) and the Ubiquitous Technology Working Committee (TC10). The main work content is as follows:

(1) TC5 WG7 completed the mobile M2M business research report, described the typical application of M2M, analyzed the business model, business characteristics and traffic model of M2M, and gave suggestions for M2M business standardization.

(2) TC5 WG9 launched a project to support M2M communication mobile network technology research in 2010. The task is to track the research progress of 3GPP, combined with domestic needs, to study the impact of M2M communication on RAN and core networks and their optimization solutions.

(3) TC10 WG2 M2M business overall technical requirements, define M2M business concepts, describe M2M scenarios and business requirements, system architecture, interfaces and billing authentication requirements.

(4) TC10 WG2 M2M communication application protocol technical requirements, specifying the end-to-end protocol technical requirements in the M2M communication system.

6 Conclusion

M2M research is one of the research priorities of ETSI and 3GPP and 3GPP2 standardization organizations. The research is relatively more systematic and the progress is relatively fast. On the basis of completing the requirements phase work, the second phase network system architecture has also obtained preliminary results. The research focus of 3GPP is on mobile network optimization technology, and there are already phased research results; ETSI has studied the application needs of various industries, and the migration process of results to applications is relatively stable, and the two standardization organizations pay attention to maintaining two research systems For the coordination and compatibility between the two countries, domestic standardization work is in full swing.