Sensing System for Remote Areas in Antarctica

• Published in: Radio science Vol. 55; no. 3
• Main Authors: Porte, Joaquim, Maso, Josep M., Pijoan, Joan Lluis, Badia, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-03-2020
• Subjects: Antennas; BER; Data communication; Field tests; High frequencies; Internet of Things; Ionosphere; IoT; NVIS; Power management; QAM; Remote regions; Remote sensing; Remote sensors; SDR
• ISSN: 0048-6604; 1944-799X
• DOI: 10.1029/2019RS006920

Every year, the number of Internet of Things devices is growing exponentially. The current Internet of Things technology to support the connectivity of such a huge number of devices is limited by the coverage of the base stations deployed. In case of remote areas without coverage of any operator, the use of a satellite connection is such a high‐cost option. The only alternative option for very remote sensor is high frequency (HF) communications with ionospheric reflection. The HF band (3–30 MHz) with Near Vertical Incidence Skywave allows a large coverage area (up to 250 km) without the need of line of sight. The HF radio links usually need higher power transmissions with larger antennas supported by a mast. In this paper, we explore a new transmission scheme for low‐power transmissions, which is equivalent to use small and low gain HF antennas. We study the performance of several digital modulations using different bandwidths and transmission power. The field tests have been done around the Spanish Antarctic Base at Livingston Island to ensure the availability of the system even in polar areas where the behavior of the ionosphere is quite different from lower latitudes. However, the proposed physical layer fits well with any other remote location that requires low power data communication.
Key Points
IoT network communications study for small HF antennas based on low power transmission
Study of narrowband modulations variating its power transmission and bandwidth
QAM is the best modulation for low‐power transmission with NVIS system on Antarctica environment