-Michael Dalton, Analog Devices | Microwaves and RF
According to technology industry researcher Gartner, the number of “things” in the Internet of Things (IoT) increases by 5.5 million each day. By 2020, the total number is expected to reach 20.8 billion. Given such explosive growth, it’s imperative to examine the internet that will connect and enable communication between all of these things. Creating reliable wireless connectivity among devices is proving to be one of the IoT’s greatest challenges. The reliability of a communications system can be defined by the performance of two critical components: a radio transceiver and a communications microcontroller. This article discusses how components and solutions are able to maximize system-level reliability, enabling high-impact applications that provide mission-critical quality and integrity of data and insights.
What’s Good Now is Not Good Enough
Existing wireless-connectivity technologies for consumer devices do not always satisfy the performance demands of industrial and healthcare systems. The different priorities in these systems—including safety, accuracy, and time-sensitivity—heighten the need for increased reliability. Cellular systems come close, but are often unsuitable in terms of battery, cost, and data-throughput requirements.
Extremely reliable systems exist today for niche industrial and military applications. However, these are designed with reliability being the top priority and cost appearing further down the list. With the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), the challenge becomes delivering the same high level of reliability at a much lower system cost.
