A key meter reading a key payment Zhejiang Hangzhou gradually toward the era of the Internet of Everything

The short rental period of rental apartments, the rapid flow of people, and the existence of transfer leases, smart meters that accurately capture tenants' electricity data are welcomed by apartment properties.

Professor Chen Jiming, one of the developers of the smart power meter reading platform and the National Engineering Research Center for Industrial Automation of Zhejiang University, said that "smart meter reading" is a typical application scenario of "Internet of Everything," and a small-scale electricity meter is cheap, Reliable access to the Internet of Things shows that we have taken an important step towards the age of everything.

Chen Jiming said that the reason why the Internet of Things can move from an imaginative quickstep to a reality depends on the cutting-edge technology called "Narrowband Internet of Things" (NB-IoT). Currently, Huawei's independently developed NB-IoT core chip, together with major network operators such as Zhejiang Mobile, is actively deploying the IoT smart application supported by this new technology. Zhejiang University and Hangzhou Titanium Technologies have become NB- An important developer of IoT technology applications. Apart from the electricity meter of this apartment in Xiasha, the intelligent road parking at the current roadside and the smart parking berth at the parking lot all have pilot projects for the NB-IoT technology.

Why is the new NB-IoT technology seen as the key to the era of the Internet of Everything? Professor Shi Zhiguo of the School of Information and Communication, Zhejiang University, said that prior to the advent of NB-IoT technology, the traditional Internet of Things (IoT) was based on access to the original cellular network technology and there were many problems that were difficult to overcome. For example, we use mobile phones to access 3G and 4G networks. Every 3 seconds or less, the mobile phone must be connected to the base station once. The transmission rate is high and the power consumption is high. It is used to build high-cost Internet of Things and the number of access is limited. At the same time, the managers of the Internet of Things often have to set up convergence networks on their own, and then connect to the base stations through the gateway jumps. Reliability is difficult to guarantee and the cost of manual maintenance is greatly increased. For example, the traditional intelligent parking system employs a 2-hop architecture between the vehicle examiner and the mobile operator's base station. The required convergence gateway equipment and maintenance costs can reach 30% of the total cost. Private communication technology is adopted between the car detector and the convergence gateway. Devices of different manufacturers cannot communicate with each other, which is not conducive to the unified management of berth operators.

NB-IoT technology is for the upcoming 5G network. The 5G network is like a three-dimensional traffic network that covers a variety of roads and functions. Different vehicles can follow their own needs. The NB-IoT using a cellular network is like a bicycle lane. Although the road is not wide and the speed is not fast, it is everywhere.

“Applications such as smart meter reading do not require high transmission rates. It is not necessary to connect to the base station every few seconds.” said Chen Junfeng, technical director of Hangzhou Titanium Technology Co., Ltd. “Actually, what we need is More input, wider coverage, less power consumption, low cost, stable and reliable, and these are the advantages of NB-IoT technology." If an electric meter is positioned by GPRS or WiFi, it will generate large power consumption, and a built-in battery often It takes a few months to replace it and the market is obviously unacceptable. Switching to NB-IoT technology requires only the addition of a small detection device. The module battery can be used for several years and signal coverage is greatly enhanced. Chen Junfeng said that smart meters can not only significantly improve the user experience, but also follow up through data analysis and analysis, and provide support for scientific energy-saving and social management.

Another example, the traditional urban street light system is generally a switch to control more than 100 street lights, once the need for adjustment or failure, need more than 100 street lights at the same time to debug, specifically which lights out of the problem, or have to rely on artificial glance It's easy to check, but the NB-IoT control street lamp project can achieve complete single-lamp control, which is not only conducive to secondary energy conservation, but will also greatly reduce the number of costs after the scale of use.

Looking forward to the future, Chen Jiming explained that China's major network operators have opened up a dedicated frequency band for NB-IoT technology to make the network more stable; while a single base station can be connected to more than 100,000 NB-IoT nodes after a simple upgrade. Into. With the improvement of the NB-IoT network, in the not-too-distant future, all the electricity meters, water meters, street lamps in households in a large city, electrical appliances in households, and parcels delivered by logistics personnel can become a node in the Internet of Everything. As one of the cities in China that has taken the lead in deploying NB-IoT technology, Zhejiang Hangzhou is expected to enter the era of the Internet of Everything.

(Original title: One-click copy meter, one-click electricity payment, Hangzhou, one step closer to the era of the Internet of Things)