The NB4WASTE Project will develop the first implementation of NB-IoT standard communication protocol for a monitoring system of municipal waste collection in rural areas. There is a growing demand for LPWA technologies but, as the market grows, there are mobile IoT use cases, as NB4WASTE, for which existing cellular networks are not suitable due to three main reasons: 1) Coverage: existing cellular networks already offer very good area coverage in mature markets. However, many potential “connected objects” are located in vast remote areas, far away from the next cellular base station. If there is coverage, it is often weak which requires the device transmitter to operate at high power, draining the battery. In addition, cellular networks are not optimized for applications that occasionally transmit small amounts of data. 2) Battery life: a battery life of several years combined with an inexpensive device cannot be realized on existing cellular standards, as they do not support the required power saving mechanisms. 3) Device cost: mobile devices working on GSM, 3G and LTE (4G) are designed for a variety of services, including mobile voice, messaging and high-speed data transmission. However, NB-IoT applications do not utilize any of this; they just require low-speed but reliable data transfer, and an appropriate level of reliability. Therefore, using cellular devices for NB-IoT applications means using devices that are too expensive for the application. Many of the NB-IoT use cases require a low device price, not just in order to have a positive business case for the service operation, but also due to practical aspects such as ease of installation or risk of theft. In summary, there are strong market trends pointing at growing demand for NB-IoT applications.
The main alternatives to NB-IoT as competitive solutions available on the market of LPWA technologies are LoRa and SigFox but both of them are worse considering market flexibility implementation and coverage. As a result, only NB-IoT solution ensures business scalability expansion and reliable service. If we add market flexibility (open standards) and coverage (spectrum efficiency) to the main properties scored by experts (low power, bandwidth, supplier breadth, security and deployments) NB-IoT is the most competitive alternative.
NB4WASTE unit solution will include a low power specific ultrasonic sensor designed for waste environment and durability. It will be completely enclosed and protected against dust and water. The surrounding capsule has been specifically designed for best fitting to different material surfaces bins, mainly plastic or metal.
NB4WASTE will translate all the user needs covered in social and economic benefits: 1) for urban services companies increasing more than 30% their profit per service and hence increasing savings for municipalities 2) for waste bin companies growing by a CARG rate of 40% over 5 years. 3) route optimization and predictive operations thanks to Big Data exploiting will result in 25-50% costs and 25% CO2 savings.
