An award to researchers from IMT Atlantique, part of the Carnot TSN!

The LoRa Alliance is an open, non-profit association whose mission is to support and promote the worldwide adoption of the LoRaWAN standard, the first LPWAN. This ceremony was an opportunity for the LoRa Alliance to highlight the work accomplished by academia in close collaboration with industry.

LoRaWAN is a radio communication protocol based on LoRa technology. As part of the Internet of Things (IoT), it enables the structuring of a low-power wide-area network (LPWAN), integrating low-power terminal equipment via gateways.

The LoRa Alliance Prestigious Award was presented to IMT Atlantique researchers Laurent Toutain and Ivan Martinez, alongside Dominique Barthel, Rémi Demerlé and Hussein Al Haj Hassan. The award was given in recognition of their work on the IPv6 project and tests, as well as the BCB5G inter-Carnot project (Carnot MINES and Carnot TSN).

This award celebrates the dedication and efforts of this team of researchers within the alliance, which have led to the specification and certification of SCHC for IPv6, notably on the LoRaWAN network. The IPv6 project has helped to produce :

✅ a SCHC library for the LoRa Alliance test tool
✅ a test plan for SCHC certification on LoRaWAN
✅ specifications for the IPv6 adaptation layer on LoRaWAN (TS010)
✅ an architecture and requirements for a LoRaWAN testbed for DLMS testing on LoRaWAN (TR011)

This work within the SCHC Task Force also opens up LoRaWAN connectivity to new market opportunities, such as DLMS metering (electricity, water and gas), the smart home, and intelligent buildings...

The "Good SCHC, Good 5G" or "BCB5G

Another project rewarded by this international award is the "Bon SCHC, Bon 5G" or "BCB5G" project funded by the Carnot MINES and Carnot TSN institutes.

With Acklio, a spin-off from an IMT Atlantique laboratory, the Institut Mines-Télécom (IMT) has been able to take an important place in the world of the Internet of Things. The SCHC (Static Context Header Compression and fragmentation) protocol limits the impact of Internet protocols to just a few bytes per message. The SCHC standard thus accelerates convergence between the worlds of IT (technology that deals with information and information systems) and IoT (technology that deals with machines and industrial networks), so that existing IoT solutions can benefit from new communication technologies, or IoT can be integrated into IT platforms.

This protocol is being studied by several universities around the world and taken up by industry, through other standardization bodies such as the LoRa Alliance or the DLMS User Association, which deals in particular with the world of electricity meters. The aim of this project is to reinforce the use of SCHC in industrial environments, to demonstrate its relevance in industrial processes, and to contribute to the promotion of new uses in the industrial environment through bodies such as the LoRa Alliance.

This technology will enable systems to be better supervised, and industrial processes to be optimized through better knowledge of them.

Funded by Carnot MINES and TSN, the BCB5G project has seen its results published in several international journals and conferences.

SCHC technology, invented at ITM, is set to be extended to other technologies such as satellite networks and 5G.

Work on LoRaWAN is a precursor to the use of 5G networks to manage industrial processes with edge computing (a form of IT architecture that acts as an alternative to cloud computing. Rather than transferring data generated by connected IoT devices to the Cloud or a Data Center, the idea is to process data at the edge of the network directly where it is generated). 5G and the forthcoming 6G remain one of the key themes of the Carnot TSN institute, and will play a key role in achieving secure, high-performance and sustainable digital infrastructures.

India Senouci