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WHITE PAPER TOPIC – SIGNAL MODULATION

What is Modulation

Modulation is the process of converting data into radio waves that can be transmitted and is achieved
by adding the data to a carrier waveform. The data is added to the carrier by varying the amplitude,
frequency or phase of the carrier. When the signal arrives at the other end it is demodulated to obtain
the original data.

Modulation is used to carry multiple sources of data over a single media or frequency band, it also
enables you to convert your data and send on a frequency band that is preferable, reduce interference
as well as a few clever tricks that improve the reliability and efficiency of your communications.

Modulation is critical to your communications platform, especially where properties such as

propagation, efficient use of spectrum, efficient sending of data and reliable data transmission count.
Modulation will determine your coverage and spectral capacity.

What about Standards

Standards exist, some communication platforms use standards based and some invent their own.

LoRa uses a proprietary spread spectrum modulation called CSS (Chirp spread spectrum) modulation.1
Sigfox using a modulation scheme that is a narrowband (or ultra-narrowband) technology. It uses a
standard radio transmission method called binary phase-shift keying (BPSK), and it takes very narrow
chunks of spectrum and changes the phase of the carrier radio wave to encode the data. This allows the
receiver to only listen in a tiny slice of spectrum, which mitigates the effect of noise. It requires an
inexpensive endpoint radio but requires a more sophisticated base station to manage the network.2

Trilliant’s LPWAN (RPMA) platform uses DSSS (Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum) which originates from
secure military applications and was made commercially available for standards based communications
including cellular networks CDMA, W-CDMA. It is also included in the IEEE 802.11b specification, IEEE
802.15.4 specification and used in Global Position Systems.

Trilliant LPWAN (RPMA) & DSSS

RPMA’s physical layer uses a technology called Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS), that was
originally developed from security critical applications, such as military communications. It is now used
in IEEE 802.11b specification, IEEE 802.15.4 specification and CDMA cellular communications.

All RF systems experience interference of same description, shape or form, there are different methods
of dealing with it

• One way is to find spectrum with less interference, that’s called licensed spectrum and is very
expensive.
• Send the signal more powerful than the noise.
• Blend in with the noise--and this is what DSSS does:

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa#LoRaWAN 2 https://www.link-labs.com/blog/sigfox-vs-lora
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DSSS encodes the message to blend in with the noise and then extracts the message at the receiver
using a special code. It is very secure because the message is blended into the noise and is
imperceptible without the decoder

Our implementation of this DSSS encoding scheme enables a processing gain on the signal of 39dB.

DSSS is widely used in public cellular communications (CDMA W-CDMA) where is provides 18dB of gain,
our implementation spreads the message upto a 128 times more. Most of the time we transmit using a
low spreading factor and increase according to the noise and range of the equipment.

Trilliant LPWAN (RPMA) can detect signals even when it is 2000x quieter than the noise itself. Most
technologies, must have signals louder than the noise, we can have the signal 2000x quieter than the
noise

A further advantages that DSSS offers and that we fully leverages fully is that signals sent over the
protocol look like noise to one another. They also look like noise to other users of the same frequency.
This is what makes DSSS inherently “immune” to interference because it works and looks like
interference already.

Being a good neighbor to WIFI

The Trilliant LPWAN (RPMA) does not use the same frequency as WiFi. There are undoubtably other
AMI and IoT communications solution using 2.4Ghz that do use the same frequency as WiFi

Each channel we use is 1MHz wide and we position each of those channels inbetween (and not on top
of) the WiFi channels. We are a neighbor to WiFi in the spectrum in the same sense that 902-928 and
915-928 MHz is a neighbor to public cellular in many parts of Latin America

Our DSSS implementation would allow us to use the same frequency as WiFi without interference
issues, but we do not have a requirement to do that as the current number of channels and bandwidth
available provides ample capacity to scale to millions of connected AMI devices without using the WiFi
channels. Our modulation scheme allows us to receive and decode signals with an amplitude 1/2000 of
the signal noise

Making Communications Robust

Trillant LPWAN (RPMA) does multiple things to be robust to noisy, interference prone environments:

• DSSS gives the signal an inherent immunity to interference as its signal is noise
• Transmit power control keeps the signal powerful enough to get through interference while
minimizing the number of base stations that hear any given endpoint
• FEC using convolutional codes and interleaving provide strong protection against sudden bursts
of interference as well as 100% message acknowledgement

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa#LoRaWAN 2 https://www.link-labs.com/blog/sigfox-vs-lora
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Forward error correction (FEC) or channel coding is a technique used for controlling errors in data
transmission over unreliable or noisy communication channels. The central idea is the sender encodes
the message in a redundant way by using an error-correcting code (ECC).

A convolutional code is a type of error-correcting code that generates parity symbols via the sliding
application of a boolean polynomial function to a data stream. The sliding application represents the
'convolution' of the encoder over the data, which gives rise to the term 'convolutional coding.'

Interleaving is frequently used in digital communication and storage systems to improve the
performance of forward error correcting codes. Many communication channels are not memoryless:
errors typically occur in bursts rather than independently. If the number of errors within a code word
exceeds the error-correcting code's capability, it fails to recover the original code word. Interleaving
ameliorates this problem by shuffling source symbols across several code words, thereby creating a
more uniform distribution of errors.

These three in combination provide incredible robustness to interference that happens in bursts, or
sudden blasts of interference. This is also how each and every message is acknowledged.

Increasing Communication Efficiency

Trilliant Secure Reach uses a Reed-Solomon decoder, which, for simplicity, means that the message
stops sending after enough is sent for the entire message to be decoded. This drastically reduces the
amount of time a message is sent, improves robustness and thus improves coverage and bandwidth
efficiency simultaneously.

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa#LoRaWAN 2 https://www.link-labs.com/blog/sigfox-vs-lora