Fujitsu Develops Field Engineering Technology to Rapidly Provide IoT Services

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Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. today announced the development of field engineering technology that shortens the time necessary to install on-site IoT devices that use wireless communication, such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and provides stable operations.

In locations where IoT devices have been installed, instability in wireless communication can occur as people and things moving about can greatly change the radio wave environment, and as the radio waves emitted by smartphone and other commonly used devices may create interference. Responding to this instability creates issues in installation and operations as time and effort are required for experts to do necessary on-site adjustments through trial and error.

Fujitsu Laboratories has now developed technology that automatically determines where to install wireless devices, carrying out radio wave simulations that automatically take into account the coming and going of people and the layout of the space in which IoT devices will be installed. Fujitsu Laboratories also developed technology that automatically analyzes the use of radio waves at the location where IoT devices will be installed, and visualizes the congestion. With these technologies, wireless devices can be installed in about one-third the time, enabling swift implementation of IoT services.

Fujitsu Limited plans to offer this technology as a consulting service from the first half of fiscal 2016.

Development Background

Efforts are currently underway to create practical implementations of IoT systems in locations where people are active, such as factories, shopping centers, stadiums, stations and airports, and office buildings, and in order to install sensors flexibly and efficiently, systems using radio waves, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and ZigBee, are widely used.

Figure 1: Examples of IoT systems using radio waves

Issues

Environments considered for IoT system implementation often have many people and things coming and going, which can often cause instability in wireless communications during operations because they block or reflect radio waves. In addition, devices such as smartphones carried by people moving through the location emit radio waves that can cause mutual interference among those communications.

It could often take several weeks before the stable operation of IoT systems was achieved, as it was necessary for radio wave experts working on the installations to repeatedly reinstall and re-test the system, relying on their expertise in using specialized measuring devices. These issues in implementation and operation led to a demand for technology that makes it easy to install IoT devices.

About the Technology

Now Fujitsu Laboratories has developed radio wave simulation technology that automatically incorporates the site's three-dimensional image data and video of people's movement to automatically determine installation points for wireless devices, as well as technology that visualizes the actual radio wave interference situation.

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