Coverage Analysis and Enhancement Techniques for Ambient IoT Technology

To meet the ever-increasing demands for the evolution of cellular wireless networks and inclusion of sustainable massive connectivity and deployment, ambient internet of things (AIoT) technology is emerging as a highly promising solution. The AIoT devices have ultra-low complexity and extremely low-power consumption. The third generation partnership project (3GPP) has introduced AIoT technology in cellular networks as a study item to investigate their performance for various deployment scenarios. This article first comprehensively numerically evaluates the coverage for various AIoT deployment scenarios, and then discusses techniques to enhance the coverage. We then discuss the sources of interference in an AIoT network, analyze their impact on the coverage through numerical studies, and suggest solutions to address these challenges. We finally identify key issues that need to be resolved to enable large-scale adoption of AIoT technology.