US-12627395-B2 - NR scheme for managing eavesdroppers of passive radios

Abstract

In a system, apparatus, method, and non-transitory computer readable medium related to a New Radio (NR) scheme for managing eavesdroppers of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, a network node may be caused to determine a jamming signal configuration associated with at least one IoT device, the jamming signal configuration including jamming signal parameters, and transmit a jamming signal based on the jamming signal parameters, the jamming signal being transmitted at a time corresponding to a transmission by the at least one IoT device.

Inventors

• Oana-Elena BARBU
• Benny Vejlgaard
• Paolo Baracca

Assignees

• NOKIA TECHNOLOGIES OY

Dates

Publication Date

20260512

Application Date

20231102

Claims (20)

1. 1 . A network node, comprising: a memory storing computer readable instructions; and processing circuitry configured to execute the computer readable instructions to cause the network node to, determine a jamming signal configuration associated with at least one Internet of Things (IoT) device, the jamming signal configuration including jamming signal parameters, and transmit a jamming signal based on the jamming signal parameters, the jamming signal being transmitted at a time corresponding to a transmission by the at least one IoT device.
2. 2 . The network node of claim 1 , wherein the jamming signal parameters include at least one of: a time offset indicating a time to transmit the jamming signal, a waveform type, a carrier frequency, a bandwidth, a frequency pattern, a time pattern, a modulation and coding scheme, a transmission power, a jamming signal scheduling, or any combinations thereof.
3. 3 . The network node of claim 1 , wherein the network node is caused to determine the jamming signal configuration by: receiving the jamming signal configuration from a network element or an initiator network node.
4. 4 . The network node of claim 1 , wherein the network node is an initiator network node; and the network node is caused to: receive an eavesdropping report from a network element, the eavesdropping report including an eavesdropping probability indicating a probability of an eavesdrop occurrence, and eavesdropped resources indicating frequency resources being eavesdropped; and determine the jamming signal configuration based on the eavesdropping report.
5. 5 . The network node of claim 1 , wherein the network node is configured as an activator node, and the network node is further caused to: transmit an activation signal to the at least one IoT device, the activation signal causing the at least one IoT device to perform the transmission.
6. 6 . The network node of claim 1 , wherein the network node is configured as a reader node, and the network node is further caused to: receive a superimposed signal, the superimposed signal including the transmission by the at least one IoT device and the jamming signal; remove the jamming signal from the superimposed signal; and forward contents of the superimposed signal to a network element.
7. 7 . The network node of claim 6 , wherein the superimposed signal includes at least one second jamming signal transmitted by at least one second reader node; and the network node is further caused to remove the jamming signal and the at least one second jamming signal from the superimposed signal, and forward contents of the superimposed signal to a network element.
8. 8 . The network node of claim 1 , wherein the at least one IoT device is an energy-harvesting radio device with or without energy storage capability.
9. 9 . A radio access network (RAN) node comprising: a memory storing computer readable instructions; and processing circuitry configured to execute the computer readable instructions to cause the RAN node to: determine a jamming signal configuration associated with at least one Internet of Things (IoT) device, the jamming signal configuration including jamming signal parameters, and transmit the jamming signal configuration to at least one jamming node, the jamming signal configuration enabling the at least one jamming node to transmit a jamming signal based on the jamming signal parameters, the jamming signal being transmitted at a time corresponding to a transmission by the at least one IoT device.
10. 10 . The RAN node of claim 9 , wherein the jamming signal parameters include at least one of: a time offset indicating a time to transmit the jamming signal, a waveform type, a carrier frequency, a bandwidth, a frequency pattern, a time pattern, a modulation and coding scheme, a transmission power, a jamming signal scheduling, or any combinations thereof.
11. 11 . The RAN node of claim 9 , wherein the RAN node is further caused to: determine an eavesdropping probability and an eavesdropped resource based on a network report from at least one reader node, the eavesdropping probability indicating a probability of an eavesdrop occurrence, and the eavesdropped resource indicating frequency resources being eavesdropped; and transmit an eavesdropping report to the at least one jamming node, the eavesdropping report including the eavesdropping probability and the determined eavesdropped resource.
12. 12 . The RAN node of claim 9 , wherein the RAN node is further caused to: receive contents of a transmission by the at least one IoT device from the at least one jamming node, the contents of the transmission being determined by the at least one jamming node by removing the jamming signal from a superimposed signal including the jamming signal and the transmission by the at least one IoT device.
13. 13 . The RAN node of claim 9 , wherein the RAN node is further caused to: select the at least one jamming node from at least one of an activator node and a plurality of reader nodes; and transmit the jamming signal configuration to the at least one jamming node.
14. 14 . The RAN node of claim 13 , wherein the at least one jamming node is the activator node; the transmission of the jamming signal configuration enables the activator node to, transmit an activation signal to the at least one IoT device, and transmit the jamming signal to the at least one IoT device and the plurality of reader nodes; and the transmission of the jamming signal configuration enables the plurality of reader nodes to, receive a superimposed signal, the superimposed signal including the transmission by the at least one IoT device and the jamming signal, remove the jamming signal from the superimposed signal, and forward contents of the superimposed signal to the RAN node.
15. 15 . The RAN node of claim 13 , wherein the at least one jamming node is selected from at least one reader node; the transmission of the jamming signal configuration enables the activator node to transmit an activation signal to the at least one IoT device; and the transmission of the jamming signal configuration enables the jamming node to, transmit the jamming signal to the at least one IoT device and the at least one reader nodes, receive a superimposed signal, the superimposed signal including the transmission by the at least one IoT device and the jamming signal, remove the jamming signal from the superimposed signal, and forward contents of the superimposed signal to the RAN node.
16. 16 . A method of operating a network node, the method comprising: determining a jamming signal configuration associated with at least one Internet of Things (IoT) device, the jamming signal configuration including jamming signal parameters; and transmitting a jamming signal based on the jamming signal parameters, the jamming signal being transmitted at a time corresponding to a transmission by the at least one IoT device.
17. 17 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the jamming signal parameters include at least one of: a time offset indicating a time to transmit the jamming signal, a waveform type, a carrier frequency, a bandwidth, a frequency pattern, a time pattern, a modulation and coding scheme, a transmission power, a jamming signal scheduling, or any combinations thereof.
18. 18 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the determining the jamming signal configuration includes: receiving the jamming signal configuration from a network element or an initiator network node.
19. 19 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the network node is an initiator network node; and the method further includes receiving an eavesdropping report from a network element, the eavesdropping report including an eavesdropping probability and an eavesdropped resource, the eavesdropping probability indicating a probability of an eavesdrop occurrence, and the eavesdropped resource indicating t frequency resources being eavesdropped; and determining the jamming signal configuration based on the eavesdropping report.
20. 20 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the network node is configured as a reader node, and the method further includes receiving a superimposed signal, the superimposed signal including the transmission by the at least one IoT device and the jamming signal; removing the jamming signal from the superimposed signal; and forwarding contents of the superimposed signal to a network element.

Description

BACKGROUND Field Various example embodiments relate to methods, apparatuses, systems, and/or non-transitory computer readable media for providing a scheme for managing eavesdroppers of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, passive radio devices, semi-passive radio devices, active radio devices with limited energy storage capabilities, etc. Description of the Related Art The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) 5th generation mobile network (5G) standard, referred to as 5G New Radio (NR), is being developed to provide higher capacity, higher reliability, and lower latency communications than the 4G long term evolution (LTE) standard. There have been proposals to extend the 5G NR standard to provide communication support for passive and semi-passive Internet of Things (IoT) devices which may have reduced processing, memory, and/or energy capabilities in comparison to active IoT devices and/or standard user equipment (UE) devices, such as mobile phones, smartphones, etc. Passive IoT devices (and/or passive UE devices, passive tag devices, passive radio devices, semi-passive IoT devices, semi-passive UE devices, semi-passive tag devices, semi-passive radio devices, etc.) are devices which are incapable of initiating communication with the 3GPP network (e.g., device-initiated attachment to the network, etc.) by transmitting data to a base station of the network, etc., and instead, the network must initiate communication (e.g., perform a network-initiated attachment procedure with the device, etc.) with the IoT device. Passive IoT devices may include wireless tags, wireless sensors, industrial wireless sensors, video surveillance devices, and/or wearable smart devices, etc. Passive IoT devices may operate in extreme environmental conditions, e.g., high pressure environments, extreme temperatures, high humidity environments, be subject to constant motion and/or vibrations, etc. Additionally, passive IoT devices may have ultra-low complexity (e.g., to facilitate low cost), small physical sizes and/or small form factors, may desire and/or require maintenance-free operation (e.g., without human intervention), and/or may desire and/or require longer device life cycles, etc. Moreover, the passive IoT device may have limited on-device energy storage capacity and/or may be a battery-less IoT device, etc. Accordingly, some passive IoT devices may include, may be used with, and/or may be connected to energy harvesting (EH) devices, such as solar panels, wind turbines, heat capture devices, radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting devices, kinetic energy harvesting devices, back-scattering circuitry, etc., which may collect energy for storage in a low-capacity power storage device included in the passive IoT device and/or may power the operation of a battery-less passive IoT device. SUMMARY At least one example embodiment relates to a network node. In at least one example embodiment, the network node may include a memory storing computer readable instructions, and processing circuitry configured to execute the computer readable instructions to cause the network node to, determine a jamming signal configuration associated with at least one Internet of Things (IoT) device, the jamming signal configuration including jamming signal parameters, and transmit a jamming signal based on the jamming signal parameters, the jamming signal being transmitted at a time corresponding to a transmission by the at least one IoT device. Some example embodiments provide that the jamming signal parameters include at least one of: a time offset indicating a time to transmit the jamming signal, a waveform type, a carrier frequency, a bandwidth, a frequency pattern, a time pattern, a modulation and coding scheme, a transmission power, a jamming signal scheduling, or any combinations thereof. Some example embodiments provide that the network node is caused to determine the jamming signal configuration by receiving the jamming signal configuration from a network element or an initiator network node. Some example embodiments provide that the network node is an initiator network node, and the network node is caused to, receive an eavesdropping report from a network element, the eavesdropping report including an eavesdropping probability indicating a probability of an eavesdrop occurrence, and eavesdropped resources indicating the frequency resources being eavesdropped, and determine the jamming signal configuration based on the eavesdropping report. Some example embodiments provide that the network node is configured as an activator node, and the network node is further caused to transmit an activation signal to the at least one IoT device, the activation signal causing the at least one IoT device to perform the transmission. Some example embodiments provide that the network node is configured as a reader node, and the network node is further caused to, receive a superimposed signal, the superimposed signal including the transmission by the at least one