Cognitive Coexistence for Dummies!

It’s the foundation of our wireless technology offer and the main reason why we are perceived as the most reliable and resilient connectivity solution on the market. But what is it, what does it do and why should you care? Here’s a crash course in Cognitive Coexistence – the DNA of LumenRadio.

What is Cognitive Coexistence?

Cognitive Coexistence is LumenRadio’s technology for real-time chaotic adaptive frequency hopping. Whoa…that’s a long and complicated term! Fear not, let’s break it down and explain:

• Real-time means that it happens very often (every 10 milliseconds to be exact). It also means that decisions are taken (all the time) based on the most recent input from the devices in a network.
• Chaotic means not pre-set or pre-determined – as in without any limitations in flexibility (although following some pre-defined rules).
• Adaptive means that it adjusts on-the-fly to the environment in which your devices are deployed. If something changes, self-induced or outside your control, then the network changes with it.
• Frequency hopping means that the network continuously changes the channel on which it transmits information. Every 10ms the network moves to a new channel, carefully selected from all available channels in the frequency band.

What does Cognitive Coexistence do?

• Above all, it makes wireless communication more reliable and more resilient than other solutions. This would be the equivalent of having a higher First-Pass-Yield in a production line, which is one of the keys to remaining efficient in your operations. Or having a higher Batting Average or Field-Goal Percentage, to use some sports analogies.
• It also leaves room for other wireless equipment, as it (primarily for selfish reasons, see above) avoids others operating in the same frequency band in the same physical environment. We are hence a model citizen from an RF coexistence perspective – we don’t succeed at someone else’s expense. This actually gives us permission to transmit with a higher output power from a regulatory perspective (see below). You can also see this as CIO insurance…messing with your end users’ WiFi is extremely unpopular and rarely goes unpunished.

Why is this important for you?

• If you’re building wireless products for industrial or professional applications they simply have to work – today, tomorrow and every day thereafter. Independent of the present radio environment and how it might change. If you believe that the number of wireless devices deployed around us will increase going forward, having some kind of interference mitigation solution is probably a wise move.
• Higher reliability also means less re-transmissions, which in turn translates into lower power consumption and lower overall latency in the network. This is one of the keys to enabling building meshing networks of battery-operated devices, without completely sacrificing responsiveness.
• Our ability to transmit with a higher output power (100mW vs. normally 10mW) gives you the extra horsepower needed to efficiently connect a complete building – penetrating floors and walls and creating more responsive networks (through fewer hops).

What does it mean for LumenRadio?

• We live and breathe reliability. It is the innovation upon which our company was founded and one of the reasons we will become even more relevant tomorrow.
• It is also a technology that’s embedded in all our products without exception – independent of whether it is an HVAC sensor or an entertainment lighting fixture, it’s always there. Which also means that any product carrying the LumenRadio brand is always engineered for reliability. And for our customers, that means Wireless Without Worries!

Don’t miss the other posts from our series: Network Time Synchronization for Dummies and Concurrent Bluetooth for Dummies.