The Iot Connectivity Challenges

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The IoT connectivity challenges

Ionel Petruț1

Marius Otesteanu2

1 Lasting Software and Faculty of Electronics and Telecommunications, Communications Dept.

Bd. V. Parvan 2, 300223 Timisoara, Romania, e-mail [anonimizat]

2 Faculty of Electronics and Telecommunications, Communications Dept.

Bd. V. Parvan 2, 300223 Timisoara, Romania, e-mail [anonimizat]

Abstract

The concept of “Internet of Things” (IoT) was used for the first time in 1999, for describing a system in which some of the physical objects could be connected to the Internet through sensors.

Since then, the Internet of Thinks had a very big impact on the technology as we know it. One important aspect, not yet standardized, is the way in which objects connect to the network in order to function together.

In the medical domain, the Internet of Things faces a big number of technical limitations, most of them related to the electromagnetic emissions.

Until the 5G network will become a reality in most of the countries, the connection through Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) remains the most suitable solution for IoT connectivity.

Communication between devices is central to the concept of the Internet of Things and smart devices can communicate with each other through network technologies. It has become clear to us that the internet ensures communication between devices trough standardized protocols, for it to occur in a secure and reliable way.

Introduction

The term “Internet of Things” is really new, even though this concept was beeing used for decades. In the present, the Internet is no longer a simple network designed to ensure communication between people, as it has evolved to a complex platform which helps networked devices communicate with other connected devices.

The Internet includes many private networks, a lot of cell towers operated by numerous companies, slow or fast connectivity, proxy servers and also firewalls, all things that can disrupt the connectivity between two or more smart objects.

The Internet of Things is a concept that describes the future, where physical objects are connected to the Internet and are able to self-identify in regard to other devices. This concept is closely identified with Radio-frequency identification (RFID).

Radio-frequency identification is a method of communication and also may include other sensor technologies, such as wireless access technologies or Quick Response Code (QR codes).

The networks are usually described as being built from a stack of technologies. Some of the technologies are stacked at the bottom, such as Bluetooth Low Eenergy, relating to the physical component when it comes to connecting devices, while some technologies are stacked at the top, such as Internet Protocol version 6, relating to the logical device addressing and routing of the network traffic.

The implementation of the IoT devices on a large scale promises to transform every aspect of our lives. Consumers will benefit from new smart devices like Internet-enabled appliances and energy management devices, making a house a “smart home” and offering efficiency and security.

For example, it becomes very clear to us that our smart devices can communicate with each other, as our things are represented by a global infrastructure for the informational society, interconnecting physical and virtual things.

The Internet of Things is a complex system of interrelated computing devices, machines and objects that are provided with unique identifiers and with the ability to transfer data without requiring any form of human interaction.

The Internet of Things is represented by a framework in which all of the physical things have both a representation and a presence on the Internet, but from a wider perspective, the Internet of Things can be perceived as a vision with both technological and social implications.

The IoT has such a big importance in our lives, because an object that is able to identified itself in a digital manner becomes something more than the object itself. In that case, the object is no longer relating just to its owner, but is now connected to surrounding objects.

When more than two objects act together through an internet connection, they are known as having “ambient intelligence”.

The Internet of Things is not just a futuristic, aspirational technology trend, as the concept it’s here today in all of our devices, sensors and cloud infrastructure.

The technology itself is just a trigger for IoT, presenting a new business model that will be leading the way. Business models across technologized industries will change as they adjust to the new realities and the technological progress.

Currently we are able to collect very important data from every aspect of our life, as environment, infrastructure, health, sports, etc. By analyzing the information that is available to us, we are generating new business opportunities.

IoT Connectiviyy options

Typically, the Internet of Things is expected to offer advanced connectivity for the smart devices and for all systems and services. The connectivity goes beyond classical machine-to-machine communications and covers a very large variety of protocols, domains and applications.

When we refer to IoT, basically we can split this complex concept into five main components:

the devices or the sensors used

the transmission infrastructure necessary

the collection of data collection

the storage of the data previously collected

the processing of the stored data.

Taking into consideration the complexity of the technologies that can be connected together, the devices can have a single sensor or multiple sensors implanted into a single device.

The structure a network has is known as network topology. Usually the most common topologies adopted within Internet of Things are star topologies and mesh topologies.

In a star topology, each smart device connected to the network is directly connected to a central hub, that communicates the data collected from the connected devices. The star topology reduces the impact of a transmission line failure by independently connecting each host to the hub.

In a mesh topology, smart devices connect to other smart devices within close-range. Nodes within the network act as simple sensor nodes, sensor nodes that route traffic or as gateway nodes. In a mesh topology network, the complexity is higher than in star topology networks, but the mesh topology networks are more resilient to failure, only because they are relying on multiple central gateways.

Relatively to the transmision infrastructure of the data, there are two different arhitectures for the connectivity models.

In the first scenario, the smart device is connected directly to the internet if the device complexity is high enough. In this case, the device needs to have a radio module with WiFi of mobile networks capabilities (2G, 3G, 4G) incorporated.

For this first scenario, there are two major disadvantages when considering the available internet connections available in the present, both for WiFi and for mobile networks, as WIFI is related to device complexity and price and mobile networks are related to the electromagnetic radiations.

In the second scenario, the smart device is connected to a mobile phone and the mobile phone acts as an intermediary hub for the device. In this case, the mobile phone is used for establishing a network connection between devices.

This architecture for this second scenario is more suitable for cheap and robust smart devices, due to the low power consumption and due to the low radiation level.

IoT connectivity through Bluetooth Low Energy

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a wireless area network technology that was designed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (BSIG) with applications in the healthcare, fitness, security, and home entertainment industry.

Compared to the Classic Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy intends to provide considerably reduced power consumption and reduced costs, while having a similar communication range.

Using Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity for our smart devices we can reduce the complexity of the network connections and the power consumption, as the devices can have different power consumption requirements.

Some of the mobile operating systems in phones (Android, iOS, Android, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry), as well as in computers (Windows 8, MacOS and Linux) natively support Bluetooth Low Energy.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group predicts that by the end of this year, more than 90% of the Bluetooth-enabled smartphones will also support Bluetooth Low Energy.

A recent study made by the Aislelabe software company, reported that proximity beacons, can usually function for one or two years with a 1,000mAh coin cell battery.

Operating like this is only possible because of the power efficiency of Bluetooth Low Energy protocol, a protocol which only transmits small packets of data, in comparison to Bluetooth Classic which is suitable to transmit high bandwidth data.

For these new configurations the need to develop a mobile application which will communicate with the smart devices is real. With reduced effort, a mechanism can be implemented for an easier device configuration from the application.

The application mentioned before will help with activating the sensors, changing the sampling rate, monitoring the battery level and handling the errors and the warnings, by only using the Generic Attribute Profile (GATT) protocol.

There are 5 important challenges of the Internet of Things connectivity:

1. Signaling

With IoT devices are connected, bidirectional strong signal is essential in order to properly collect and route data between smart devices, as the data collected needs to get from A to B very quick.

2. Security

The effort to tackle security issues is not enough to ensure that we can leverage the full power of this new technology.

Listed below are some of the specifics security issues:

Authorization: When sending or receiving any data, we must make sure that the smart device or the server used has the proper authorization to send and receive data.

Open ports: A smart device is vulnerable when it’s sitting and listening to an open port. The problem is we need bidirectional communication in order to send and receive date, but we must not have open ports.

Encryption: In order to safely and securely send and receive any data, we need end-to-end encryption between our smart devices and the servers used.

3. Presence Detection

It is very important for us to know when a smart device goes offline, but is also important to know when that smart device comes back online on the network. Presence detection of the smart devices gives us the ability to monitor our smart devices and to fix any of the problems that may occur with the network.

4. Power consumption

Thousands of smart devices signaling, sending and receiving data between each other takes a toll on power and CPU consumption. With all the communication happening, we need a minimal battery consumption rate, as we cannot afford to use all of the battery and CPUs capacity.

5. Bandwidth

Bandwidth and mobile data consumption between connected devices is another challenge in the way of the Internet of Things connectivity. Until recently, bandwidth on a mobile network was very expensive, especially when having millions of smart devices sending request or response signals to a server. That’s a server issue, that requires a large scale server handling all the data.

conclusions

While there is no doubt that the IoT is redefining industries and can deliver a better customer experience for all of us, there is always a fear of data misuse and data security.

With so much important amounts of data just flowing around, there will be situations in which the available data can be used in bad purposes. The industries are still embracing the IoT reality and time will pass before we are starting to feel and experiment the changes.

The companies still need to review their investments regarding Internet of Things reality and invest a lot of money in an effort to root out all the existing inefficiencies and improve their business processes.

Until 5G technology will become a reality or at least Long Term Evolution infrastructure will be ready for the Internet of Things, the Bluetooth Low Energy connections remain the most suitable solution for IoT connectivity.

The connectivity of smart devices should be a precaution before deployment, not an afterthought. Having scalable IoT network for connecting smart devices to the servers is critical for all IoT applications. Also, it is very important to always consider the five IoT connectivity issues mentioned before.

References

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