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The Objectives, Standards, and Protocols of IoT

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- The Objectives of IoT

The Internet of Things (IoT) is aimed at enabling the interconnection and integration of the physical world and the cyber space. It represents the trend of future networking, and leads the third wave of the IT industry revolution. IoT covers a wide spectrum of applications, including the detailed real-time sensing of our environment and the embedding of connected intelligence into everyday objects. Eventually, almost any thing will be able to have its own verifiable identity, be location-aware, have the ability to communicate and trade information, become a direct consumer and provider of services, and have the potential for fully autonomous operation.

The fundamental objective of IoT is to obtain and analyze data from things (devices) that were previously disconnected from most data processing tools. This data is generated by physical things (devices) deployed at the very edge of the network - such as motors, light bulbs, generators, pumps, and relays - that perform specific tasks to support a business process. IoT is about connecting these unconnected devices (things) and sending their data to the cloud or Internet to be analyzed. 

The influence of IoT reaches across an entire ecosystem of things from consumer products to advanced manufacturing automation solutions. From industry to industry, IoT solutions impact the way companies design, manufacture, operate, and service products, as well as, redefine and optimize existing business processes across the value chain.

 

- IoT Standards and Protocols

The Internet of Things (IoT) consists of smart devices that communicate with each other. It enables these devices to collect and exchange data. Besides, IoT has now a wide range of life applications such as industry, transportation, logistics, healthcare, smart environment, as well as personal, social gaming robot, and city information. 

Smart devices can have wired or wireless connection. As far as the wireless IoT is the main concern, many different wireless communication technologies and protocols can be used to connect the smart device such as Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), over Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN), ZigBee, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Z-Wave and Near Field Communication (NFC). They are short range standard network protocols, while SigFox and Cellular are Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) standard protocols. 

There are diverse options for the connectivity. Rather than trying to fit all of the IoT Protocols on top of existing architecture models like OSI Model, we have broken the protocols into the following layers to provide some level of organization:

  • Infrastructure (ex: 6LowPAN, IPv4/IPv6, RPL)
  • Identification (ex: EPC, uCode, IPv6, URIs)
  • Comms / Transport (ex: Wi-fi, Bluetooth, LPWAN)
  • Discovery (ex: Physical Web, mDNS, DNS-SD)
  • Data Protocols (ex: MQTT, CoAP, AMQP, Websocket, Node)
  • Device Management (ex: TR-069, OMA-DM)
  • Semantic (ex: JSON-LD, Web Thing Model)
  • Multi-layer Frameworks (ex: Alljoyn, IoTivity, Weave, Homekit)


Following are various top protocols available out there to choose from. Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, ZigBee, DDS (or Data Distribution Service), NFC (NFC (Near Field Communication), Cellular, AMQP, LoRaWAN, RFID, Z-Wave, Sigfox, Thread, EnOcean.

 

  

[More to come ...]

 

 

 

 

 

 

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