Developing IoT applications: challenges and frameworks

The design and development process for internet of things (IoT) applications is more complicated than that for desktop, mobile, or web applications. First, IoT applications require both software and hardware to work together across many different types of nodes with different capabilities under different conditions. Second, IoT application development involves different types of software engineers such as desktop, web, embedded, and mobile to work together. Furthermore, non-software engineering personnel such as business analysts are also involved in the design process. In addition to the complexity of having multiple software engineering specialists cooperating to merge different hardware and software components together, the development process requires different software and hardware stacks to be integrated together (e.g., different stacks from different companies such as Microsoft Azure and IBM Bluemix). Due to the above complexities, non-functional requirements (such as security and privacy, which are highly important in the context of the IoT) tend to be ignored or treated as though they are less important in the IoT application development process. This article reviews techniques, methods, and tools to support security and privacy requirements in existing non-IoT application designs, enabling their use and integration into IoT applications. This article primarily focuses on design notations, models, and languages that facilitate capturing non-functional requirements (i.e., security and privacy). Our goal is not only to analyse, compare, and consolidate the empirical research but also to appreciate their findings and discuss their applicability for the IoT.

With the advancement of computing technology, we are witnessing the dawn of a new era of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm in which objects equipped with sensors, actuators and processing capabilities communicate with each other to serve a given goal. The IoT’s intrinsic nature, which uses heterogeneous devices, resources and different communication protocols, complicates IoT applications’ design, development, and validation. Reducing the complexity of building IoT applications is one of the current challenges in this area.To address this challenge, we focus on a model-driven approach to support IoT systems’ management and the development of IoT applications. In particular, we propose the FloWare approach and its toolchain, which combine Software Product Line and Flow-Based Programming paradigms to manage the complexity in the various stages of the IoT application development process. An automatic transformation procedure generates the final IoT application, an executable Node-RED flow, starting from a configuration of the designed Feature Models.KeywordsIoTModel-drivenFeature modelFlow-based programmingNode-RED

The correct implementation and behavior of Internet of Things (IoT) applications are seldom investigated in the literature. This paper shows how the simulation mechanism can be integrated well into an IoT application development platform for correct implementation and behavior investigation. We use an IoT application development platform called IoTtalk as an example to describe how the simulation mechanism called SimTalk can be built into this IoT platform. We first elaborate on how to implement the simulator for an input IoT device (a sensor). Then we describe how an output IoT device (an actuator) can be simulated by an animated simulator. We use a smart farm application to show how the simulated sensors are used for correct implementation. We use applications including interactive art (skeleton art and water dance) and the pendulum physics experiment as examples to illustrate how IoT application behavior investigation can be achieved in SimTalk. As the main outcome of this paper, the SimTalk simulation codes can be directly reused for real IoT applications. Furthermore, SimTalk is integrated well with an IoT application verification tool in order to formally verify the IoT application configuration. Such features have not been found in any IoT simulators in the world.

Internet of Things (IoT) applications are generally developed in a vertical manner, i.e., each IoT application is developed for a certain scenario which generally does not share data with IoT applications for recommendation services. This leads to an inefficient exploitation of other IoT service applications. In fact, such recommendation services can be achieved with the help of Social IoT (SIoT) by using data generated by various IoT applications. SIoT builds a profile of objects based on IoT applications data that can be exchanged with SIoT network for accessible to other IoT applications. In this manner, the SIoT network provides recommendation services for reusability of IoT applications' data among various IoT applications, as well as adapting IoT services according to users' needs which improve user experience. Additionally, the profiles built by a SIoT network can also help a single IoT application by looking for similar conditions that have been addressed in the past for the same IoT application. We propose a concept for exploiting the SIoT for recommendation services among various IoT applications with the help of a sample application scenario that highlights how the SIoT can help by providing recommendations. We also provide some implementation challenges for this concept.

As a major agricultural province in China, Shandong Province has always played an important role. At the same time, it is also closely related to the strong support of science and technology. As a new technology, the Internet of things (IoT) has made positive contributions. Agricultural IoT is a mode that uses information technology, wireless communication technology and radio frequency automatic identification technology to share the identified agricultural information to the network. The application of agricultural IoT is a major change in agricultural development, which provides convenient conditions for the development of agriculture, provides a favorable environment for the agricultural products, promotes the transformation of agricultural technology, realizes the informatization of agricultural production, improves the efficiency of rural land, integrates agricultural resources and provides a foundation for food safety. In this paper, the application of IoT in the field of agriculture in Shandong Province is described from two practical cases. One is about how to use wireless sensor network technology to transmit data in the big data platform based on the Bohai granary project. The other describes how to use IoT for food quality and safety traceability. It takes pigs as the research object, runs through all links of the whole industrial chain of pig breeding, breeding, slaughtering, processing, logistics and sales, collects the data of the whole industrial chain with the help of IoT, and realizes the information tracking and traceability of the whole industrial chain. At the end of the paper, it discusses the countermeasures.

The emerging Internet of Things (IoT) revolution has introduced many useful applications that are utilized in our daily lives. Users can program these devices in order to develop their own IoT applications; however, the platforms and languages that are used during development are abounding, complicated, and time-consuming. The software solution provided in this thesis, PROVIZ+, is a secure sensor application development software suite that helps users create sophisticated and secure IoT applications with little software and hardware experience. Moreover, a simple and efficient domain-specific programming language, namely Panther language, was designed for IoT application development to unify existing programming languages. In addition to these contributions, PROVIZ+ supports a novel secure over-the-air programming framework, namely SOTA, using Bluetooth and WiFi as well as serial programming. In this thesis, we explain the features of PROVIZ+’s components, how these tools can help develop IoT applications, and SOTA. We also present the performance evaluations of PROVIZ+ and SOTA.

The internet of things (IoT) is focused in offering new technologies which is changing the business environment by showing the potential in different sectors like retail, transportation, healthcare etc. Through IoT, the managers can gather and process data and information in an effective manner, also they can use them to automate in order to enhance productivity and efficiency. With the usage of such technologies, human resource managers can access information for possible candidates which can be accessed through IoT. The overall behaviour of potential candidate tends to help them in shortlisting and choosing the desirable ones. The application of IoT has emerged in enhancing the recruitment of candidates in search of candidates based on large volume of information, assist in screening the candidates, selecting the most suitable ones. The application of IoT technology can modify the HR roles, enable in changing the company perspective in enhancing recruitment process, source the candidates effectively and select them so as to meet the organisational requirements. The implementation of IoT driven technologies support in removing the biases in screening the candidates and aids in candidate selection with the support of other technologies like artificial intelligence, predictive analytics etc. Furthermore, IoT is also involved in better inventory management as it supports the organisation in converting the data which are sourced through RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) into more insights related to inventory data, location of the products, tracking the movement of goods until it reaches the hands of the customers. With the application of IoT inventory managers possess better control in managing the inventory through automated ordering request and thereby reduce manual time and cost for the business. This paper is focused in presenting a conceptual understanding on the application of environmental IoT in recruitment process and also the overall impact created by the technology in managing the inventory efficiently.KeywordsInternet of thingsRecruitment processInventory managementPredictive analytics

Under the background of prosperity of Internet of things (IoT), in order to accelerate the training of talented persons of China for IoT, we propose to design and develop a new course for Chinese students: Essential Technologies, Applications, and Commercial Patterns of Internet of Things. Aiming at three-dimensional target, which has dimensionalities of attitude and thoughts, knowledge and skills, process and methods, the contents of the course include the following parts: system and application architectures, key technologies of IoT, applications of IoT, commercial patterns of IoT, IoT industry and social significance etc. The course highlights the training of abilities of innovation, creativity, comprehensive analysis and practical operations. The construction of teaching resources, such as textbooks, lecture notes, teaching equipments, practice bases, are also emphasized in the process of development of this course.

SummaryIn recent years, applying Internet of Things (IoT) applications has significantly increased to facilitate and improve quality of human life activities in various fields such as healthcare, education, industry, economics, etc. The energy aware cloud‐edge computing paradigm has developed as a hybrid computing solution to provide IoT applications using available cloud service providers and fog nodes for the smart devices and mobile applications. Since the IoT applications are developed in the form of several IoT services with various quality of service (QoS) metrics which can deploy on the cloud‐edge providers with different resource capabilities, finding an efficient placement solution as one of challenging topics to be measured for IoT applications. The service placement issue arranges IoT applications on the cloud‐edge providers with various capabilities of atomic services though sufficient different QoS factors to support service level agreement (SLA) contracts. This paper presents a technical analysis on the cloud‐edge service placement approaches in IoT systems. The key point of this technical analysis is to identify substantial studies in the service placement approaches which need additional consideration to progress more efficient and effective placement strategies in IoT environments. In addition, a side‐by‐side taxonomy is proposed to categorize the relevant studies on cloud‐edge service placement approaches and algorithms. A statistical and technical analysis of reviewed existing approaches is provided, and evaluation factors and attributes are discussed. Finally, open issues and forthcoming challenges of service placement approaches are presented.

사물 인터넷(Internet-of-Things, IoT) 컴퓨팅은 무선 인터넷으로 다양한 디바이스를 연결하고 센서를 통해 획득한 사용자 주변 환경 정보를 이용하여 디바이스를 제어하는 여러 기술의 융합 기술이다. IoT 애플리케이션은 기존 소프트웨어와는 달리 다수 개의 IoT 디바이스와 협업을 통해 사용자에게 기능을 제공하고, 센서 네트워크, 통신 기술, 소프트웨어 공학 등 여러 기술들을 활용하여 설계된다. 그리고 최근에 소개된 신기술이기 때문에, 대부분의 연구는 시작 단계에 있다. 이런 이유로, IoT 애플리케이션 개발 프로젝트는 기존의 소프트웨어 개발 프로젝트에서 관찰되지 않은 기술적 이슈들이 발생할 수 있고, 기존의 프로젝트 수행 가이드라인을 그대로 적용하는 것이 제한되어 성공적으로 프로젝트를 수행하는 데 어려움이 따른다. 따라서 본 논문에서는 IoT 애플리케이션을 효율적으로 개발하기 위해, 프로젝트 준비 및 계획 단계와 설계 및 개발 단계로 구분하여 각 단계별로 기술적 이슈를 나열하고 효과적인 솔루션을 제시하고자 한다. 또한 IoT 디바이스 중 AR.Drone과 Sphero Ball을 활용한 애플리케이션 개발에서 본 논문의 솔루션에 대한 적용 및 활용 사례를 보여줌으로써, 연구의 실효성을 검증한다. Internet-of-Things(IoT) is the computing paradigm converged with different technologies, where diverse devices are connected via the wireless network, acquire environmental information from their equipped sensors, and actuated. IoT applications typically provide smart services to users by interacting with multiple devices connected to the network and are designed by integrating multiple technologies such as sensor network, communication technologies, and software engineering. Moreover, since the concept of IoT has been introduced recently, most of the researches are in the beginning step, which is too early to be practically applied. Due to these facts, developing IoT application results in unconventional technical challenges which have not been observed in typical software applications. And, it is not straightforward to apply conventional project guidelines to IoT application development projects. Hence, there can be many difficulties to successfully complete the projects. Therefore, for successful completion of the projects, we analyze technical challenges occurring in all phases of the project lifecycle, i.e. project preparation stage and development stage. And, we propose the effective solutions to overcome the issues. To verify identified issues and presented solutions, we present the result of applying the solutions to an IoT application development. Through the case study, we evaluate how reasonable the unconventional technical issues are generated and analyze effectiveness of applying the solutions to the application.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly part of daily life. However, the development of IoT applications still faces many problems, such as heterogeneity, complex management, and other difficulties. In this paper, first, the open source technologies of IoT are surveyed. We compare these technologies from the point of view of different levels of technical requirements, such as device management, data management, communication, intelligent data processing, security and privacy protection; we also look at requirements of application development and deployment. Second, an IoT integrated development platform architecture for IoT applications based on open source ecosystem is proposed and evaluated in an industrial setting. We applied P2P technology to distributed resource management and blockchain-based smart contract mechanics for resource billing management. The results show that the IoT gateway based on an open source ecosystem had a stable and reliable system performance with a certain data size and concurrency scale. These conditions satisfy the application requirements of the IoT in most sensing environments.

The Internet of Things (IoT) integrates the sensing technology and radio frequency identification technology between goods. Recent IoT development has the disadvantages of low reliability, poor security, and high maintenance costs. Moreover, IoT applications should have the special requirements of supporting massive connections, low terminal costs, low terminal power consumption, and super-coverage capabilities in 5G scenarios. By integrating 5G with IoT, the information transmission rate can be effectively improved, the transmission delay can be reduced, and the reliability and security of the network can be improved. 5G technology will support the innovation and development of IoT applications, vigorously promote the development process of IoT, and continue to break ground in new areas and discover new worlds.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study lightweight security scheme for Internet of Things (IoT) applications using Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP). Resource-constrained characteristics of IoT systems have ushered in compelling requirements for lightweight application protocol and security suites. CoAP has already been established as the candidate protocol for IoT systems. However, low overhead security scheme for CoAP is still an open problem. Existing security solutions like Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) is not suitable, particularly due to its expensive handshaking, public key infrastructure (PKI)-based authentication and lengthy ciphersuite agreement process. Design/methodology/approach – This paper proposes a lightweight security scheme in CoAP using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 128 symmetric key algorithm. The paper presents an object security (payload embedded)-based robust authentication mechanism with integrated key management. The paper introduces few unique modifications to CoAP header to optimize security operation and minimize communication cost. Findings – It is resilient to number of security attacks like replay attack, meet-in-the-middle attack and secure under chosen plaintext attack. This scheme is generic in nature, applicable for gamut of IoT applications. The paper proves efficacy of our proposed scheme for vehicle tracking application in emulated laboratory setup. Specifically, it compares with DTLS-enabled CoAP to establish the lightweight feature of our proposed solution. Research limitations/implications – This paper mainly focuses on implementing in-vehicle tracking systems as an IoT application and used CoAP as the application protocol. Practical implications – Such a lightweight security scheme would provide immense benefit in IoT systems so that resource constraint-sensing devices and nodes can be made secure. This would impact IoT eco systems to a large extent. Originality/value – Such kind of security suite that provides both robustness and lightweight feature is hitherto not known to the authors, particularly in CoAP for IoT applications.

Cost-effective, low-power and wireless connectivity are among the key considerations for interconnecting the end-nodes or end-devices in the Internet of Things (IoT) applications. While wireless technologies such as WiFi, Bluetooth, Zigbee have been popular choices for last-mile connectivity, they however significantly restrict the distance between the communicating entities. While the use of additional network gear like repeaters or higher signal transmission power would increase the range of these wireless communication interfaces, the consequent increase in the cost has been a critical reason for not readily employing them in WAN based IoT applications such as Smart Cities. The emergence of the LoRa (Long Range) standard and the Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology, in recent times, have however widened the scope and also broadened the deployment scenarios of the IoT end-nodes including the viability of the battery-powered and non-stationary ones. Yet another significance of these new long-distance-low-power interconnect standards is the empowerment for broader and independent Machine to Infrastructure (M2I) and Machine to Machine (M2M) communication for the end-nodes. This paper discusses details of the work that was carried out to explore the suitability of LoRa and LoRaWAN to address the short as well as the medium-range connectivity requirements of the IoT applications while also ensuring the flexibility and low-cost benefits with the help of results obtained from the representative experimental setups. The overall study and assessment were performed in steps, each with specific objectives. The first step was aimed at evaluating the performance of LoRa for communication between stationary as well as moving nodes. The next step was directed towards the validation of node-to-gateway and node-to-node communication, and also, with simultaneous use of different channels within LoRaWANs that were configured in star and mesh topologies. The subsequent step was devoted to assessing the viability of LoRa in broader IoT applications such as Smart Cities and Smart Irrigation, with the help of an illustrative setup comprising of nodes with sensors and actuators and, a gateway which was connected to an open-source cloud infrastructure to epitomize aspects of storage and analysis of data of a comprehensive IoT deployment.

The rise of successful cutting-edge Internet of Things (IoT) applications for urban development has inspired the industry and research community. Although the industry verticals such as automotive, robotics, e-health, and entertainment applications create new business opportunities for the service providers, they pose challenges in terms of deployment cost, reliability, and latency requirements. For example, self-driving vehicles require ultralow latency and reliable data processing to make split-second decisions. Unfortunately, cloud-based solutions for such IoT applications are not suitable due to the end-to-end latency and connection reliability. To meet these challenging requirements, edge computing paradigm has emerged as a solution where computational resources are brought to the proximity of the end users. Now, advanced data analytics, machine learning, and cognitive techniques can also be deployed at the edge of the network. Together, edge computing, data analytics, and machine learning empower service providers with true and intelligently automated infrastructure for IoT applications. In this chapter, we investigate the relevant use cases of edge-enabled IoT applications for smart urban development. To this end, we also provide a comprehensive study of the recent trends and the state of the art in accommodating all these emerging technologies in the acceleration of smart urban development.