A gap analysis of Internet-of-Things platforms

We are experiencing an abundance of Internet-of-Things (IoT) middleware solutions that provide connectivity for sensors and actuators to the Internet. To gain a widespread adoption, these middleware solutions, referred to as platforms, have to meet the expectations of different players in the IoT ecosystem, including device providers, application developers, and end-users, among others. In this article, we evaluate a representative sample of these platforms, both proprietary and open-source, on the basis of their ability to meet the expectations of different IoT users. The evaluation is thus more focused on how ready and usable these platforms are for IoT ecosystem players, rather than on the peculiarities of the underlying technological layers. The evaluation is carried out as a gap analysis of the current IoT landscape with respect to (i) the support for heterogeneous sensing and actuating technologies, (ii) the data ownership and its implications for security and privacy, (iii) data processing and data sharing capabilities, (iv) the support offered to application developers, (v) the completeness of an IoT ecosystem, and (vi) the availability of dedicated IoT marketplaces. The gap analysis aims to highlight the deficiencies of today's solutions to improve their integration to tomorrow's ecosystems. In order to strengthen the finding of our analysis, we conducted a survey among the partners of the Finnish IoT program, counting over 350 experts, to evaluate the most critical issues for the development of future IoT platforms. Based on the results of our analysis and our survey, we conclude this article with a list of recommendations for extending these IoT platforms in order to fill in the gaps.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, Accepted for publication in Computer Communications, special issue on the Internet of Things: Research challenges and solution

Internet of Things-aided Smart Grid: Technologies, Architectures, Applications, Prototypes, and Future Research Directions

Traditional power grids are being transformed into Smart Grids (SGs) to address the issues in existing power system due to uni-directional information flow, energy wastage, growing energy demand, reliability and security. SGs offer bi-directional energy flow between service providers and consumers, involving power generation, transmission, distribution and utilization systems. SGs employ various devices for the monitoring, analysis and control of the grid, deployed at power plants, distribution centers and in consumers' premises in a very large number. Hence, an SG requires connectivity, automation and the tracking of such devices. This is achieved with the help of Internet of Things (IoT). IoT helps SG systems to support various network functions throughout the generation, transmission, distribution and consumption of energy by incorporating IoT devices (such as sensors, actuators and smart meters), as well as by providing the connectivity, automation and tracking for such devices. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey on IoT-aided SG systems, which includes the existing architectures, applications and prototypes of IoT-aided SG systems. This survey also highlights the open issues, challenges and future research directions for IoT-aided SG systems

Financing sustainable energy for all: pay-as-you-go vs. traditional solar finance approaches in Kenya

This paper focuses on finance for Solar Home Systems (SHSs) in Kenya and asks to what extent emerging new finance approaches are likely to address the shortcomings of past approaches. Drawing on the STEPS Pathways Approach we adopt a framing that understands finance within a broader socio-technical context as a necessary but not sufficient component of achieving alternative pathways to sustainable energy access. The paper contributes in four ways. Firstly, it presents a comprehensive overview of past and new emerging approaches to financing SHSs in Kenya and their relative strengths and weaknesses. Secondly, it represents one of the first attempts in the literature to analyse the potential of new, real time monitoring technologies and pay as you go finance models to overcome the barriers faced by conventional consumer finance models for off-grid renewable energy technologies (RETs). Thirdly, by applying for the first time we are aware of a socio-technical approach, via the application of Strategic Niche Management (SNM) theory, to analyse the finance of RETs in developing countries, the analysis considers finance in the context of the social practices poor people seek to fulfil via access to the energy services that off-grid RETs provide, and the ways in which people previously paid for these services (e.g. via kerosene for lighting). This also situates the analysis within the understanding of SHSs as a niche that has to compete with the established regime of energy service provision and its attendant social and political institutional support. The paper therefore also contributes to the small but expanding body of literature that seeks to operationalise socio-technical transitions thinking and SNM within a developing country context

Impact of Interdisciplinary Research on Planning, Running, and Managing Electromobility as a Smart Grid Extension

The smart grid is concerned with energy efficiency and with the environment, being a countermeasure against the territory devastations that may originate by the fossil fuel mining industry feeding the conventional power grids. This paper deals with the integration between the electromobility and the urban power distribution network in a smart grid framework, i.e., a multi-stakeholder and multi-Internet ecosystem (Internet of Information, Internet of Energy, and Internet of Things) with edge computing capabilities supported by cloud-level services and with clean mapping between the logical and physical entities involved and their stakeholders. In particular, this paper presents some of the results obtained by us in several European projects that refer to the development of a traffic and power network co-simulation tool for electro mobility planning, platforms for recharging services, and communication and service management architectures supporting interoperability and other qualities required for the implementation of the smart grid framework. For each contribution, this paper describes the inter-disciplinary characteristics of the proposed approaches

Real Time Monitoring Technologies for Pro-Poor Access to Electricity

Existing literature strongly and consistently reports the high upfront cost of energy technology hardware as one of the main demand-side barriers to increased use of modern energy services by the poor. Existing literature also shows that lack of control over monthly bills and unawareness of consumption levels lead to inefficient and sometimes insufficient electricity consumption patterns by the poor. Innovative technologies drawing from existing power metering and mobile payment technologies are now targeting the barriers of affordability and financial sustainability of electricity provision to the poor by allowing fee-for-services and rent-to-buy schemes for the sale of electricity, tariffs related to actual consumption, consumers’ control of their electricity bills and suppliers’ more efficient collection of payments. Real time monitoring (RTM) of on-grid electricity consumption has a long history, with prepaid meters being used in several developed and developing countries. However, new mobile technologies are enabling their use in off-grid systems, including both mini-grids and mobile household systems.DFI

Impacto das comunicações M2M em redes celulares de telecomunicações

Mestrado em Engenharia Electrónica e de TelecomunicaçõesAs comunicações Máquina-Máquina (M2M) apresentam um crescimento muito significativo e algumas projeções apontam para que esta tendência se acentue drasticamente ao longo dos próximos anos. O tráfego gerado por este tipo de comunicações tem caraterísticas muito diferentes do tráfego de dados, ou voz, que atualmente circula nas redes celulares de telecomunicações. Assim, é fundamental estudar as caraterísticas dos tipos de tráfego associados com comunicações M2M, por forma a compreender os efeitos que tais caraterísticas podem provocar nas redes celulares de telecomunicações. Esta dissertação procura identificar e estudar algumas das caraterísticas do tráfego M2M, com especial enfoque na sinalização gerada por serviços M2M. Como resultado principal deste trabalho surge o desenvolvimento de modelos que permitem a construção de uma ferramenta analítica de orquestração de serviços e análise de rede. Esta ferramenta permite orquestrar serviços e modelar padrões de tráfego numa rede UMTS, possibilitando uma análise simultânea aos efeitos produzidos no segmento core da mesma rede. Ao longo deste trabalho procura-se que a abordagem aos problemas apresentados permita que os resultados obtidos sejam válidos, ou adaptáveis, num âmbito mais abrangente do que apenas as comunicações M2M.Machine to Machine (M2M) communications present significant growth and some projections indicate that this trend is going to increase dramatically over the coming years. The traffic generated by this type of communication has very different characteristics when compared to data or voice traffic currently going through cellular telecommunications networks. Thus, it is essential to study the characteristics of traffic associated with M2M communications in order to understand the effects that its features can imply to cellular telecommunications networks. This dissertation tries to identify and study some of the characteristics of M2M traffic, with particular focus on signaling generated by M2M services. A number of models, that enable the development of an analytic tool for service orchestration and network analysis, are presented. This tool enables service orchestration and traffic modeling on a UMTS network, with simultaneous visualization of the impacts on the core of such network. The work presented in this document seeks to approach the problems at study in ways ensuring that its outcomes are valid for a wider scope than just M2M communications

A survey of smart grid architectures, applications, benefits and standardization

The successful transformation of conventional power grids into Smart Grids (SG) will require robust and scalable communication network infrastructure. The SGs will facilitate bidirectional electricity flow, advanced load management, a self-healing protection mechanism and advanced monitoring capabilities to make the power system more energy efficient and reliable. In this paper SG communication network architectures, standardization efforts and details of potential SG applications are identified. The future deployment of real-time or near-real-time SG applications is dependent on the introduction of a SG compatible communication system that includes a communication protocol for cross-domain traffic flows within the SG. This paper identifies the challenges within the cross-functional domains of the power and communication systems that current research aims to overcome. The status of SG related machine to machine communication system design is described and recommendations are provided for diverse new and innovative traffic features