Integration of Wi-Fi mobile nodes in a Web of Things Testbed

Abstract The Internet of Things (IoT) is supposed to connect billions of devices to the Internet through IP-based communications. The main goal is to foster a rapid deployment of Web-enabled everyday objects, allowing end users to manage and control smart things in a simple way, by using Web browsers. This paper focuses on the integration of Wi-Fi nodes, hosting HTTP resources, into a Web of Things Testbed (WoTT). The main novelty of the proposed approach is that the WoTT integrates new nodes by using only standard mechanisms, allowing end-users to interact with all Smart Objects without worrying about protocol-specific details

On driver behavior recognition for increased safety:A roadmap

Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADASs) are used for increasing safety in the automotive domain, yet current ADASs notably operate without taking into account drivers’ states, e.g., whether she/he is emotionally apt to drive. In this paper, we first review the state-of-the-art of emotional and cognitive analysis for ADAS: we consider psychological models, the sensors needed for capturing physiological signals, and the typical algorithms used for human emotion classification. Our investigation highlights a lack of advanced Driver Monitoring Systems (DMSs) for ADASs, which could increase driving quality and security for both drivers and passengers. We then provide our view on a novel perception architecture for driver monitoring, built around the concept of Driver Complex State (DCS). DCS relies on multiple non-obtrusive sensors and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for uncovering the driver state and uses it to implement innovative Human–Machine Interface (HMI) functionalities. This concept will be implemented and validated in the recently EU-funded NextPerception project, which is briefly introduced

Heterogeneous IoT networking

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the combination of various technologies and existing research fields and, with it, new disciplines, new applications' areas, and new challenges arose. One of the main fields of interest is given by Wireless Sensors Networks (WSNs), from which various applications (e.g., home automation, optimization of production processes) and various research fields (e.g., routing protocols, wireless technologies, energy optimization) derive. Regarding research and development, with the increase and adoption of the IoT paradigm, new communication protocols have been developed. In order to meet the requirements of typical IoT applications, such as low power consumption and long distance communications, the following new class of networks has been defined: Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs). LPWANs are formed by very constrained nodes, especially in terms of computation capabilities and data rate transmission. However, the LPWAN nodes have very limited power consumption and very long transmission range (on the order of tens of kilometers) and the end nodes do not support Internet Protocol (IP). In the past years, moreover, many organizations, such as the Internet Protocol for Smart Objects (IPSO) Alliance and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), focused their work on the design of an IoT IP-based protocol stack which can match the stack of the Internet, with particular attention to recently emerging LPWANs. In fact, with the goal of achieving interaction between heterogeneous devices, the use of IP has been widely accepted as the driver for the effective evolution of the IoT and its integration with the Internet. In this thesis, we thus propose a new hybrid architecture that enables the interaction between low-power, non-IP, and long-range devices (i.e., LoRaWAN devices) and shorter range, IP-based, IEEE 802.11-based devices. In this way, the potentialities of micro IoT networks is extended with the long range feature, creating a highly scalable IoT architecture which allows to better address the complexity of the requirements of IoT scenarios

Wireless Mesh Networking: An IoT-Oriented Perspective Survey on Relevant Technologies

The Internet of Things (IoT), being a “network of networks”, promises to allow billions of humans and machines to interact with each other. Owing to this rapid growth, the deployment of IoT-oriented networks based on mesh topologies is very attractive, thanks to their scalability and reliability (in the presence of failures). In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of the following relevant wireless technologies: IEEE 802.11, Bluetooth, IEEE 802.15.4-oriented, and Sub-GHz-based LoRa. Our goal is to highlight how various communication technologies may be suitable for mesh networking, either providing a native support or being adapted subsequently. Hence, we discuss how these wireless technologies, being either standard or proprietary, can adapt to IoT scenarios (e.g., smart cities and smart agriculture) in which the heterogeneity of the involved devices is a key feature. Finally, we provide reference use cases involving all the analyzed mesh-oriented technologies

Virtualizing LoRaWAN Nodes: a CoAP-based Approach

In the near future, Internet of Things (IoT) will play a relevant role in people’s lives and one of the main challenges will be the integration of heterogeneous networks. Among widely adopted network technologies, the development of the so-called Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWANs), in particular Long Range WAN (LoRaWAN) is attracting a significant interest from both academic and industrial worlds. The integration of LoRaWAN with other communication technologies represents a fundamental requirement for a successful rapid and large-scale diffusion of IoT paradigms, such as Smart Farming, Smart Factory, and Smart City. The aim of this paper is two-fold: we propose (i) a mechanism for automatic discovery of the sensors a LoRa device is equipped with; and (ii) a novel networking architecture, based on cloud computing and node virtualization, to enable the interaction of LoRaWAN end-nodes with other IP-based IoT devices. Our solution does not impact LoRaWAN networking and enables a seamless interaction between LoRaWAN end-nodes and other Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)-based nodes

From Micro to Macro IoT: Challenges and Solutions in the Integration of IEEE 802.15.4/802.11 and Sub-GHz Technologies

Research efforts in the field of Internet of Things (IoT) are providing solutions in building new types of “network of networks”, going beyond the technological barriers due to intrinsic limitations of the constrained devices typically used in this context. Thanks to the improvement in communication/networking protocols and the hardware cost reduction, it is now possible to define new IoT architectures, combining the “Micro” IoT paradigm, based on short-range radio technologies (e.g., IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.11), with the rising “Macro” IoT paradigm, based on Sub-GHz radio technologies. This allows the implementation of scalable network architectures, able to collect data coming from constrained devices and process them in order to provide useful services and applications to final consumers. In this work, we focus on practical integration between Micro and Macro IoT approaches, providing architectural and performance details for a set of experimental tests carried out in the campus of the University of Parma. We then discuss challenges and solutions of the proposed Micro-Macro integrated IoT systems

A Modular Multi-interface Gateway for Heterogeneous IoT Networking

The massive deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) architectures and applications, in many fields over the last decade, has accelerated research efforts on low-power wireless connectivity protocols. Moreover, many standards have been introduced, highlighting the need to make data flow among different communication protocols and network interfaces feasible. To this end, devices like Gateways (GWs) play a crucial role in many IoT applications and will impact future developments and possibilities. In this paper, the design and deployment of a new modular and scalable GW architecture solution, suitable for a wide plethora of use case scenarios and useful as a starting point for many possible improvements and applications, is proposed. Experimental performance results are discussed, showing the roles of different interfaces in specific use cases in which the proposed this solution may be applied

Wireless Mesh Networking: An IoT-Oriented Perspective Survey on Relevant Technologies

The Internet of Things (IoT), being a “network of networks„, promises to allow billions of humans and machines to interact with each other. Owing to this rapid growth, the deployment of IoT-oriented networks based on mesh topologies is very attractive, thanks to their scalability and reliability (in the presence of failures). In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of the following relevant wireless technologies: IEEE 802.11, Bluetooth, IEEE 802.15.4-oriented, and Sub-GHz-based LoRa. Our goal is to highlight how various communication technologies may be suitable for mesh networking, either providing a native support or being adapted subsequently. Hence, we discuss how these wireless technologies, being either standard or proprietary, can adapt to IoT scenarios (e.g., smart cities and smart agriculture) in which the heterogeneity of the involved devices is a key feature. Finally, we provide reference use cases involving all the analyzed mesh-oriented technologies

LoRaFarM: A LoRaWAN-Based Smart Farming Modular IoT Architecture

Presently, the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT)-related technologies in the Smart Farming domain is rapidly emerging. The ultimate goal is to collect, monitor, and effectively employ relevant data for agricultural processes, with the purpose of achieving an optimized and more environmentally sustainable agriculture. In this paper, a low-cost, modular, and Long-Range Wide-Area Network (LoRaWAN)-based IoT platform, denoted as "LoRaWAN-based Smart Farming Modular IoT Architecture" (LoRaFarM), and aimed at improving the management of generic farms in a highly customizable way, is presented. The platform, built around a core middleware, is easily extensible with ad-hoc low-level modules (feeding the middleware with data coming from the sensors deployed in the farm) or high-level modules (providing advanced functionalities to the farmer). The proposed platform has been evaluated in a real farm in Italy, collecting environmental data (air/soil temperature and humidity) related to the growth of farm products (namely grapes and greenhouse vegetables) over a period of three months. A web-based visualization tool for the collected data is also presented, to validate the LoRaFarM architecture

VegIoT Garden: a modular IoT Management Platform for Urban Vegetable Gardens

Nowadays, the agricultural sector is facing challenges especially because of an extensive range of grueling trends. In this context, new highly technological applications—such as Internet of Things (IoT), Precision Agriculture (PA), and blockchain—are enabling Smart Agriculture (SA), which holds the promise to support future needs. In this extended abstract, a low-cost, modular, and energy-efficient IoT platform for SA, denoted as VegIoT Garden, based on Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) devices, adopting short- and long-range communication protocols (IEEE 802.11 and LoRa), and aiming at enhancing the management of vegetable gardens through the collection, monitoring, and analysis of sensor data, related to relevant parameters of growing plants (i.e., air and soil humidity and temperature), is presented. The infrastructure is completed with an Internet-enabled Home Node (HN) and an iOS-based mobile App, developed in order to simplify data visualization and plants’ status monitoring. The proposed IoT system has been validated in a real scenario (a vegetable garden) for more than a week: the collected data highlighted possible causes for a disease contracted by vegetables (namely, tomato’s blossom-end root), thus validating VegIoT Garden