Investigating IoT Middleware Platforms for Smart Application Development

With the growing number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the data generated through these devices is also increasing. By 2030, it is been predicted that the number of IoT devices will exceed the number of human beings on earth. This gives rise to the requirement of middleware platform that can manage IoT devices, intelligently store and process gigantic data generated for building smart applications such as Smart Cities, Smart Healthcare, Smart Industry, and others. At present, market is overwhelming with the number of IoT middleware platforms with specific features. This raises one of the most serious and least discussed challenge for application developer to choose suitable platform for their application development. Across the literature, very little attempt is done in classifying or comparing IoT middleware platforms for the applications. This paper categorizes IoT platforms into four categories namely-publicly traded, open source, developer friendly and end-to-end connectivity. Some of the popular middleware platforms in each category are investigated based on general IoT architecture. Comparison of IoT middleware platforms in each category, based on basic, sensing, communication and application development features is presented. This study can be useful for IoT application developers to select the most appropriate platform according to their application requirement

Enabling IoT ecosystems through platform interoperability

Today, the Internet of Things (IoT) comprises vertically oriented platforms for things. Developers who want to use them need to negotiate access individually and adapt to the platform-specific API and information models. Having to perform these actions for each platform often outweighs the possible gains from adapting applications to multiple platforms. This fragmentation of the IoT and the missing interoperability result in high entry barriers for developers and prevent the emergence of broadly accepted IoT ecosystems. The BIG IoT (Bridging the Interoperability Gap of the IoT) project aims to ignite an IoT ecosystem as part of the European Platforms Initiative. As part of the project, researchers have devised an IoT ecosystem architecture. It employs five interoperability patterns that enable cross-platform interoperability and can help establish successful IoT ecosystems.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Experimental Study on Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) for Mobile Internet of Things

In the past decade, we have witnessed explosive growth in the number of low-power embedded and Internet-connected devices, reinforcing the new paradigm, Internet of Things (IoT). The low power wide area network (LPWAN), due to its long-range, low-power and low-cost communication capability, is actively considered by academia and industry as the future wireless communication standard for IoT. However, despite the increasing popularity of `mobile IoT', little is known about the suitability of LPWAN for those mobile IoT applications in which nodes have varying degrees of mobility. To fill this knowledge gap, in this paper, we conduct an experimental study to evaluate, analyze, and characterize LPWAN in both indoor and outdoor mobile environments. Our experimental results indicate that the performance of LPWAN is surprisingly susceptible to mobility, even to minor human mobility, and the effect of mobility significantly escalates as the distance to the gateway increases. These results call for development of new mobility-aware LPWAN protocols to support mobile IoT.Comment: To appear at 2017 IEEE 85th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC'17 Spring

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 Based Smart Vending Machine using Digital Payment System

The advent of the Internet envisions a cashless society by enabling financial transactions through digital payments. Significantly, the emergence of coronavirus (COVID-19) disrupted our traditional cash handling means and triggered an inflection point for switching towards contactless digital payments from physical cash payments. Furthermore, Internet of Things (IoT) technology escalates digital payments to the next level by enabling devices to render goods and services without requiring any human interaction. This research proposed an IoT-enabled cashless vending machine that incorporates both cloud computing and payment gateway for ordering and purchasing items through digital payment systems by using a mobile application. The system enables a pre-installed mobile application to scan the Quick Response (QR) code attached to the body of a vending machine, opens the portal of a web-based virtual machine through the code, allows user to choose and order items from the virtual vending, initiates and authorizes a digital payment through an IoT gateway installed inside the physical vending machine by establishing a connection between user's and vendor's financial entities, and finally, dispenses the ordered items by unlocking the shelves of the vending machine after the successful payment transaction. It operates in the Arduino platform with an ATmega 2560 Microcontroller and Esp8266 Wi-fi module as hardware components, mobile application software, and payment gateway API. The system performed an average response time of 14500 milliseconds to pick a product after running 150 consecutive API test calls. This result shows a satisfying time for enhancing customers' buying experiences with digital payment systems and a customizable and cost-effective IoT-based intelligent vending machine to introduce for mass production