Enhanced / Interoperable Internet of Things (IoT)

Description

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a continuously and rapidly growing technological innovation, aimed at making our daily activities more digitally connected. Through greater interconnected and better data analysis, IoT allows for more efficient, as well as more well-informed, decision-making capacity.  

This is done by making everyday physical objects internet-enabled, through their combination with sensors, processing capabilities and other software which allows for the sharing and interexchange of data. This process promises ‘to transform the way we work, live and play’ (Singhania, 2015). This merging of the physical and the virtual allows for the delivery of more innovative smart city solutions to real-world urban problems. At the forefront of the digital transformation, IoT can help in all sorts of scenarios, from traffic congestion to smart home monitoring, energy efficiency, and a wide range of security matters.   

Currently, however, although there are a whole variety of IoT-enabled devices on the market, many of which have been implemented to help improve municipal infrastructure, the potential of the technology is often not reached. This results from there being various network and device standards, which limit the capacity of devices not sharing these standards to interconnect, speak to each other, and thus share data for optimal network capacity. The answer to this is Enhanced or Interoperable IoT, allowing for seamless integration and interconnectivity of IoT-enabled devices, vastly expanding the potential for this technology usage in smart city problem-solving. 

Many urban technology solutions can work better and more effectively when they are working together within a connected system. For instance, commuters would benefit from knowing the best route to take with up-to-date traffic information, whilst also knowing the current parking spaces status. Without data feedback from all the involved devices, such information cannot be provided reliably. However, there is no universal standard for IoT-enabled devices due to the relative newness of the technology. This reduces the ability of devices to connect together and share data, essentially limiting the capacity of IoT solutions. This problem must be resolved to harness the true potential of internet-enabled technologies. 

One of the benefits of IoT is to track the use of devices through data analysis. This can help to limit the energy inefficiency of devices used across a wide variety of activities. IoT also allows for devices to be controlled, or limited in their usage, remotely.  Without internet-connected devices, or without those which can communicate with each other, the sharing of important data for the analysis of city infrastructure is severely limited. Without such analysis, it will remain unclear how well urban infrastructure and smart city solutions are operating.  

Source: Vasilov, L. (2021) Knowledge byte: Building blocks of IOT architecture, Cloud Credential Council. Available at: https://www.cloudcredential.org/blog/knowledge-byte-building-blocks-of-iot-architecture/ (Accessed: November 1, 2022).

Value Model

Source: Bhayani, Malay & Patel, Mehul & Bhatt, Chintan. (2016). Internet of Things (IoT): In a Way of Smart World. 10.1007/978-981-10-0767-5_37.

Source: Rosil, M. and Muts, I. (2022) The Cost of IoT: Ready-to-use vs. Custom IoT Solutions, Euristiq. Available at: https://euristiq.com/cost-of-iot/. (Accessed: November 8, 2022).

City Context

Smart cities make use information technology to beneficially transform operations, work, and the life of citizens (Harmon et al., 2015). The integration of smart systems with IoT-based smart products and services in a framework of smart cities requires the fulfilment of the following conditions:

• Sensors: For IoT-based smart products, sensors are necessary components. These sensors will generate a tremendous amount of data.
• Security: A smart city network is subject to cyber-attack. By authenticating users, authorized users can access securely.
• Fault tolerance/fail safe: In the case of a power outage or disaster, critical infrastructure of IoT components need to be fault tolerant and fail-safe.
• Energy harvesting: Smart sensors of IoT must be integrated with energy-harvesting processes for the devices to function for 10, 15, or 20 years without human intervention.
• Connectivity: Both slow and fast sensors are supported by the IoT network. Therefore, connectivity of data can be achieved through network viewing and real-time streaming.
• Manageability: The IoT network must include tools to enable remote management of these devices because a significant number of smart devices and sensors can be spread geographically across long distances.
• Mesh-networked devices: IoT devices should be able to connect with one another without using a backend, distribute data across end nodes, and talk to other nearby devices for group processing.
• Open APIs for citizens to enable service creation: The network for smart cities should make it possible to access shared data that is widely used and serve as a platform for the implementation of innovative applications.
• Backend or cloud storage: Data and statistics are saved, analysed, and post-processed in storage, can be used to make large-scale choices over time.
• Sensor network communication: IoT devices must communicate through using a variety of channels.

The successful implementation of IoT can lead to several clear benefits for cities, amongst them the enhancement of the infrastructure and services they provide to citizens and visitors on a daily basis, as well as their own internal operations. Due to the wide and diverse variety, and then application of IoT technology, the context of this on the city level is often just as broad.

Source: Harmon, Robert & Castro-Leon, Enrique & Bhide, Sandhiprakash. (2015). Smart cities and the Internet of Things. 485-494. 10.1109/PICMET.2015.7273174.

Supporting Factors

The successful implementation of IoT can lead to several clear benefits for cities, amongst them the enhancement of the infrastructure and services they provide to citizens and visitors on a daily basis, as well as their own internal operations. Due to the wide and diverse variety, and the application of IoT technology, the context of this on the city level is often just as broad.

However, there are a number of limiting factors towards this process. This includes the already highlighted issue of multiple standards of IoT-enabled devices. It is then partially dependent on the cities to make sure that they demand standards uniformity from their technology suppliers, on ensure that they use platforms which allow for cross-standard operability. This proactiveness of cities is important to ensure that all innovative, smart city technology can communicate with each other.

Supporting factors for IoT include:

• Allaying the publics concerns about futuristic technology usage such as security issues like hacking personal data and privacy concerns
• Ensuring all such devices ‘speak the same language’ so that IoT can function as it should and allow true interconnection
• Avoiding the issue of disconnected islands of IoT networks

Government Initiatives

Government initiatives and EU level actions that support the deployment of IoT technologies include:

• Digital strategy plans in EU scale are in place, which actively look to promote and develop cooperation with key stakeholders in the industry. This includes digital enterprises, relevant non-governmental organisations and academia (European Commission, Digital Strategy 2020). As well as this, the EU has a strategy for data, ensuring that policy proposals and legal solutions for the streamlining of data concerns can be carried out across national borders, within the single market area.
• Another key initiative is the Digitising European Industry (DEI) focus area, wherein the EU places a high priority on platform interoperability, shared standardisation and innovation ecosystem building for technological innovation. To coincide with this, as a clear sign of support and recognition of the importance of the growth of IoT and related technologies, €400 million was made available by the Commission through the Horizon 2020 project to promote platform building and large-scale piloting efforts.

Stakeholder Mapping

Market Potential

The demand for Internet of Things (IoT) products is growing across the world. The rollout of over 41 billion IoT devices is expected by 2025, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).

Growth in the IoT market has been particularly notable in the European market, with a growth forecast of up to 2023 of nearly 10% annually. Furthermore, it is expected that by 2030 approximately 23% of all IoT devices will be located in Europe. European IoT adoption is being now led by Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, while Eastern European nations and the Nordics are closely approaching (CBI, 2022). The global IoT market is expected to grow by roughly 60 billion euros in 2022, to an overall market size of c. 400 billion euros. The market has seen continued steady growth in the last few years, despite turbulence from the coronavirus pandemic and the Russian conflict in Ukraine.

Operating Models

Source: Burkhalter, M. (2019) Smart city innovation: 3 models for IoT network ownership, Perle. Available at: https://www.perle.com/articles/smart-city-innovation-3-models-for-iot-network-ownership-40186046.shtml (Accessed: November 4, 2022).

Legal Requirements

• The European Union’s data and digital strategies help to promote and monitor legal regulation of IoT. This is especially important when considering the general public's and media's concerns for, amongst other things, data privacy and security protection. This enhanced legal certainty around IoT-enabled products and services will allow for greater ease of technology growth and widespread implementation. 
• Additionally, the European Commission published a staff working document on liability for emerging digital technologies, helping to clarify instances of liability challenges for such digital technologies.
• In terms of GDPR, in situations where IoT involves the sharing of personal data, the 2018 European General Data Protection Regulation is enforceable. This is often the case with IoT devices, which depend on the collection and analysis of user data to function effectively. Providers of IoT services, under EU law, must take extensive measures to ensure the protection and security of such data.
• In addition to the 2018 law, there is ongoing discussion around the implementation of an ePrivacy Regulation. This specific law would concern all electronic communications, including machine-to-machine dialogue. IoT technology providers and users should be aware of the likelihood of this law coming into practice, to future-proof their products and networks.

Data and Standards

A wide range of innovative technologies are available to assist the IoT:

• Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE): The Bluetooth protocol is secure, affordable, limited in range, and power-efficient when compared to other wireless protocols.  It boosts the connectivity of IoT devices and aids in lowering energy consumption.
• ZigBee: The ZigBee protocol allows smart objects to talk to one another. A set of ZigBee protocol requirements for remote control, low-power radios are defined under the IEEE 802.15.4-2003 standard.
• ZigBee IP: The first open standard is an IPv6-based full-mesh wireless network based on ZigBee IP.  Without compromising on power or cost, the technology enables simple control of thousands of devices to offer seamless Internet connectivity.
• Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN): It is a protocol designed to operate with Media Access Control (MAC) to handle massive public networks with a single operator. It redistributes data over a range of radio channels and transmission rates using coded messages as opposed to narrowband transmission.
• 6LoWPAN: Among the most important IoT protocols are 6LoWPAN protocols. Sensors and small IoT devices may safely and securely connect with one another with wireless 6LoWPAN modules. IEEE 802.15.4 was initially intended to serve as the foundation for 6LoWPAN, which specifies how low power wireless networks should operate at 2.4 GHz.
• LTE Advanced (LTE-A): The Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network standard, which represents the newest 4G network technology, was developed in 2008. LTE-A (advanced) enhances the architecture of LTE. This entails raising network capacity, spectrum efficiency, power efficiency, and operator cost reduction.
• Z-Wave: In the wireless Z-Wave technology, low energy radio waves are used. The system is largely used to operate wirelessly connected household equipment including lighting, security, thermostats, garage door openers, etc.
• RPL, RPL Enhancements and CORPL: The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) released a brand-new protocol in 2012 called Distance Vector Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL). When using RPL, a Destination Oriented Directed Acyclic Graph (DODAG), there is only one way to get from any leaf node to any root node. To enhance the functionality of the fundamental RPL protocol, numerous improvements have been proposed. The CORPL protocol relies on DODAG. By selecting multiple forwarders opportunistically, nodes will update each other according to the updated information.
• CARP and E-CARP: Channel Aware Routing System (CARP) is a non-standard distributed routing protocol utilized in Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs). This method uses less energy and delivers packets in a fair amount of time.
• Message Queue Telemetry Transport: The messaging protocol known as Messaging Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT), which first appeared in 2003, links embedded devices with middleware and applications. 
• Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP): The CoRE (Constrained Resource Environments) group created the IETF standard known as Constrained Application Protocol. Similar to HTTP, CoAP has a client-server interaction architecture. CoAP solutions that can serve as both clients and servers are typically used in machine-to-machine communication.

Source: Vaigandla, Karthik & Radha, Krishna & Allanki, Sanyasi Rao. (2021). A Study on IoT Technologies, Standards and Protocols. 10.17697/ibmrd/2021/v10i2/166798.