Low-Power Wireless for the Internet of Things: Standards and Applications

Ali Nikoukar, Saleem Raza, Angelina Poole, Mesut Gunes, Behnam Dezfouli
2018 IEEE Access  
The proliferation of embedded systems, wireless technologies, and Internet protocols have enabled the Internet of Things (IoT) to bridge the gap between the virtual and physical world through enabling the monitoring and actuation of the physical world controlled by data processing systems. Wireless technologies, despite their offered convenience, flexibility, low cost, and mobility pose unique challenges such as fading, interference, energy, and security, which must be carefully addressed when
more » ... sing resourceconstrained IoT devices. To this end, the efforts of the research community have led to the standardization of several wireless technologies for various types of application domains depending on factors such as reliability, latency, scalability, and energy efficiency. In this paper, we first overview these standard wireless technologies, and we specifically study the MAC and physical layer technologies proposed to address the requirements and challenges of wireless communications. Furthermore, we explain the use of these standards in various application domains, such as smart homes, smart healthcare, industrial automation, and smart cities, and discuss their suitability in satisfying the requirements of these applications. In addition to proposing guidelines to weigh the pros and cons of each standard for an application at hand, we also examine what new strategies can be exploited to overcome existing challenges and support emerging IoT applications. by utilizing ubiquitous computing, networking technologies, inter-networking protocols, and applications [21] . Both wired and wireless networks are utilized to support information exchange at the backbone and local access networks. The local access networks, in particular, are wireless, support multi-hop communication, and enable mobility [22] . As these networks are usually low-power and unreliable, they are referred to as Low-Power and Lossy Networks (LLNs) [23] . These networks lay the necessary foundation of IoT and contribute to making it highly accessible. The aspect of ubiquitous accessibility of services and objects to mobile users is imperative because most of the IoT services are targeted to mobile users. Another strong aspect is the autonomous operation, where IoT helps to decentralize the decision-making process to accomplish autonomous operations with minimal human intervention. This autonomous feature is of paramount importance for a multitude of industrial applications that enable smart processes and systems. This has amplified the vision of the fourth Industrial revolution, also known as the Industry-4.0 or smart factory [24] . Although IoT promises to revolutionize several application domains and enormously transform the way we live and communicate, it imposes challenging requirements from the networking point of view. The first essential requirement is reliable wireless network connectivity, which is particularly important for applications such as industrial process automation and control, healthcare, emergency situations, disaster recovery, home safety [25] . Second, timeliness or low latency are requirements that guarantee the bounded and deterministic delay of data transfer between different objects so that actions are performed on time. For example, industrial process control systems require real-time communication between machines and controllers. Third, the low-power operation requirement helps the nodes save power and avoid unnecessary communication attempts, thereby preventing early death and extending network lifetime. All of these requirements led to the development of several standards and technologies. These standards propose different features and protocols to satisfy the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of different IoT applications. However, the practical use of these standards in different IoT applications has resulted in several limitations. These limitations accelerated the need for further analysis in order to seek viable solutions to meet existing and future demands of IoT applications. In this paper, we review the existing low-power wireless standards and technologies. We primarily focus on the Physical (PHY) and Medium Access Control (MAC) layers because they directly impact several performance metrics, such as reliability, latency, scalability, and energy consumption. In this paper: -We present an overview of some of the active standardization bodies that are working on the development of sophisticated standards and protocols for IoT.
doi:10.1109/access.2018.2879189 fatcat:okr3pjazo5gu7i5fdh5eo4jzdy