International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD)
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@ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD30286 | Volume – 4 | Issue – 3 | March-April 2020 Page 42
Insight into IoT Applications and Common Practice Challenges
Lubna Alazzawi, Jamal Alotaibi
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA
ABSTRACT
IoT caused a revolution in the technological world. Not only is the IoT related
to computers, people or cell phones but also to various sensors, actuators,
vehicles, and other modern appliances. There are around 14 billion
interconnected digital devices acrosstheglobei.e.almost2devicesperhuman
being on earth. The IoT serves as a medium to connect non-livingthingstothe
internet to transfer information from one point to another intheircommunity
network which automates processes and ultimately makes the life of human
beings convenient. The subsequent result of amalgamating internet
connectivity with powerful data analysis is a complete change in the way we
humans work and live. The most vital characteristics of IoT include
connectivity, active engagement, sensors, artificial intelligence, and small
device use. All of this creates many challenges that need to be solved to keep
this technology to continue expanding. In this paper, we have identified
various applications of IoT based on recent technological and businesstrends
and highlighted the existing challenges faced by IoT which need to be
addressed considering the exponential acceptance of theconceptgloballyand
the way those challenges had been addressed in the past.Wehavealsomadea
few comments on the way such challenges are being attempted to beresolved
now. This paper presents the current status Internet of Things (IoT) in terms
of technical details, and applications. Also, this paper opens a window for
future work on the historical approach to study and address IoT challenges.
KEYWORDS: IoT, challenges, applications, IoT architecture, computing devices,
connectivity, security, smart city
How to cite this paper: Lubna Alazzawi |
Jamal Alotaibi "Insight into IoT
Applications and Common Practice
Challenges"
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1. INTRODUCTION
The industrial revolution fortified the idea of a globally
connected world paving the way for the internet. Although
there was a considerable rate at which computers and
related accessories were connected to the internet, there
was still a lack of sufficient information which could drive
the world towards a much safer, efficient global machine. It
was the time when very simple objects which generated
information could be used to monitor and control things
remotely is now known as the Internet of Things (IoT)[1]-
[4]. The term IoT was given by Kevin Ashton in1999[5].The
idea has been straightforward yet immensely powerful. It
focused on connecting things that were not connected
before, such as engines, sensors, personal machines,
industries, etc.
In general, the entire world became connected via the
Internet platform. This idea was also presented in a refined
way by Cisco which projects there would be around 500
billion devices connected to the Internet by the year 2030.
Cisco predicts this will lead to the rise of smart networks,
interconnected devices generating bulk of data that IoT
applications use to bundle, analyze, and deliver insight,
which can help drive well-informed decisions and
actions[6][7].
Fig. 1 illustrates the interconnection between different
technologies that together make up the concept of IoT [8].
In this paper, the topmost prominent and fast-growing IoT
applications are mentioned, including Smart Spaces,
Transport, Industrial IoT (IIoT), Machine to Machine and
Artificial Intelligence (M2M & AI), Healthcare, Consumer
Electronics, Retail, and Agriculture.
With a bigger network of devices come bigger opportunities
and challenges. Also, in this paper, many of these challenges,
which are still relevant today but not commonly mentioned
in many publications, are addressed. Some of these
challenges include connectivity, Centralization, Availability
and Reliability, Scalability and Interoperability, Longevity
and Upgrades, Network Latency, Energy Consumption,
Regulations and Standardizations, Privacy, and Security.
Fig. 1 Illustration of the concept of IoT
IJTSRD30286
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Following the introduction, the paper consists of the
following sections: Section 2 discusses the related work.
Section 3 describes the need for IoT. Section 4 describes the
IoT layers. Section 5 presents the challenges facing IoT.
Finally, the paper is concluded and ground for future works
is laid in section 6.
2. Related Works
In this section, we present an insight into a multitude of
research efforts that attempted to classify IoT applications
and the challenges they face fromdifferentperspectives.The
collated background could be envisioned as the basis for
future research in IoT arena.
Mohammed et al. [9] proposed the classification of IoT
services along two dimensions: relationship with the entity
and based on the life cycle. The first dimension consists of:
low level; resource; entity; and integrated services. Service
life cycle dimension includes deployable; and operational
services.
Mandal et al.[10] proposed IoT application (alternatively a
scenario) classificationframework basedonthecomponents
participating in the scenario. Components included any
combination of sensors, actuators, display, controller,
complex device, web service, and/or human being. An
application represents the dynamics of executing
interactions among its participating components. The
research specifiedlevelsofinteraction betweencomponents,
levels of data processing, and levels of automation.
Fuqaha et al. [11] classified IoT applications based on their
market direction: horizontal or vertical. The research
perceives smart objects along with their supposed tasks to
constitute domain specific applications (vertical markets)
while ubiquitous computing and analytical services form
application domain independent services (horizontal
markets). So, every domainspecificapplicationisconsidered
interacting with domain independent services, whereas in
each domain sensors and actuators communicate directly
with each other. Senet et al. [12] identified prominent IoT
application areas almost a decade ago. Sen conceives
aerospace and aviation industry to resolve the problem of
suspected unapprovedparts (SUP)byusingRFIDtechnology
for tagging aircraft parts. Sen also identified a potential of
IoT to create new services for telecommunications industry
by merging of diverse telecommunication technologies.
Insurance industry can benefit vehicle owners by providing
technology able to record acceleration, speed, and other
parameters, and communicate this information to their
insurer to get a cheaper rate or premium. In the following
sections, we focus on various IoT applications and their
importance.
3. Need for IoT
IoT with its recent boom has seen a multitude of devices
being connected for different categories of applications and
will continue to see a rise in its focus on these areas.
According to IoT analytics1, most of the IoT projects were
identified in smart city (367 projects),followedbyindustrial
1IOT ANALYTICS is a leading provider of market insights
and strategic business intelligence for the Internet of
Things (IoT), M2M, and Industry 4.0.
settings (265) and connected building IoT projects (193).
Details of the above statistical information can be found in
Fig. 2.
Fig.2 IoT ANALYTICS reported top 10 IoT segments in
2018
In their comparison to 2016 ranking, smart city (driven by
government and municipality-led initiatives) has surpassed
Connected Industry as the number one IoT segment of
identified projects while Connected Building (driven by
widespread uptake of building automation solutions that
increase operational efficiency and reduce costs) has
climbed four places to become thethirdbiggestIoTsegment.
Based on current research and market analysis valuation of
IoT application domains, we dedicate this section to better
understand some prominent domains of IoT, as depicted in
Fig. 3, and to emphasize the importance of IoT in today’s
world.
Fig. 3 Applications of IoT
3.1. Smart Spaces
Smart spaces projects mainly deal with the improvement
and ease of human lifestyle by introducing automated and
intelligent decision-making capabilitiesinprivateandpublic
spaces. This can be further classified into smart homes,
smart public spaces, and smart cities as shown in 0. A smart
home is an application that has seen a good level of
acceptance and success. It is a home which is equipped with
sensors and actuators which are connected to the internet
and controlled by a remote IoT application for monitoring
and control of the house environment. Intelligent lighting,
voice-based AI, security, entertainment, and energy
management are some of the potential needs of IoT in smart
homes.
Similar to smart homes is the smart public spaces
application with the main difference being the setting of the
application. Smart public spaces could be buildings, public-
transport stations, walkways, roadways, traffic signals and
networks, CCTV monitoring, smart publiclightingcontrol,or
energy management. The smart city application is based on
an integration of IoT in all public spaces in symbiosis to
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monitor and control the city as a single organism. Many
countries are waking up to this idea of smart cities [13][14].
Fig. 4 IoT for smart spaces illustration
3.2. Transport
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) is the application of
computer technology to the transport sector. ITS systems
gather data about the transport system, process it, and then
use the processed data to improve the management of the
transport system, and/or to provide the transport user with
more and better information on which to base their
transport decisions [15]. It can help to tackle congestion,
pollution, poor accessibility and even social exclusion. It can
also help to reduce journey times and improve reliability –
either in actuality, or simply by changing people’s
perceptions. And it can improve the efficiency with which
transport systems function. Many applications of ITS are
already in place for speed and incident detection, parking
management, fleet and freight management, traffic signal
control, tolling and access control, trip planning.0 illustrates
the potential areas of implementation for ITS applications.
Fig.5 ITS Application Roundup2
Vehicular ad-hoc network (VANET) is a type of network that
is created from the concept of establishing a network of cars
for a specific need or situation, and providing Vehicle-to-
Vehicle (V2V), Vehicle-to-Roadside, (V2R) and Roadside-to-
Vehicle (V2R) Communications (See Fig. 6).
VANETs play a significant role in the establishment of ITSs.
VANETs have now been establishedasreliablenetworksthat
vehicles use for communication purposes on highways or
2 The European Telecommunications Standards Institute
(ETSI), 2008
urban environments. Along with the benefits, there arise a
large number of challenges in VANETsuchasprovisioningof
QoS, high connectivity and bandwidthandsecuritytovehicle
and individual privacy [16].
Fig. 6 VANET Main Components3
3.3. 2020Industrial IoT (IIoT)
IIoT is one of the fastest growing applications of IoT. It is
considered as the inception of 4th Industrial Revolution. The
Industrial IoT plans to take industrial or factory automation
from an isolated factory to globalization of enterprises with
remote control and monitoring made availablewiththehelp
of the internet replacing legacy technologies. This
development was focused to increase the speed of data
transmission, centralize operations and control, make data
analysis easier, support preemptive maintenance, uniform
communication protocols and increase the efficiency of the
overall manufacturing unit [17]. The industrial internet is a
topic of concern for many industries and is often referred to
as Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).Itisentitledindustrial
engineering with sensor technology includingmanytypes of
sensors, software and big data analytics to create smart and
brilliant machines [19]. The research leaders in the domain
of IoT, like Cisco or Gartner, see the IIoT as the highest
potential concept, and it has not reached all the industries as
smart homes and wearable devices. IIoT holds immense
capacity for fulfilling quality control and sustainable
development. Applications like tracking thegoods,real-time
information exchange about the inventory levels among
various suppliers and retailers will very well improve the
efficiency of supply chains.
3.4. M2M & AI
Machine to Machine (M2M) learning and Artificial
intelligence (AI) have become so intelligent that they are
capable of making root level, small decisions so intelligently
and that too without human involvement. The riseofIoThas
opened many channels for AI and M2M applications and
inversely they have found IoT applications for their support
and development. This mutual relationship of the two
technology segments creates an array of possibilities in
smart cars, robotics, talking machines, etc. which would be
capable of independentlytakingdecisions[20].Google’sself-
driving car is a good example of IoT with M2M & AI. In a
comprehensive, intelligence worldliketoday’s,deviceswork
in order to aid people in executing their day-to-dayactivities
3https://www.egypt-business.com/ticker/details/1631-
analysis-on-intelligent-transportation-system-market-
research-report/50750
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conveniently [21] and in a natural wayusingtheinformation
and intelligence that is concealed in the network connected
devices [22]. It is distinguished by the following systems of
characteristics –first, numerous devices connected through
network are integratedinto anenvironment;second,devices
can be aware of an individual and their situational context;
third, they can be altered as per an individual’s necessity;
fourth, they can transform if requested by the user; fifth,
they can be prepared for an individual’s desires effortlessly.
3.5. Healthcare
A very important and slowly developing applicationofIoTis
in the healthcare and fitness sector. The concept of
telemedicine has been crudely tested by doctors around the
world by remotely controlling medicinal devicesformedical
monitoring and operations. But IoT has leveled up the
situation. The connection between the health care system
and smart medical devices canproveto bea greatadvantage,
not only for the companies but also for the well-being of
general public (see 0).
IoT in healthcare has an intention to empower people to live
a safe and healthy life by wearing devices which are
connected through the internet. The data collected will help
with personalized analysis and a solution to an individual’s
health plan to combat a disease. A lot of research and pilot
applications are being tested in this sector which will enable
doctors to make better diagnosis and treatment to patients.
Some of the prominent applications include monitoring of
patient’s health and using the collected data to analyze and
generate models for better diagnosis and treatment.
Intelligent medicinal systems collect patient data, processit,
and administer medicines according to AI decisions [18].
Fig. 7 Smart healthcare concept
3.6. Consumer electronics
Electronic wearables have become a popular trend in the
fashion and fitness industries. Their integration with the
internet opened up a whole new world of children tracking
and safety devices, entertainment and fitness applications,
professional development,etc.Abiggerpictureofthisisseen
in terms of wearable electronic wallets and personal IDs
[23].
The wearable continue to exist as a hot topic too among
potential IoT applications and there are devices with the
capability to collect particular data and information about
the users and are formed of sensors and required software.
This collected data is later pre-processed to get the
necessary information about the user. The requirement for
the IoT technology enabled wearable applications is they
should be highly energy efficient or consume ultra-low
power and should be small sized.
3.7. Retail
The IoT has got immense opportunityintheretail sector.IoT
endows an eventuality to retailers to get in touch with the
customers to enhance the in-store experience. Smartphones
will be used as a medium by retailers to stay connected with
their customers even when not present in the store. Using
the Beacon technology and the smartphones, the retailers
can interact with and serve the consumers preferably. They
can also track the consumer’s path via a store and
improvised store layout and position the premium products
in dense traffic areas.
3.8. Agriculture
The smart farming is an often ignored over undermined
business opportunity considering IoT as it does not exactly
fit in the well-known categories like industrial, health, or
mobility. However, asthefarmingoperationsareremote and
requires monitoring huge quantityoflivestock,theIoTcould
metamorphose the way farming is done.Butthisopinion has
not yet been considered at a large scale. Farmers use
meaningful intuition from the data collected to gain a
meaningful return on the investment.
The sensing for soil nutrients and moisture, water usage
control for the growth of plant and identifying custom
fertilizer are some easy and basic uses of IoT. It can be
realized that how IoT can influence all these powerful and
potential applications.
4. Internet of Things Layers
As the IoT is handling millions of connected devices through
the Internet, it requires a flexible layered structure or
architecture [24]. The IoT’s five-layeredmodel indepicted in
0 which is most common, simple and extensively used.
Fig. 8 The Internet of Things (IoT) Layers
4.1. Perception Layer
In the IoT architecture, the perception layer, often called the
objects layer, is the first layer from the bottom, as shown in
0. It consists of various types of tangible devices that are
responsible for data collection and acting in that manner,
like temperatures, locations, object identifiersand,humidity
measurements. The significant aspects of this layer include
managing power consumption and unidirectional or
bidirectional communication.
4.2. Network Layer
The second layer in IoT architecture is the network layer. As
the technologies in this layer are used to transform the
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traditional sensors present in the perception layer into
smart and connected nodes, this layer is often referred to as
infrastructure layer. The network layer technologies add
recognition over the network connection (either internet or
LAN) to the nodes which allows them to securely
communicate with each other.
The various technologies in this layer can also be found in
the first three layers of the IP suite (TCP/IP). Due to the
conditioned capabilities of most IoT nodes, in order to
ensure interoperability among the IoT devices, there is a
need for scalable and efficient routing techniques. Pay
attention that many of IoT technologies have applications in
WSNs or machine to machine (M2M) communications but
were certainly improvised to meet IoT requirements. Many
modern devices use multiple technologies as in smart
watches, which often have NFC, Wi-Fi,Li-Fi,Bluetooth,etc.in
a single device [17][27]. On the basis of functionality of
various technologies in the network layer,theyareclassified
into various enabling technologies.
I. Identification
In order to enable intercommunication between nodes, a
node is assigned a recognizer as soon as it connects to the
network. This process of identification is important as it will
limit the excessive usage of bandwidth by ensuring only the
identified nodes communicate. Names and addresses are
assigned to devices which makes it easier to locate them in
the dense network. To identify a node easily and its
functions, the nodes are named ina structuredmannerusing
specific naming conventions.
II. Communication
An identified node can communicate with other connected
nodes or with the backend servers. In spite of that,
depending on the capabilities of node, an appropriate
communication medium isselected.Payattentionthatnodes
can communicate horizontally or vertically.
III. Security
The nodes in a network have limited capabilities and there
are numerous nodes like these, security is an important and
challenging task as a successful attack can cause severe
damage to the system (for example DDoS attacks) [33]. The
security may not be built into different communication
technologies. Hence,various layersshouldprovideimproved
security mechanisms in order to minimize the probability of
attacks. Due to unsafe communication between the layers,
lightweight security mechanisms are required for safe and
secure communication as the attacks can occur in this layer.
IV. Routing
Knowing the destination address is not sufficient for a node
to transfer the data, there is need to know the route as well.
As many nodes could be connected in an ad-hoc manner,
adept routing is critical in most of the IoT environments. As
the capabilities of the nodes are limited, they should know
the best route to be taken and to answer this problem, a
special routing protocol was introduced for these
environments. IPv6 is a standard routing protocol for
inferior power [27]. This protocol was proposed to support
dissimilar types of links, such as IEEE802.15.4,andcommon
traffic types, including one-to-one, many-to-one,andone-to-
many. The protocol is a set of Destination-Oriented Directed
Acyclic Graph (DODAG). In this type of graph, a node knows
its parent and at least one path to its root node. The nodes
exchange RPL messages to maintain the route to the root
which is always available.
4.3. Middleware Layer
The middleware layer receives data from the network layer.
It is present to manage services and data storage
functionality of an IoT system. It also performs information
processing and based on the results ofthesecomputations;a
decision is automatically taken. The output is then
transferred to the application layer.
The middleware layer is the core of (IoT) environment and
can be compared to the application layer in the TCP/IP
protocol. The technologies belonging to this layer are often
supported by IoT platforms. This layer plays a role of
decoder sort of thing. Based on the name and address, the
layer enables services and programmers to communicate
with miscellaneous objects, immaterial to their specific
hardware setup. Depending on the received data, this layer
makes judgments, and delivers demanded services.
4.4. Application Layer
The final presentation of the data is performed by this
application layer which is accountable for providing
demanded services to IoT users via simple interfacewithout
bothering how service requests are processed in the
underlying layers.
The IoT users can request and access service (for example,
tracking and managing vehicles or reading or setting
temperature conditionsremotely)usingmanyplatforms (for
example smartwatches, laptops, and smartphones) through
applications or web portals. On the basis of the IoT scenario,
this layer can be categorized into four main classes as
described below.
I. Identity Concerned Services
The identity concerned services areembeddedtoa nodeand
a reader device called Radiofrequency Identification RFID
device. These services can be either active or passive. As
these services keep track of the numerous devices in large
deployments in IoT applications, they are extremely
important. Example of such a service is a package-tracking
application[26].
II. Information Concentricity Services
The sensory measurement data collected from various
sensors and networks which is to be processed and
summarized to the IoT application is performed by
concentricity services. An example for such a type of service
is load distribution among smart grids.
III. Collaborative Cognizant Services
The layer above information concentricity services which is
used to take decisions about the received data is the
collaborative cognizant services. This type of service can be
found in smart manufacturing, smart homes, smart
agriculture, and among other applications. For instance, in a
smart home, there is a security system containing
thermostats to enhance the safety and security of the home.
IV. Universal Services
These services advance the collaborative services a level up
by offering ubiquitous access to information anytime. And
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because of such service type, this service is most profitable
in IoT environment. The access and control can be set up
using a smart device like a smartphone, or a computer.
Example for such services is smart cities.
4.5. Business Layer
The business layer, as the name implies, is a service offered
to make money out of the services provided. In this layer,
service data and IoT environmental data, i.e. the business
models, graphs, and flowcharts, can be accessed.Thistypeof
services is more equipped with business related tools. The
output of layers so far is analyzed by this layer to improvise
the services and enhance user privacy by providing users
with power to design, monitor,analyze,implement, evaluate,
and develop new IoT systems.
5. Challenges Facing IoT
Every new philosophy or new technology faces lots of
challenges upfront, and IoT was also not exempt from them.
Some of these challenges are still pertinent while others
have been addressed to a great extent. On a broader level,
the issues are related to security, privacy and infrastructure
related challenges. However, this paper attemptstomention
the most important uncategorized challenges to take the
reader’s attention to the roots of the problem listed.
Fig. 9 Challenges Facing IoT
5.1. Connectivity
This challenge refers to the connectivity of network-
dependent remote-location solutions that deploy sensors
and control devices that require connectivity to theinternet.
The biggest hurdle in this aspect is the dependency on
mobile networks for internet connection.
It is a known fact that there isn’t well-established universal
connectivity of mobile networks’ coverage and even lesser
for internet-based bands like 2G, 3G, 4G/LTE or higher
bands. Connectivity can be evaluated at various levels like
Frequency allocations, MAC Protocols, Network Protocols,
Transport Protocols, and Mobility Protocols. This challenge
has been resolved to some extent by utilizing the lower
bands of cellular networks that have larger coverage areas
but limit the scale and speed of data that can be transmitted
over the network [32].
5.2. Centralization
In the wake of the development of centralized computing
and storage systems into cloud computing, a lot of IoT
solutions and service providers tend to subscribe to these
systems with or without the consent of their customers.
The cyber-attacks that have been witnessed in recent years
have shown the vulnerability of centralized systems which
could jeopardize the information sitting on these systems
and bring forth issues of data privacy and security. A lot of
efforts are being made to resolve this challenge as it is not
unique to IoT but to many other services that depend on
these systems like banking,hospitality,logistics,defense, etc.
[28].
5.3. Availability and Reliability
The availability of the IoT must be realized in the hardware
and software levels to provide sustained services for
customers. The availability of softwarereferstotheabilityof
the IoT applications to provide services for everyone at
different places simultaneously.Hardwareavailabilityrefers
to the existence of devices all the time that are compatible
with the IoT functionalities and protocols [30]. Redundancy
for critical devices and services is one solution to achieve
high availability of IoT services.
The reliability refers to the proper working of the system
based on its specification [31]. Reliability aims to increase
the success rate of IoT service delivery, and it has a close
relationship with availability as by reliability,accessibility to
information and services can be assured.
5.4. Scalability and Interoperability
The scalability of the IoT refers to the ability to add new
devices, services and functions for customers without
negatively affecting the quality of existing services [30].
End-to-end interoperability is yet another challenge for the
IoT due to its inherent nature of embedding heterogeneous
components that belong to different platforms and layers.
Interoperability should be considered by both application
developers and IoT device manufactures to ensure the
delivery of services for all customers regardless of the
specifications of the hardware platform that they use.
5.5. Longevity and Upgrading
Since the advent of connected devicesoverprivatenetworks
and eventually the internet,thousandsofdevicesandobjects
remain hooked up to the present IoT services and solutions
sector. These legacy devices which are still functional pose
challenges in data interpretation due to their outdated
protocols. Some of these devices consume a lot more energy
compared to their modern competitors, risking unexecuted
failures which could prove disastrous if they are a critical
part of a safety system. Another aspect of the sensors and
objects connected on the IoT is their longevity in terms of
product life-cycle and energy sustainability. A lot of these
devices are battery powered and give rise to challenges of
device blackouts. These challenges can be resolved with
properly planned replacement of legacy devices with
modern ones, via technologies such as development of ‘over
the air’ or ‘over the internet’ updateable devices, better
product design with longer life spans, and wireless over the
air electricity.
5.6. Network Latency
This challenge normally arises with the difference in speeds
of data transmission, network handshakes, and cloud
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computing systems that create programmed delays in data
flow due to heavy traffic and network issues.
A seamless and quick flow of data would require higher
speeds of operation of cloud computing systems,
predetermined resolution of network issues,anddata traffic
hurdles which involve a lot of cost and energy investment.
Some solutions havebeenproposedtoresolvethischallenge.
The most feasible ones involve private network level AI
algorithms that filter and prioritize data and take decisions
locally with efficient utilization of the local computing
resources while only data with higher priority that needs to
be processed on the cloud will be selectively transmitted
outside the local network [28].
5.7. Regulations and Standardization
There lies a great deal of confusion among the consumers of
IoT products and services due to the diverse range of
products, formats of data, data protocols, security protocols,
network protocols and integration. The lack of a
governmental or non-governmental body to regulate and
standardize IoT products and services is the main reason
behind this challenge. The world is slowly waking to the call
of the future to embrace IoT and the governments of a lot of
countries are slowly making attemptstosolvethis challenge.
This challenge can’t be completely resolved unless all
stakeholders contribute a part to these discussions on
regulations and standardizations [28].
5.8. Privacy
This challenge is tied with the data and network security
challenges which is mainly concerned about the privacy of
the information flowing over public networks. A lot of
private information about a person or businessentitycanbe
collected without the entity’s awareness.
A few of the solutions solve both privacy issues and these
challenges. There are solutions that are tryingtoprovidethe
owner of the data or the end client the control of their data
and to selectively choose which data theywouldliketoallow
over the internet [29].
5.9. Security
According to IoT analytics, this challenge can be broadly
broken down into 4 layers (device, communication, cloud,
and application) as depicted in (Fig. 10).
Fig. 10 IoT Security Levels
IoT security spending is on the rise. IoTANALYTICSreleased
market research depicting IoT security spending to be
currently estimated at $703M for 2017 and the fastgrowing
market (Compound Annual Growth Rate-CAGR of 44%) is
forecast to become almost a $4.4B opportunity by 2022(see
0).
Fig. 11 IoT Security Market Expected Growth
The analysis also shows the most common IoT breachesthat
happened in the last years. Between 2015-2017 most of the
breaches were caused by malware (24%), followed by
human’s factor “man in the middle” (22%), brute force
(18%) and denial of service (15%). Physical tempering with
devices and hacking encryption has smaller footprint in
reported security breaches.
6. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
The objectives of this paper were to highlight some
important facts about IoT systems with a focus on its
applications and open challenges.
The scale of implementation of IoT in today’s world creates
opportunities for everyone to be part of this coming
industrial revolution, leading to many diverse applications,
developers, businesses and end users. The diversity of this
digital and hardware ecosystem via IoT and the speed of its
implementation are creating much vulnerabilities which
need to be addressed through a historical analysis of all
similar challenges faced by other technological concepts.
In this paper, we surveyed the layer of IoT, classification,
ecosystem and applicationsinthisnewlyemergingarea,also
highlighted some ofthemost importantchallenges.Themain
theme of this paper is to overview the big-picture to readers
of this emerging area.
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Insight into IoT Applications and Common Practice Challenges

  • 1.
    International Journal ofTrend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) Volume 4 Issue 3, April 2020 Available Online: www.ijtsrd.com e-ISSN: 2456 – 6470 @ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD30286 | Volume – 4 | Issue – 3 | March-April 2020 Page 42 Insight into IoT Applications and Common Practice Challenges Lubna Alazzawi, Jamal Alotaibi Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA ABSTRACT IoT caused a revolution in the technological world. Not only is the IoT related to computers, people or cell phones but also to various sensors, actuators, vehicles, and other modern appliances. There are around 14 billion interconnected digital devices acrosstheglobei.e.almost2devicesperhuman being on earth. The IoT serves as a medium to connect non-livingthingstothe internet to transfer information from one point to another intheircommunity network which automates processes and ultimately makes the life of human beings convenient. The subsequent result of amalgamating internet connectivity with powerful data analysis is a complete change in the way we humans work and live. The most vital characteristics of IoT include connectivity, active engagement, sensors, artificial intelligence, and small device use. All of this creates many challenges that need to be solved to keep this technology to continue expanding. In this paper, we have identified various applications of IoT based on recent technological and businesstrends and highlighted the existing challenges faced by IoT which need to be addressed considering the exponential acceptance of theconceptgloballyand the way those challenges had been addressed in the past.Wehavealsomadea few comments on the way such challenges are being attempted to beresolved now. This paper presents the current status Internet of Things (IoT) in terms of technical details, and applications. Also, this paper opens a window for future work on the historical approach to study and address IoT challenges. KEYWORDS: IoT, challenges, applications, IoT architecture, computing devices, connectivity, security, smart city How to cite this paper: Lubna Alazzawi | Jamal Alotaibi "Insight into IoT Applications and Common Practice Challenges" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development(ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-4 | Issue-3, April 2020, pp.42-49, URL: www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd30286.pdf Copyright © 2020 by author(s) and International Journal ofTrendinScientific Research and Development Journal. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative CommonsAttribution License (CC BY 4.0) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by /4.0) 1. INTRODUCTION The industrial revolution fortified the idea of a globally connected world paving the way for the internet. Although there was a considerable rate at which computers and related accessories were connected to the internet, there was still a lack of sufficient information which could drive the world towards a much safer, efficient global machine. It was the time when very simple objects which generated information could be used to monitor and control things remotely is now known as the Internet of Things (IoT)[1]- [4]. The term IoT was given by Kevin Ashton in1999[5].The idea has been straightforward yet immensely powerful. It focused on connecting things that were not connected before, such as engines, sensors, personal machines, industries, etc. In general, the entire world became connected via the Internet platform. This idea was also presented in a refined way by Cisco which projects there would be around 500 billion devices connected to the Internet by the year 2030. Cisco predicts this will lead to the rise of smart networks, interconnected devices generating bulk of data that IoT applications use to bundle, analyze, and deliver insight, which can help drive well-informed decisions and actions[6][7]. Fig. 1 illustrates the interconnection between different technologies that together make up the concept of IoT [8]. In this paper, the topmost prominent and fast-growing IoT applications are mentioned, including Smart Spaces, Transport, Industrial IoT (IIoT), Machine to Machine and Artificial Intelligence (M2M & AI), Healthcare, Consumer Electronics, Retail, and Agriculture. With a bigger network of devices come bigger opportunities and challenges. Also, in this paper, many of these challenges, which are still relevant today but not commonly mentioned in many publications, are addressed. Some of these challenges include connectivity, Centralization, Availability and Reliability, Scalability and Interoperability, Longevity and Upgrades, Network Latency, Energy Consumption, Regulations and Standardizations, Privacy, and Security. Fig. 1 Illustration of the concept of IoT IJTSRD30286
  • 2.
    International Journal ofTrend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 @ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD30286 | Volume – 4 | Issue – 3 | March-April 2020 Page 43 Following the introduction, the paper consists of the following sections: Section 2 discusses the related work. Section 3 describes the need for IoT. Section 4 describes the IoT layers. Section 5 presents the challenges facing IoT. Finally, the paper is concluded and ground for future works is laid in section 6. 2. Related Works In this section, we present an insight into a multitude of research efforts that attempted to classify IoT applications and the challenges they face fromdifferentperspectives.The collated background could be envisioned as the basis for future research in IoT arena. Mohammed et al. [9] proposed the classification of IoT services along two dimensions: relationship with the entity and based on the life cycle. The first dimension consists of: low level; resource; entity; and integrated services. Service life cycle dimension includes deployable; and operational services. Mandal et al.[10] proposed IoT application (alternatively a scenario) classificationframework basedonthecomponents participating in the scenario. Components included any combination of sensors, actuators, display, controller, complex device, web service, and/or human being. An application represents the dynamics of executing interactions among its participating components. The research specifiedlevelsofinteraction betweencomponents, levels of data processing, and levels of automation. Fuqaha et al. [11] classified IoT applications based on their market direction: horizontal or vertical. The research perceives smart objects along with their supposed tasks to constitute domain specific applications (vertical markets) while ubiquitous computing and analytical services form application domain independent services (horizontal markets). So, every domainspecificapplicationisconsidered interacting with domain independent services, whereas in each domain sensors and actuators communicate directly with each other. Senet et al. [12] identified prominent IoT application areas almost a decade ago. Sen conceives aerospace and aviation industry to resolve the problem of suspected unapprovedparts (SUP)byusingRFIDtechnology for tagging aircraft parts. Sen also identified a potential of IoT to create new services for telecommunications industry by merging of diverse telecommunication technologies. Insurance industry can benefit vehicle owners by providing technology able to record acceleration, speed, and other parameters, and communicate this information to their insurer to get a cheaper rate or premium. In the following sections, we focus on various IoT applications and their importance. 3. Need for IoT IoT with its recent boom has seen a multitude of devices being connected for different categories of applications and will continue to see a rise in its focus on these areas. According to IoT analytics1, most of the IoT projects were identified in smart city (367 projects),followedbyindustrial 1IOT ANALYTICS is a leading provider of market insights and strategic business intelligence for the Internet of Things (IoT), M2M, and Industry 4.0. settings (265) and connected building IoT projects (193). Details of the above statistical information can be found in Fig. 2. Fig.2 IoT ANALYTICS reported top 10 IoT segments in 2018 In their comparison to 2016 ranking, smart city (driven by government and municipality-led initiatives) has surpassed Connected Industry as the number one IoT segment of identified projects while Connected Building (driven by widespread uptake of building automation solutions that increase operational efficiency and reduce costs) has climbed four places to become thethirdbiggestIoTsegment. Based on current research and market analysis valuation of IoT application domains, we dedicate this section to better understand some prominent domains of IoT, as depicted in Fig. 3, and to emphasize the importance of IoT in today’s world. Fig. 3 Applications of IoT 3.1. Smart Spaces Smart spaces projects mainly deal with the improvement and ease of human lifestyle by introducing automated and intelligent decision-making capabilitiesinprivateandpublic spaces. This can be further classified into smart homes, smart public spaces, and smart cities as shown in 0. A smart home is an application that has seen a good level of acceptance and success. It is a home which is equipped with sensors and actuators which are connected to the internet and controlled by a remote IoT application for monitoring and control of the house environment. Intelligent lighting, voice-based AI, security, entertainment, and energy management are some of the potential needs of IoT in smart homes. Similar to smart homes is the smart public spaces application with the main difference being the setting of the application. Smart public spaces could be buildings, public- transport stations, walkways, roadways, traffic signals and networks, CCTV monitoring, smart publiclightingcontrol,or energy management. The smart city application is based on an integration of IoT in all public spaces in symbiosis to
  • 3.
    International Journal ofTrend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 @ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD30286 | Volume – 4 | Issue – 3 | March-April 2020 Page 44 monitor and control the city as a single organism. Many countries are waking up to this idea of smart cities [13][14]. Fig. 4 IoT for smart spaces illustration 3.2. Transport Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) is the application of computer technology to the transport sector. ITS systems gather data about the transport system, process it, and then use the processed data to improve the management of the transport system, and/or to provide the transport user with more and better information on which to base their transport decisions [15]. It can help to tackle congestion, pollution, poor accessibility and even social exclusion. It can also help to reduce journey times and improve reliability – either in actuality, or simply by changing people’s perceptions. And it can improve the efficiency with which transport systems function. Many applications of ITS are already in place for speed and incident detection, parking management, fleet and freight management, traffic signal control, tolling and access control, trip planning.0 illustrates the potential areas of implementation for ITS applications. Fig.5 ITS Application Roundup2 Vehicular ad-hoc network (VANET) is a type of network that is created from the concept of establishing a network of cars for a specific need or situation, and providing Vehicle-to- Vehicle (V2V), Vehicle-to-Roadside, (V2R) and Roadside-to- Vehicle (V2R) Communications (See Fig. 6). VANETs play a significant role in the establishment of ITSs. VANETs have now been establishedasreliablenetworksthat vehicles use for communication purposes on highways or 2 The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), 2008 urban environments. Along with the benefits, there arise a large number of challenges in VANETsuchasprovisioningof QoS, high connectivity and bandwidthandsecuritytovehicle and individual privacy [16]. Fig. 6 VANET Main Components3 3.3. 2020Industrial IoT (IIoT) IIoT is one of the fastest growing applications of IoT. It is considered as the inception of 4th Industrial Revolution. The Industrial IoT plans to take industrial or factory automation from an isolated factory to globalization of enterprises with remote control and monitoring made availablewiththehelp of the internet replacing legacy technologies. This development was focused to increase the speed of data transmission, centralize operations and control, make data analysis easier, support preemptive maintenance, uniform communication protocols and increase the efficiency of the overall manufacturing unit [17]. The industrial internet is a topic of concern for many industries and is often referred to as Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).Itisentitledindustrial engineering with sensor technology includingmanytypes of sensors, software and big data analytics to create smart and brilliant machines [19]. The research leaders in the domain of IoT, like Cisco or Gartner, see the IIoT as the highest potential concept, and it has not reached all the industries as smart homes and wearable devices. IIoT holds immense capacity for fulfilling quality control and sustainable development. Applications like tracking thegoods,real-time information exchange about the inventory levels among various suppliers and retailers will very well improve the efficiency of supply chains. 3.4. M2M & AI Machine to Machine (M2M) learning and Artificial intelligence (AI) have become so intelligent that they are capable of making root level, small decisions so intelligently and that too without human involvement. The riseofIoThas opened many channels for AI and M2M applications and inversely they have found IoT applications for their support and development. This mutual relationship of the two technology segments creates an array of possibilities in smart cars, robotics, talking machines, etc. which would be capable of independentlytakingdecisions[20].Google’sself- driving car is a good example of IoT with M2M & AI. In a comprehensive, intelligence worldliketoday’s,deviceswork in order to aid people in executing their day-to-dayactivities 3https://www.egypt-business.com/ticker/details/1631- analysis-on-intelligent-transportation-system-market- research-report/50750
  • 4.
    International Journal ofTrend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 @ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD30286 | Volume – 4 | Issue – 3 | March-April 2020 Page 45 conveniently [21] and in a natural wayusingtheinformation and intelligence that is concealed in the network connected devices [22]. It is distinguished by the following systems of characteristics –first, numerous devices connected through network are integratedinto anenvironment;second,devices can be aware of an individual and their situational context; third, they can be altered as per an individual’s necessity; fourth, they can transform if requested by the user; fifth, they can be prepared for an individual’s desires effortlessly. 3.5. Healthcare A very important and slowly developing applicationofIoTis in the healthcare and fitness sector. The concept of telemedicine has been crudely tested by doctors around the world by remotely controlling medicinal devicesformedical monitoring and operations. But IoT has leveled up the situation. The connection between the health care system and smart medical devices canproveto bea greatadvantage, not only for the companies but also for the well-being of general public (see 0). IoT in healthcare has an intention to empower people to live a safe and healthy life by wearing devices which are connected through the internet. The data collected will help with personalized analysis and a solution to an individual’s health plan to combat a disease. A lot of research and pilot applications are being tested in this sector which will enable doctors to make better diagnosis and treatment to patients. Some of the prominent applications include monitoring of patient’s health and using the collected data to analyze and generate models for better diagnosis and treatment. Intelligent medicinal systems collect patient data, processit, and administer medicines according to AI decisions [18]. Fig. 7 Smart healthcare concept 3.6. Consumer electronics Electronic wearables have become a popular trend in the fashion and fitness industries. Their integration with the internet opened up a whole new world of children tracking and safety devices, entertainment and fitness applications, professional development,etc.Abiggerpictureofthisisseen in terms of wearable electronic wallets and personal IDs [23]. The wearable continue to exist as a hot topic too among potential IoT applications and there are devices with the capability to collect particular data and information about the users and are formed of sensors and required software. This collected data is later pre-processed to get the necessary information about the user. The requirement for the IoT technology enabled wearable applications is they should be highly energy efficient or consume ultra-low power and should be small sized. 3.7. Retail The IoT has got immense opportunityintheretail sector.IoT endows an eventuality to retailers to get in touch with the customers to enhance the in-store experience. Smartphones will be used as a medium by retailers to stay connected with their customers even when not present in the store. Using the Beacon technology and the smartphones, the retailers can interact with and serve the consumers preferably. They can also track the consumer’s path via a store and improvised store layout and position the premium products in dense traffic areas. 3.8. Agriculture The smart farming is an often ignored over undermined business opportunity considering IoT as it does not exactly fit in the well-known categories like industrial, health, or mobility. However, asthefarmingoperationsareremote and requires monitoring huge quantityoflivestock,theIoTcould metamorphose the way farming is done.Butthisopinion has not yet been considered at a large scale. Farmers use meaningful intuition from the data collected to gain a meaningful return on the investment. The sensing for soil nutrients and moisture, water usage control for the growth of plant and identifying custom fertilizer are some easy and basic uses of IoT. It can be realized that how IoT can influence all these powerful and potential applications. 4. Internet of Things Layers As the IoT is handling millions of connected devices through the Internet, it requires a flexible layered structure or architecture [24]. The IoT’s five-layeredmodel indepicted in 0 which is most common, simple and extensively used. Fig. 8 The Internet of Things (IoT) Layers 4.1. Perception Layer In the IoT architecture, the perception layer, often called the objects layer, is the first layer from the bottom, as shown in 0. It consists of various types of tangible devices that are responsible for data collection and acting in that manner, like temperatures, locations, object identifiersand,humidity measurements. The significant aspects of this layer include managing power consumption and unidirectional or bidirectional communication. 4.2. Network Layer The second layer in IoT architecture is the network layer. As the technologies in this layer are used to transform the
  • 5.
    International Journal ofTrend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 @ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD30286 | Volume – 4 | Issue – 3 | March-April 2020 Page 46 traditional sensors present in the perception layer into smart and connected nodes, this layer is often referred to as infrastructure layer. The network layer technologies add recognition over the network connection (either internet or LAN) to the nodes which allows them to securely communicate with each other. The various technologies in this layer can also be found in the first three layers of the IP suite (TCP/IP). Due to the conditioned capabilities of most IoT nodes, in order to ensure interoperability among the IoT devices, there is a need for scalable and efficient routing techniques. Pay attention that many of IoT technologies have applications in WSNs or machine to machine (M2M) communications but were certainly improvised to meet IoT requirements. Many modern devices use multiple technologies as in smart watches, which often have NFC, Wi-Fi,Li-Fi,Bluetooth,etc.in a single device [17][27]. On the basis of functionality of various technologies in the network layer,theyareclassified into various enabling technologies. I. Identification In order to enable intercommunication between nodes, a node is assigned a recognizer as soon as it connects to the network. This process of identification is important as it will limit the excessive usage of bandwidth by ensuring only the identified nodes communicate. Names and addresses are assigned to devices which makes it easier to locate them in the dense network. To identify a node easily and its functions, the nodes are named ina structuredmannerusing specific naming conventions. II. Communication An identified node can communicate with other connected nodes or with the backend servers. In spite of that, depending on the capabilities of node, an appropriate communication medium isselected.Payattentionthatnodes can communicate horizontally or vertically. III. Security The nodes in a network have limited capabilities and there are numerous nodes like these, security is an important and challenging task as a successful attack can cause severe damage to the system (for example DDoS attacks) [33]. The security may not be built into different communication technologies. Hence,various layersshouldprovideimproved security mechanisms in order to minimize the probability of attacks. Due to unsafe communication between the layers, lightweight security mechanisms are required for safe and secure communication as the attacks can occur in this layer. IV. Routing Knowing the destination address is not sufficient for a node to transfer the data, there is need to know the route as well. As many nodes could be connected in an ad-hoc manner, adept routing is critical in most of the IoT environments. As the capabilities of the nodes are limited, they should know the best route to be taken and to answer this problem, a special routing protocol was introduced for these environments. IPv6 is a standard routing protocol for inferior power [27]. This protocol was proposed to support dissimilar types of links, such as IEEE802.15.4,andcommon traffic types, including one-to-one, many-to-one,andone-to- many. The protocol is a set of Destination-Oriented Directed Acyclic Graph (DODAG). In this type of graph, a node knows its parent and at least one path to its root node. The nodes exchange RPL messages to maintain the route to the root which is always available. 4.3. Middleware Layer The middleware layer receives data from the network layer. It is present to manage services and data storage functionality of an IoT system. It also performs information processing and based on the results ofthesecomputations;a decision is automatically taken. The output is then transferred to the application layer. The middleware layer is the core of (IoT) environment and can be compared to the application layer in the TCP/IP protocol. The technologies belonging to this layer are often supported by IoT platforms. This layer plays a role of decoder sort of thing. Based on the name and address, the layer enables services and programmers to communicate with miscellaneous objects, immaterial to their specific hardware setup. Depending on the received data, this layer makes judgments, and delivers demanded services. 4.4. Application Layer The final presentation of the data is performed by this application layer which is accountable for providing demanded services to IoT users via simple interfacewithout bothering how service requests are processed in the underlying layers. The IoT users can request and access service (for example, tracking and managing vehicles or reading or setting temperature conditionsremotely)usingmanyplatforms (for example smartwatches, laptops, and smartphones) through applications or web portals. On the basis of the IoT scenario, this layer can be categorized into four main classes as described below. I. Identity Concerned Services The identity concerned services areembeddedtoa nodeand a reader device called Radiofrequency Identification RFID device. These services can be either active or passive. As these services keep track of the numerous devices in large deployments in IoT applications, they are extremely important. Example of such a service is a package-tracking application[26]. II. Information Concentricity Services The sensory measurement data collected from various sensors and networks which is to be processed and summarized to the IoT application is performed by concentricity services. An example for such a type of service is load distribution among smart grids. III. Collaborative Cognizant Services The layer above information concentricity services which is used to take decisions about the received data is the collaborative cognizant services. This type of service can be found in smart manufacturing, smart homes, smart agriculture, and among other applications. For instance, in a smart home, there is a security system containing thermostats to enhance the safety and security of the home. IV. Universal Services These services advance the collaborative services a level up by offering ubiquitous access to information anytime. And
  • 6.
    International Journal ofTrend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 @ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD30286 | Volume – 4 | Issue – 3 | March-April 2020 Page 47 because of such service type, this service is most profitable in IoT environment. The access and control can be set up using a smart device like a smartphone, or a computer. Example for such services is smart cities. 4.5. Business Layer The business layer, as the name implies, is a service offered to make money out of the services provided. In this layer, service data and IoT environmental data, i.e. the business models, graphs, and flowcharts, can be accessed.Thistypeof services is more equipped with business related tools. The output of layers so far is analyzed by this layer to improvise the services and enhance user privacy by providing users with power to design, monitor,analyze,implement, evaluate, and develop new IoT systems. 5. Challenges Facing IoT Every new philosophy or new technology faces lots of challenges upfront, and IoT was also not exempt from them. Some of these challenges are still pertinent while others have been addressed to a great extent. On a broader level, the issues are related to security, privacy and infrastructure related challenges. However, this paper attemptstomention the most important uncategorized challenges to take the reader’s attention to the roots of the problem listed. Fig. 9 Challenges Facing IoT 5.1. Connectivity This challenge refers to the connectivity of network- dependent remote-location solutions that deploy sensors and control devices that require connectivity to theinternet. The biggest hurdle in this aspect is the dependency on mobile networks for internet connection. It is a known fact that there isn’t well-established universal connectivity of mobile networks’ coverage and even lesser for internet-based bands like 2G, 3G, 4G/LTE or higher bands. Connectivity can be evaluated at various levels like Frequency allocations, MAC Protocols, Network Protocols, Transport Protocols, and Mobility Protocols. This challenge has been resolved to some extent by utilizing the lower bands of cellular networks that have larger coverage areas but limit the scale and speed of data that can be transmitted over the network [32]. 5.2. Centralization In the wake of the development of centralized computing and storage systems into cloud computing, a lot of IoT solutions and service providers tend to subscribe to these systems with or without the consent of their customers. The cyber-attacks that have been witnessed in recent years have shown the vulnerability of centralized systems which could jeopardize the information sitting on these systems and bring forth issues of data privacy and security. A lot of efforts are being made to resolve this challenge as it is not unique to IoT but to many other services that depend on these systems like banking,hospitality,logistics,defense, etc. [28]. 5.3. Availability and Reliability The availability of the IoT must be realized in the hardware and software levels to provide sustained services for customers. The availability of softwarereferstotheabilityof the IoT applications to provide services for everyone at different places simultaneously.Hardwareavailabilityrefers to the existence of devices all the time that are compatible with the IoT functionalities and protocols [30]. Redundancy for critical devices and services is one solution to achieve high availability of IoT services. The reliability refers to the proper working of the system based on its specification [31]. Reliability aims to increase the success rate of IoT service delivery, and it has a close relationship with availability as by reliability,accessibility to information and services can be assured. 5.4. Scalability and Interoperability The scalability of the IoT refers to the ability to add new devices, services and functions for customers without negatively affecting the quality of existing services [30]. End-to-end interoperability is yet another challenge for the IoT due to its inherent nature of embedding heterogeneous components that belong to different platforms and layers. Interoperability should be considered by both application developers and IoT device manufactures to ensure the delivery of services for all customers regardless of the specifications of the hardware platform that they use. 5.5. Longevity and Upgrading Since the advent of connected devicesoverprivatenetworks and eventually the internet,thousandsofdevicesandobjects remain hooked up to the present IoT services and solutions sector. These legacy devices which are still functional pose challenges in data interpretation due to their outdated protocols. Some of these devices consume a lot more energy compared to their modern competitors, risking unexecuted failures which could prove disastrous if they are a critical part of a safety system. Another aspect of the sensors and objects connected on the IoT is their longevity in terms of product life-cycle and energy sustainability. A lot of these devices are battery powered and give rise to challenges of device blackouts. These challenges can be resolved with properly planned replacement of legacy devices with modern ones, via technologies such as development of ‘over the air’ or ‘over the internet’ updateable devices, better product design with longer life spans, and wireless over the air electricity. 5.6. Network Latency This challenge normally arises with the difference in speeds of data transmission, network handshakes, and cloud
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    International Journal ofTrend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 @ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD30286 | Volume – 4 | Issue – 3 | March-April 2020 Page 48 computing systems that create programmed delays in data flow due to heavy traffic and network issues. A seamless and quick flow of data would require higher speeds of operation of cloud computing systems, predetermined resolution of network issues,anddata traffic hurdles which involve a lot of cost and energy investment. Some solutions havebeenproposedtoresolvethischallenge. The most feasible ones involve private network level AI algorithms that filter and prioritize data and take decisions locally with efficient utilization of the local computing resources while only data with higher priority that needs to be processed on the cloud will be selectively transmitted outside the local network [28]. 5.7. Regulations and Standardization There lies a great deal of confusion among the consumers of IoT products and services due to the diverse range of products, formats of data, data protocols, security protocols, network protocols and integration. The lack of a governmental or non-governmental body to regulate and standardize IoT products and services is the main reason behind this challenge. The world is slowly waking to the call of the future to embrace IoT and the governments of a lot of countries are slowly making attemptstosolvethis challenge. This challenge can’t be completely resolved unless all stakeholders contribute a part to these discussions on regulations and standardizations [28]. 5.8. Privacy This challenge is tied with the data and network security challenges which is mainly concerned about the privacy of the information flowing over public networks. A lot of private information about a person or businessentitycanbe collected without the entity’s awareness. A few of the solutions solve both privacy issues and these challenges. There are solutions that are tryingtoprovidethe owner of the data or the end client the control of their data and to selectively choose which data theywouldliketoallow over the internet [29]. 5.9. Security According to IoT analytics, this challenge can be broadly broken down into 4 layers (device, communication, cloud, and application) as depicted in (Fig. 10). Fig. 10 IoT Security Levels IoT security spending is on the rise. IoTANALYTICSreleased market research depicting IoT security spending to be currently estimated at $703M for 2017 and the fastgrowing market (Compound Annual Growth Rate-CAGR of 44%) is forecast to become almost a $4.4B opportunity by 2022(see 0). Fig. 11 IoT Security Market Expected Growth The analysis also shows the most common IoT breachesthat happened in the last years. Between 2015-2017 most of the breaches were caused by malware (24%), followed by human’s factor “man in the middle” (22%), brute force (18%) and denial of service (15%). Physical tempering with devices and hacking encryption has smaller footprint in reported security breaches. 6. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK The objectives of this paper were to highlight some important facts about IoT systems with a focus on its applications and open challenges. The scale of implementation of IoT in today’s world creates opportunities for everyone to be part of this coming industrial revolution, leading to many diverse applications, developers, businesses and end users. The diversity of this digital and hardware ecosystem via IoT and the speed of its implementation are creating much vulnerabilities which need to be addressed through a historical analysis of all similar challenges faced by other technological concepts. In this paper, we surveyed the layer of IoT, classification, ecosystem and applicationsinthisnewlyemergingarea,also highlighted some ofthemost importantchallenges.Themain theme of this paper is to overview the big-picture to readers of this emerging area. References [1] Akan, Ozgur B., Sergey Andreev, and Ciprian Dobre. "Internet of Things and Sensor Networks." IEEE Communications Magazine 57.2 2019: 40-40. [2] Mahmud, Sadi, Safayet Ahmed, and Kawshik Shikder. "A Smart Home Automation andMeteringSystemusing Internet of Things (IoT)." 2019 International Conference on Robotics, Electrical andSignalProcessing Techniques (ICREST). IEEE, 2019. [3] Sethi, Pallavi, and Smruti R.Sarangi."Internetofthings: architectures, protocols, and applications." Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering”, 2017. [4] Qian, Yi, et al. "The internet of things for smart cities: Technologies and applications." IEEENetwork 2019:4- 5. [5] Ashton, Kevin. "That ‘internet of things" RFID journal 22.7 2009: 97-114.
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