Intra-domain Traffic Engineering And Network Security Of IoT Devices Using Sigfox, LoRaWAN And RPMA Networks
Communication protocols for IoT devices
a) With the exponential growth of the internet and its related technology presently the Internet of Things (IoT) is considered as one of the most important fields in computing. The IoT can be defined as a world-wide network of connected objects through the internet which are operated with the help of the actuators, sensors and RFID devices.
IoT empowers the connected (through internet) objects to communicate as well as coordinate between them in order to make decisions for different type of application that includes home automation, industry automation, healthcare, and so on. The connected objects interact intelligently with other things by producing and receiving information with the help of smart algorithms on Internet. In addition to that, IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) is utilized in orderto uniquely identify the objects.
It is expected that this network of IoT is going to expand with more applications in the future. According to one of the biggest tech giants Cisco, it is expected that by the year 2020, there will be almost 50 billion things connected to the internet.
The following report consist of discussion about the used communication protocol by the IoT devices, type of wireless connections used, contrast and comparison between the Sigfox and other network that can be used for Internet of Things.
b) IEEE 802.15.4: This protocol specifies the media access control and physical layer for LR-WPANs (low-rate wireless personal area networks) in which the IoT devices operate. This protocol is maintained by IEEE 802.15 working group (Khalil et al. 2014). Based on this protocol other IoT protocols like WirelessHART, ZigBee, ISA100.11a, , and MiWi specifications are developed.
Bluetooth: This protocols works inside 2.4 GHz ISM band. It uses frequency hopping technique for data transmission. This protocol provides data rate up to 3 Mbps with the maximum range 100m (Adelantado et al. 2017). Each of the application type using the Bluetooth consist of its own profile.
Weightless: it is a proprietary open wireless standard for which helps in the exchange of data among a base station with the numerous IoT devices surrounding it. This protocols uses wavelength radio transmissions in the unoccupied transmission channels while maintaining high level of security for the transmitted data.
c) As mentioned above there will be 30-50 billion IoT objects by the year 2020, therefore it is important to address each of this things or objects by some unique address. With the use of the IPv4, there were only 4.3 billion addresses were created with IPv4 which are presently exhausted. In case of using the IPv6, it provides and expands the digital address space to 3.4×1038(340 undecillion) (Vejlgaard et al. 2017). Even though technically there are less address spaces will be available than that as some of the address combinations are reserved.
IPv6 for IoT devices
Therefore, it can be said that, IPv4 addresses are unable to meet the demand for IoT objects whereas IPv6 gives IoT objects an efficient platform on which the objects can operate on for longer period of time. Therefore, the main advantages of using the IPv6 can be listed as
Resolving the NAT issues: Due to the lack of addresses provided by the IPv4, the stopgap solution NAT or Network Address Translation is adopted to accommodate the address space requirements (Liu et al. 2017). In this solution, the users share and borrow a single public address.
While this adopted solution enables single users to mount vast applications, it turns out to be totally impossible if a similar end-points or addresses are utilized by a wide range of users of the address; this problem would happen in an IoT network where similar sensors are to be utilized by numerous and independent users (Lauridsen et al. 2017). In addition to that this solution cannot be utilized to reach out a particular end-point (or device inside a network) from the Internet. With the larger address space for the IoT devices it will be easy to reach a particular end point in any network.
Improved security: The IPv6 provides end to end encryption for the transmitted data between the two nodes. In case of the IPv4, encryption of data as well as integrity-checking used in the virtual private networks (VPNs), on the contrary these are the compulsory components for IPv6. 1
- d) There are multiple wireless connections used for IoT, which includes the NFC, RFID, Wifi.
RFID: Radio Frequency Identification or the RFID tags are able to store data which are usually attached to the devices and communicates with the reader devices through internet. Typically, the range of this devices are less than a meter. This tags can be passive, active, or assisted passive.
NFC: Near field communication (NFC) is useful in case of small range communication mainly used for the check-in system in an industry or at home which can be controlled remotely (Ya’acob et al. 2014). 2
- e) In the following section we have compared the networks used for connecting the IoT devices which are LoRaWAN, SigFox and RPMA.
For LoRaWAN it uses the physical layer chip which enable the networking of the transmitted data from the Io devices.
SigFox uses the slow modulation rate to reach the devices at a longer range.
On the other hand, the RPMA uses the silicon technology.
Application for the devices
LoRaWAN: Mostly used for the devices that used in the applications which require low battery solutions and less frequent communication between them.
Comparison of Sigfox, LoRaWAN, and RPMA networks
Sigfox: The Sigfox is used for smart dustbins, water meters or as parking sensors in the parking area.
RPMA: The RPMA is best for the IoT devices that are used in the pedestrian traffic, environmental monitoring, air quality etc.
LoRaWAN : The range for is 2-5kms in the urban areas and 15km in the rural area (Lauridsen et al. 2017).
SigFox: In case of the Sigfox it ranges from 30-50 km in rural area and 3-10km in Urban areas.
RPMA: For RPMA, the range is 500 Kms.
For LoRaWAN , This networks should not be used in case of the applications where low latency and bounded jitter in the network is required.
SigFox: Its Downlink competency is limited. In addition to that the it has issue with signal interference by other mediums.
Compared to the above two networks there are no such issues are identified till now. 4
Conclusion
Presently the field of IoT is at its emerging stage. With the development in the field of the internet the core infrastructure layers are presenting the signs of maturity from the aspects of performance and security. However, a lot of development is going to happen in this area of IoT communication technologies and applications. In addition to that the use of the IPv6 technology is discussed in this paper which can be described as a technology that delivers numerous features, such as end-to-end security and most importantly a larger address space which can be beneficial in the context of integrating multiple IoT devices in house or industry automation. In this paper we also discussed compared and contrasted the LoRaWAN, SigFox, RPMA networks for connecting the IoT devices. The comparison is done respectively from the aspects like features, applications, range etc. Each of this technologies are running at its best wherever applicable. It is considered as very hard to go with a single technology for all IoT applications. With the acceptance of the IPv6 and related IoT technologies the selection of the different networks for specific applications can be segregated in future. 2
References
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Liu, X., Zhao, M., Li, S., Zhang, F. and Trappe, W., 2017. A Security Framework for the Internet of Things in the Future Internet Architecture. Future Internet, 9(3), p.27.
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