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IoT Application, A Survey

Article  in  International Journal of Engineering & Technology · March 2018

DOI: 10.14419/ijet.v7i2.7.11089

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 International Journal of Engineering & Technology, 7 (2.7) (2018) 891-896

International Journal of Engineering & Technology

Website: www.sciencepubco.com/index.php/IJET

Research Paper

IoT Application, A Survey

Harika Devi Kotha1*, V Mnssvkr Gupta 2
1Assistant Professor, Department of ECE, IFHE-FST, Hyderabad. India
2Assistant Professor, Department of CSE, SRKR Engineering College, Bhimavaram, India
*Email: harikadevikotha@gmail.com

Abstract

Internet of Things ( IoT ) , where physical systems are connected over network to exchange information among themselves and with their
surroundings. IoT helps in developing most powerful industrial systems. It finds its various applications in house hold, agriculture, and
in various industrial systems. In an effort to understand the growth of IoT , this paper reviews current research trends of IoT , key
technologies, and its major applications, and identifies key challenges of IoT. This paper mainly summarizes the applications of IoT in
industries

Keywords: Internet of Things (IoT); Near field communication; Protocols; RFID; Wireless sensor Networks.

1. Introduction The organization of this paper is as follows: In Section II the

Background and current research of IoT is provided. Section III
provides the information regarding IoT Architecture. Section IV
As an off-promising technology IoT provides solutions to covers the technologies of IoT. Section V gives the information
transform the operation of many existing industrial systems. For regarding applications of IoT .Section VI covers the challenges of
example, when IoT is used in creating smart systems for aqua- IoT. And finally conclusions are presented in section VII.
culture, then the farmer can easily monitor the information
regarding water ,i.e., pH of water, its temperature and other
details. Using which the farmer can predict what has to be done
for the growth of fishes.
IoT allows all the existing systems to connect to a network, using
which they can communicate among themselves and with the
surroundings such that some action to take place. Connecting all
the devices to a network can be done by using a unique ID called
IP address. IP address helps to identify and locate a device on the
network and routes the information. Today commonly accepted
definition for IoT is

“A network of physical objects or ‘things’ that can interact with

each other to share information and take action.” or: “The
Internet of Things (IoT) is the interconnection of uniquely
identifiable embedded computing devices within the existing
Internet infrastructure.” [1]

Initially IoT, used radio-frequency identification (RFID)

technology for identifying the connected devices. Later on IoT
locate devices by using sensors, actuators, and mobile devices.
Figure. 1: Illustration of ' things ' in IoT
Specifically, Integrating sensors, RFID tags and communication
protocols serves as the foundation for IoT [2] .

Research shows that there is tremendous growth in the area of 2. Background and Current Research of IoT
IoT. The industries are trying to work on more projects related to
IoT in the fields of health care, agriculture, aqua-forms, During initial days of IoT, RFID served as the foundation
transportation and others. Statistics shows that there will be technology, which allows user to send or receive information
around 22% growth in profit for the industries that are working on using radio - frequency signals. The connected device should be
IoT [3]. Not only industries are focusing on IoT, but in the recent attached with RFID tags, which contains reader and transmitter.
years it has been observed that number of publication on IoT are With the help of RFID reader , people can locate and monitor the
also increasing. devices [4]. Main application of RFID is transportation.

Copyright © 2018 Authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
892 International Journal of Engineering & Technology

Later on wireless sensor networks (WSN) served as a building Project by investing INR 7060 crores [9] . The main aspects of
block for IoT. Here sensors / actuators will be attached to the this smart city project are : waste management , intelligent
devices with in the network. Sensors are used to sense the data transportation , smart urban lightening, tele-care and others .
and using actuators data will be transmitted. The main application Also India aims to develop IoT industry by investing USD 15
of WSN includes health-care. billion by 2020 [10] . Not only in India, countries like UK, china ,
Japan etc.. also working towards the development on IoT
With the advancement of RFID and WSN, there is a significant industry. UK government has launched £5m project to develop
growth in the development of IoT [2]. The working of IoT IoT [1]. Japan started two strategies called u- Japan and i -
connected devices is shown in the figure 2. IoT finds its main Japan for utilizing IoT in our daily routines [11].
applications in the fields of : tracking & monitoring , health -
care, home automation , environment monitoring , smart building
, agriculture , aqua - culture and others. With the advancement of 3. Architecture of IoT
smart phones, communication protocols, sensor networks
technologies; it is possible to connect more objects in a network.
Since IoT deals with heterogeneous devices there is no specific
architecture designed for IoT. Different architectures are proposed
for IoT. Depending on the type of application , a particular
architecture can be opted. In this paper, the basic 3 layer
architecture for IoT , cloud architecture , Fog based architecture ,
and finally service oriented architecture have been discussed

3.1. Three Layer architecture of IoT

• Physical layer also called as perception layer. This

layer contains sensors, RFID tags and other essential
components. This layer senses and collect the necessary
information from the connected devices.

• Network layer acts as a gateway. It takes care of routing

protocols, server related information and transmission
of data. Data is transferred via logical network paths .

Figure. 2: Working of IoT • Application layer, being the top layer. It is responsible
for the transmitting the data to the required destination.
IoT application contains both hardware and software. IoT Figure 3 shows the 3 layer model of IoT.
hardware is broadly classified in to : 1) wearable devices, 2)
embedded system boards. Wearable devices will come with pre-
assembled hardware application [5]. The scope of wearable
devices is limited to a particular application. For example a smart
watch may be designed for call receiving and fitness monitoring
only. The advantage with wearable device is handy to use. The
examples of wearable devices are : Samsung gear , titan we
watch, google glass, cuir ally smart wallet , digit- sole smart shoe
and others.

On other hand embedded system boards are open for the user.
That is, a user can program these boards depending on the Figure. 3: 3-layer model of IoT
application he want . In present day market, there are so many
embedded system boards are available. Examples include The main disadvantage of this architecture is more tasks will be
Arduino boards, raspberry pi boards, Samsung artik board, scheduled to single layer, due to which updating single or
cloudbit, ESP8866 Wi-Fi module and others. After selecting a multiple layers is a tough task.
particular embedded system board, the user has to choose
application software. There are wide range of programming
languages like C, C++, python etc. 3.2. Cloud Based Architecture
IoT deals with connecting the devices to a network and sharing
As described in the figure 4, cloud based architecture of IoT
the information, in this point of view one has to ensure security,
contains mainly physical layer , process layer, gateway layer and
reliability. Also IoT deals with various kinds of devices, so in
order do the task properly standardization is required. cloud services.
Standardization provides inter-operability, compatibility on a
global scale [6]. Many professional bodies are working on
creating standards for IoT. At present organizations like IEEE,
International Electro-technical Standardization, China Electronics
Standardization Institute, American National Standards Institute
are working on development of standards for IoT [7]. By
designing IoT applications on accepted standards one can achieve
reliability and interoperability, which in-turn will reduce
maintenance costs in long run [8].

So far many countries are invested in IoT applications. Recently

Indian government has started a project on IoT called Smart City
International Journal of Engineering & Technology 893

data computing, storage and resource management are distributed

in an efficient manner between client and cloud.

Figure. 4: Cloud based architecture of IoT

Figure. 6: Fog based architecture
• Physical layer contains technologies used like RFID, to
collect the information from the devices connected in Both cloud computing architecture and fog computing
the network. architecture is more or less same[13]. The only difference in this
• As the name indicates the process layer tries to analyze architecture is the computing of data takes place at devices ,
the information received. which are connected at the edge of the network. So, the other
name of fog computing is edge computing. As discussed in cloud
• Gateway layer contains the network information like based architecture, the scalability is more in this architecture.
LAN or WAN etc. It performs data transformations and
makes the received raw data suitable for cloud services.
It establishes path for end to end communication. 3.4. Service Oriented Architecture of IoT

• The main and important part of cloud based architecture This reference model is generally used in business applications.
is cloud services. It is responsible for executing the data
(collected from industries or user etc..) by using data
analytic algorithms. The main components of cloud
services are : 1) Broker and message queue , 2) Data
base, 3) Server and 4) Event managers.
• Broker and message queue, are responsible for
managing incoming messages. It streamlines the
messages from various clients and processes them . It
helps in increasing the scalability of the network (ie.,
number of devices can be increased.)

• Database is used for the storage purpose.

• Server helps in visualizing the data, reporting. It helps Figure. 7: SOA for IoT
user to understand data. It also provides
recommendations to the user. • Data acquisition layer is similar to perception layer. By
using IP address , it tries to senses the data and transfers
• Event managers, performs event handling. It executes to network layer. It is also responsible to process (by
high priority interrupts like fire alarm. In case of using data computing algorithms) the data.
emergency, it triggers certain actions [12].
• Network layer as discussed earlier it deals with
communication protocols. It can be a wired network or
wireless. Generally used protocols are Z - wave, Zig –
bee etc..

• Management layer is responsible to maintain end to end

integrity. It checks whether the data transferred
correctly to the other end or not. It is also responsible in
maintaining the data integrity and security. It ensures
the data is transferred to the correct user. The other
name of this layer is Business layer.

Figure. 5: Cloud services • Interface layer, popularly known as application layer. It

also takes care of data formatting and presenting. It
gives the information regarding interaction methods to
3.3. Fog based architecture
users and other application.

Fog computing is latest technology. It extends the features of

cloud computing. Fog computing offers processing the data
4. Technologies Of IoT
(computing), takes care of storage and provides the network
information between client and the cloud services. Computing The key technologies of IoT are classified in to two broad
(processing the data) occurs in decentralized manner. Here the categories. 1) Identification technology 2) Communication
technology.
894 International Journal of Engineering & Technology

3.5. Identification Technology TABLE 1: Key technologies of IoT.

As the name indicates these type of technologies are used for Technologies of IoT
locating and monitoring purpose. The examples include RFID
,WSN , QR code, barcodes and Intelligent sensors etc. • RFID
• WSN
Identification
RFID connected devices contain a reader – to collect the • QR code
technologies
information, and a transmitter – to transmit the information. RFID • Barcode
tags are costly when compared to other technologies like WSN.
• Zigbee
• Z wave
3.6. Communication Technology • MQTT
Communication • Bluetooth
These will provide guidelines to be followed data transfer. technologies • LiFi
Examples include Zig bee, Z wave, MQTT , Bluetooth ,Li-fi , Wi- • WiFi
fi, Near Field Communication(NFC) , HaLow ,Power line area • NFC
network and others [14]. • Power line area network

• Zigbee is follows IEEE 802.15.4 standard. It is a short

range (around 20meters) protocol, used to create a 5. Applications of IoT
small network . It is generally used in home automation.
The applications of IoT vary from a small network like home
• Z Wave is long range wireless protocol (approx. 100 automation to large network like cloud based industry application.
meters) . Each Z wave network will have a unique ID Brief introduction about various applications of IoT like
called Network ID, and each device in a Z Wave environmental monitoring, home automation, agriculture, aqua-
network will have a node ID. It is also used in home culture, health care, transportation and logistics have been
automation. Unlike Wi-Fi it can transfer data at high discussed in this paper. The following design constraints have to
speed be addressed properly for developing a particular application to
have a balance between cost and efficiency.
• MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport) is a
machine to machine IoT protocol. It is used in cloud
based and fog based architectures. The important
feature of this protocol is, it can transmit information
from one source to many users (one to many function)
via an intermediate node.

• Bluetooth is a short range protocol, generally used in

our day to day applications. For example in our smart
phone using Bluetooth we will transfer the information
to the paired device. It follows IEEE 802.15.1 standard.

• Li – Fi (light fidelity ) is also a short range wireless

protocol. Here the transfer of data takes place in the
form of light.
Figure. 8: Various design constraints for an IoT application.
• Wi-Fi follows IEEE 802.11 standard. It is a medium
range network, generally used in local area network.
The scalability is more.
3.7. Environmental Monitoring
• Near field communication (NFC) , is very short range
networking protocol (appox. 4meters). It provides point There are number of sensors available to sense parameters
to point connectivity between communicating devices. like temperature, humidity, air pollution, water pollution. Sensors
For example using NFC we can share screen of our like RTD and thermometer are used to measure temperature. To
smart phone with smart TV . analyze air pollution we can make use of dust sensors and gas
sensors. By making use of e-Tongue (electronic tongue) and e –
• HaLOW , is similar to wifi. The only difference is Nose (electronic nose) technologies the presence of chemicals can
HaLOW is a medium range protocol, and data transfer be identified [15]. These technologies make use of pattern
rate is low when compared to wifi. recognition software. These are used in cities to monitor the
pollution levels.
• Power Line area network , is a long range wired
communication network. It makes use of power lines 3.8. Home Automation
for transmitting the data.
Home automation or smart building is called as domotics [16]. By
These all technologies of IoT makes use of either IPv4 or IPv6 for using a centralized hub generally a smart phone (which contains
addressing. sensors like accelerometer), the various things in the home can be
controlled. That is, smart television, air conditioner, water
heaters, lights, fans etc.. will be connected to the smart phone
using NFC , Bluetooth, Zigbee or any other short range low
power protocols.
International Journal of Engineering & Technology 895

3.9. Agriculture Figure. 9: fitness tracker (source : https://www.fitbit.com/in/charge2)

IoT in this sector generally called as Smart Farming [17]. With

the help of GPS enabled tractors we can control the path of
tractor. Also with the help of simple embedded board of IoT we
can control the pump(set timing when to supply water to the
farm). Also by using soil sensors the condition of the land can be
studied.

3.10. Aqua-culture

IoT has been used in aquaculture to control to action of radiators

(used in fish tanks for oxygen supply). By using chemical sensors
the farmer can get the information regarding water (temperature).
Figure. 10: Working of an heartbeat sensor
3.11. Health care

Using IoT in medical field one can track patient health condition.
The medical sensors can be: 1) wearable and 2) sensors 3.12. Transportation and Logistics
implanted in the body. Using wearable sensors one can track
various parameters like pulse rate, body temperature, calories etc. IoT plays an important role in transportation and logistics [18].
The examples of wearable’s are fitbit, reflex. Other type is By attaching RFID tags or barcodes to the vehicle, the industries
sensors implanted inside the body. These are used when patients’ can monitor the real time information of the vehicles [19], like
health has to be monitored continuously. For example by using a location of the vehicle and others. Furthermore, by enhancing the
sensor which is implanted in the human body (as shown in figure IoT abilities in transportation field one can control the speed of
10) , the doctor can track and monitor the patient heartbeat, pulse the vehicle. In logistics by making use of barcodes companies can
rate etc. track inflow and outflow of the products.
By establishing proper standards of IoT, we can enhance IoT in
various others fields like mining, safety, traffic monitoring etc..

Table 2: Comparison with other surveys on the basis of topics covered

Survey Paper Architectures Technologies Of Iot Applications Others

Health Care,
"Internet Of Things : A Service Oriented
Rfid,Wlan, Nfc, Zig Bee Transportation And Key Challenges Of Iot
Survey "Li Da Xu,2014 Architecture
Logistics ,Mining
"Create Your Own Covered Iot Hardware Arduino,
Internet Of Things, Not Covered Wi-Fi , Bluetooth Not Covered Raspberry Pi, Cloud Bit , Samsungs'
"Kiran Jot Singh, 2017 Artik, Udoo Quad
"Iot In Agriculture:
System-Of-Systems Architectural
Designing A Europe-
Approach To An Iot-Based
Wide Large-Scale Pilot Not Covered Mqtt, Amqp Agriculture
Largescale
," Christopher Brewster
Pilot In Agriculture.
, 2017
"A Cloud Based
Architecture For Cloud Based Architecture Mqtt Industrial Exhauster Case Study On Industrial Exhauster
Internet Of Things
Targeting Industrial
Devices Remote
Monitoring And Control
," Ademir F.Da Silva
,2016
Covered In Detail About Environmental
Covered 3- Layer
Rfid , Zig Bee, Z Wave, Monitoring, Home
Architecture, Cloud
Mqtt , Bluetooth ,Li-Fi , Automation,
Based Architecture, Fog
Our Survey Wi-Fi, Near Field Agriculture, Aqua- Key Challenges Of Iot
Based Architecture,
Communication(Nfc) , Culture, Health Care,
Service Oriented
Halow ,Power Line Area Transportation And
Architecture
Network Logistics
 896 International Journal of Engineering & Technology

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Internet of Things," IEEE consumer electronics magazine,2017
[6] . D. Bandyopadhyay, and J. Sen, “Internet of things: applications
• Since IoT connects heterogeneous systems together, to and challenges in technology and standardization,” Wireless
have a proper communication among them we have to Personal Communications, vol.58, no.1, pp.49-69, 2011.
standardize the IoT. Standardization includes [7] . ITU NGN-GSI Rapporteur Group, “Requirements for support of
interoperability, security and privacy issues [20]. USN applications and services in NGN environment,” Geneva:
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 2010.
[8] . D. Miorandi, S. Sicari, F. De Pellegrini, and I. Chlamtac,
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issues. For example proper analysis of delay has to done challenges,” Ad Hoc Networks, vol.10, no.7, pp.1497-1516,
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Alecio P.D. Binotto, "A Cloud-based Architecture for the
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