INTERNET OF THINGS

Chapter 4
IoT design solutions
WHAT IS IOT DESIGN?
.

IoT design is the practice of gathering data of various IoT systems and their interactions with a goal
of creating a meaningful user experiences. IoT design takes a holistic look across the whole system,
the role of each device and service, and creates conceptual model of how user understands and
perceives the entire IoT system.

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WHY IS IOT DESIGN IMPORTANT?
.

• IoT solutions to become widely adopted, businesses need to dig deep into users’ needs in order to
find out where lies a problem truly worth solving and what is the real end user value of the iot
solution.
• It reduces human effort for many activities and provides tons of information. When people have
data, they feel more in control of every aspect that surrounds them.
• Businesses also need to understand what barriers might exist to adopting new IoT technologies in
general and their IoT solutions specifically.

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WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BEST PRACTICES OF IOT DESIGN?
.

1. Considering user safety, data security & privacy aspects and incorporating quality assurance in
the IoT design process are important for user trust.
2. Prototyping early and rapid iteration of the hardware and the whole iot solution are essential.
3. Understanding what data is available of how it can be used responsibly to help the user are
key elements in successful IoT design.

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IOT BASIC DESIGN COMPONENTS
.

• Hardware components include the microcontroller, memory, sensors, actuators, and peripherals.
• Software components include the operating system, firmware, drivers, libraries, and applications.
• IoT Applications

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IOT DESIGN SOLUTION –IOT LAYERED ARCHITECTURE COMPONENTS
.

• Layer 1: Things (Sensors and Actuators)

• Layer 2: Communications Network Layer
• Layer 3: Applications and Analytics Layer
• Layer 4. IoT Data Management and Compute Stack

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LAYER 1: THINGS (SENSORS AND ACTUATORS)

• Variety of smart object types, shapes, and needs drive the variety of IoT protocols
and architectures.
• Battery-powered or power-connected
Battery-powered things can be moved more easily than line-powered objects. However,
batteries limit the lifetime and amount of energy that the object is allowed to consume,
thus driving transmission range and frequency.
• Mobile or static
Whether the “thing” should move or always stay at the same location.
• Low or high reporting frequency
How often the object should report monitored parameters (once a month or several
hundreds per second).
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• Simple or rich data

This classification is based on the quantity of data exchanged at each report cycle.
This classification is often combined with the previous to determine the object data
throughput (low throughput to high throughput).
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Initial task is to determine which technology should be used to
allow smart objects to communicate (mobility, data rate and freq.)

Figure Example of Sensor Applications Based on Mobility and Throughput

From IoT Fundamentals: Networking Technologies, Protocols, and Use Cases for the Internet of Things by David Hanes, Gonzalo Salgueiro, Patrick
Grossetete, Rob Barton and Jerome Henry (1587144565) Copyright © 2017 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved
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LAYER 2: COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK LAYER

• Once determined the influence of the smart object form factor over its transmission
capabilities (transmission range, data volume and frequency, sensor density and
mobility), you are ready to connect the object and communicate.
• Networking technologies enable IoT devices to communicate with other devices,
applications, and services running.
• The internet relies on standardized protocols to ensure communication between
heterogeneous devices is secure and reliable.
• Standard protocols specify rules and formats that devices use to establish and
manage networks and transmit data across those networks.
• Networks are built as a “stack” of technologies. A technology such as Bluetooth LE is
at the bottom of the stack. While others such as IPv6 technologies (which is
responsible for the logical device addressing and routing of network traffic) are
further up the stack. Technologies at the top of the stack are used by the applications
that are running on top of those layers, such as message queuing technologies.
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ACCESS NETWORK SUBLAYER

• There is a direct relationship between the IoT network technology you choose and the
type of connectivity topology this technology allows.
• Each technology was designed with a certain number of use cases (What to connect, how
to connect, how much data to transport at what interval and over what distance).
• IoT sometimes reuses existing access technologies whose characteristics match more or
less closely the IoT use case requirements.
• One key parameter determining the choice of access technology is the range between
the smart object and the information collector.
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Figure Access Technologies and Distances

From IoT Fundamentals: Networking Technologies, Protocols, and Use Cases for the Internet of Things by David Hanes, Gonzalo Salgueiro, Patrick
Grossetete, Rob Barton and Jerome Henry (1587144565) Copyright © 2017 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved
13

ACCESS NETWORK SUBLAYER

• In the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, the central point is called a coordinator for the
network. With this type of deployment, each sensor is not intended to do anything
other than communicate with the coordinator in a master/slave type of relationship.
• The sensor can implement a subset of protocol functions to communicate with the
coordinator. Such a device is called a reduced-function device (RFD).
• An RFD cannot be a coordinator. An RFD also cannot implement direct communications
to another RFD.
• The coordinator that implements the full network functions is called, by contrast, a full-
function device (FFD).
• An FFD can communicate directly with another FFD or with more than one FFD, forming
multiple peer-to-peer connections.
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ACCESS NETWORK SUBLAYER

• Topologies where each FFD has a unique path to another FFD are called cluster tree
topologies.
• Other point-to-multipoint technologies allow a node to have more than one path to
another node, forming a mesh topology.
• In this case, an intermediate node acts as a relay between two other nodes.
• Another property of mesh networks is redundancy. The disappearance of one node
does not necessarily interrupt network communications.
• For example, both IEEE 802.15.4 and LoRaWAN implement star topologies, but the
range of IEEE 802.15.4 is a few tens of meters, while LoRaWAN can achieve a
successful signal over many kilometers.
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GATEWAYS AND BACKHAUL SUBLAYER

• Data collected from a smart object may need to be forwarded to a central station
where data is processed.
• As this station is often in a different location from the smart object, data directly
received from the sensor through an access technology needs to be forwarded to
another medium (the backhaul) and transported to the central station.
• When the smart object’s operation is controlled from a local site, and when the
environment is stable (for example, factory or oil and gas field), Ethernet can be
used as a backhaul.
• In unstable or changing environments (for example, open mines) where cables
cannot safely be run, a wireless technology is used.
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