INTERNET OF THINGS UNIFIED PROTOCOL STACK

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a paradigm aimed at connecting everyday objects to the Internet. Given the character of IoT devices, the most popular way of connecting them is using wireless technologies. However, unlike traditional (legacy) networks, the IoT has unique traffic characteristics with specific demands on the used communication protocols. Together with the constrained nature of IoT devices and the diversity in IoT application domains, there is no one network technology that meets all requirements. IoT solutions are based on a variety of protocols that yield concerns about interoperability and mutual compatibility. This article provides a high-level overview of the most popular IoT network technologies and compares them in one unified protocol stack consisting of five layers. The proposed protocol stack is intended to highlight the similarities and differences among IoT network technologies and to provide their compatibility possibilities at different layers.

Keywords

• Internet of Things
• IoT network technologies
• unified protocol stack
• wireless sensor networks
• short range networks