Developing IoT applications: challenges and frameworks

Abstract

Internet of things (IoT) is creating new opportunities for developing innovative applications by leveraging on existing and new technologies. In recent years, a variety of consumer and industrial IoT applications have been developed and deployed. Despite much progress, developing IoT applications is still a complex, time-consuming and challenging activity. This is because IoT systems involve a wide range of hardware and software components, depending on a variety of communication and distributed system technologies. Many IoT application frameworks of varying approaches have been developed to manage the complexities of developing IoT applications. However, there remains a paucity of surveys on these IoT application development frameworks. This study presents a comprehensive review and a comparative analysis of existing IoT application development frameworks and toolkits, illustrating their strengths and weaknesses. This study will assist in finding the most appropriate IoT application development paradigm for the desired IoT application. Finally, future research directions are highlighted to improve existing and future frameworks and toolkits for IoT applications.