Expanding the Cellular-IoT Umbrella: An Architectural Approach

Abstract

The proliferation of the Internet of Things hinges on the successful internetworking of billions of devices. While many approaches advocate for building on a thus-far versatile Internet infrastructure, many faltering claims for scalability will hinder IoT operation and responsiveness. At the heart of the problem, IoT is largely disparate in operational mandates, communication technologies, and access schemes. While such diversity could be empowering, the status quo lacks standardization, and these factors are hindering largescale IoT connectivity [1]. Simply put, IoT devices are developed by different manufacturers, and hence understand different digital languages and communication procedures. A successful global IoT deployment must find ways to interconnect things, allowing data from these objects to be usable across the IoT network. We elaborate on the architectural challenges in scaling the IoT, and highlight mainstream approaches in interconnecting devices across IoT infrastructures, both physically and semantically. We propose a novel architectural approach to bridging Internet-based IoT networks with cellular-based IoT systems, and explore the ensuing development of interoperable IoT systems. We propose the inclusion of a DOI module in the cellular-network-based IoT platform that handles general IoT data access for both cellular and Internet-based IoT nodes. The DOI will implement access and identification methods transversally across the two architectures such that any IoT node could interact with this module, thereby allowing general IoT services over cellular networks. The primary contribution of this article is the introduction of the DOI in cellular networks, emphasizing how the proposed architecture can address the aforementioned challenges.