One document matched: draft-lee-iot-problem-statement-00.txt
Internet Research Task Force Gyu Myoung Lee
Internet Draft Institut TELECOM
Intended status: Informational Jungsoo Park
Expires: April 2011 ETRI
Ning Kong
CNNIC
Noel Crespi
Institut TELECOM
October 18, 2010
The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement
draft-lee-iot-problem-statement-00.txt
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The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011
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The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011
Abstract
This document explains the concept of the Internet of Things and
several characteristics of objects. In addition, this document
investigates key technical issues and specifies problems for the IoT.
Conventions used in this document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC-2119.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ................................................ 5
2. Concept of IoT .............................................. 5
2.1. Basic concept of the IoT................................ 5
2.2. Classification and characteristics of objects........... 6
2.3. Purpose / applications.................................. 7
3. Features of the IoT ......................................... 8
3.1. Overall aspects......................................... 8
3.2. Applications/services aspects........................... 8
3.3. Networking aspects...................................... 8
3.4. Link/physical layer aspects............................. 8
3.5. Smart/connected objects aspects......................... 8
3.6. Smart environment aspects (home/office/building, etc)... 8
4. General issues .............................................. 8
5. Problems .................................................... 11
5.1. Identifier for objects and services .................... 11
5.2. Object naming .......................................... 11
5.3. Security/privacy/authority ............................. 12
5.4. Presence (of people; of devices) ....................... 13
5.5. Geographic location (self identification of location)... 13
5.6. Discovery/search........................................ 13
5.7. Tracking of mobile object .............................. 13
5.8. Data processing /computing ............................. 13
5.9. Heterogeneous networking interfaces (IP and non-IP, etc) 14
5.10. Global connectivity (IPv6) ............................ 14
5.11. Scalability ........................................... 14
5.12. Universal interoperability ............................ 14
5.13. Autonomics (self-configuring, intelligence for control) 14
5.14. Power/energy storage .................................. 15
5.15. Coordination among many objects ....................... 15
5.16. Web Services .......................................... 15
6. Summary and future work ..................................... 15
7. Security Considerations ..................................... 15
8. IANA Considerations ......................................... 15
9. References .................................................. 16
9.1. Normative References ................................... 16
9.2. Informative References ................................. 16
Appendix I: Case study on typical use cases of the IoT.......... 16
Appendix II: Relationships with existing working groups in IETF. 16
Author's Addresses ............................................. 17
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1. Introduction
The Internet of Things (IoT) [1-3] is a novel paradigm that is
becoming popular with research and industries. The basic idea is that
IoT will connect objects around us (electronic, electrical, non
electrical) to provide seamless communication and contextual services
provided by them. Development of RFID tags, sensors, actuators,
mobile phones make it possible to materialize IoT which interact and
co-operate each other to make the service better and accessible
anytime, from anywhere.
There are so many applications that are possible because of IoT. For
individual users, IoT brings useful applications like home automation,
security, automated devices monitoring, and management of daily tasks.
For professionals, automated applications provide useful contextual
information all the time to help on their works and decision making.
Industries, with sensors and actuators operations can be rapid,
efficient and more economic. Managers who need to keep eye on many
things can automate tasks connection digital and physical objects
together. Every sectors energy, computing, management, security,
transportation are going to be benefitted with this new paradigm.
Development of several technologies made it possible to achieve the
vision of Internet of things. Identification technology such as RFID
allows each object to represent uniquely by having unique identifier.
Identity reader can read any time the object allows real time
identification and tracking. Wireless sensor technology allows
objects to provide real time environmental condition and context.
Smart technologies allow objects to become more intelligent which can
think and communicate. Nanotechnologies are helping to reduce the
size of the chip incorporating more processing power and
communication capabilities in a very small chip.
This document explains the concept of the Internet of Things and
several characteristics of objects. In addition, this document
investigates key technical issues and specifies problems for the IoT.
The main objective of this document is to develop a new architectural
framework in order to solve problems.
2. Concept of IoT
2.1. Basic concept of the IoT
o Definition of the "IoT"
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Internet: The original "Internet" is based on the TCP/IP protocol
suite but any network based on the TCP/IP protocol suite cannot
belong to the Internet because private networks and
Telecommunication networks are not part of the Internet even
though they are based on the TCP/IP protocol suite. In the
viewpoint of IoT, the "Internet" considers the TCP/IP suite and
non-TCP/IP suite at the same time.
o Definition and scope of "things"
In the vision of IoT, "things" are very various such as computers,
sensors, people, actuators, refrigerators, TVs, vehicles, mobile
phones, clothes, food, medicines, books, etc. These things are
classified as three scopes: people, machine (for example, sensor,
actuator, etc) and information (for example clothes, food,
medicine, books and etc). These "things" should be identified at
least by one unique way of identification for the capability of
addressing and communicating with each other and verifying their
identities. In here, if the "thing" is identified, we call it the
"object."
o Terminologies
o Goals (new architecture/framework) and vision
2.2. Classification and characteristics of objects
Many studies are going on regarding IoT which is going to be an
advanced network including normal physical objects together with
computers and other advanced electronic appliances. Instead of
forming ad hoc network, normal objects will be a part of whole
network so that they can collaborate, understand real time
environmental data and react accordingly in need.
Objects can be classified as follows.
o Size: small, normal
o Mobility: mobile, fixed
o Power: without power supply, with power supply
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o Connectivity: intermittently connected, continuously connected
o Automation: automated, non automated
o Physical/logical: physical objects, logical objects
o Network protocol: IP enabled objects, non IP objects
Objects have the following characteristics.
o Ability to sense and/or actuate
o Small (or not necessarily)
o Limited capability (or not necessarily)
o Energy/power limited
o Connected to physical world
o Intermittent connectivity
o Mobile (potentially)
o Of interest to people
o Managed by devices, not people
2.3. Purpose / applications
o Body area network (bio-medical, etc)
o Smart Grid
o Building networks
o Vehicles (inter and intra)
o RFID/Asset-tracking
o Manufacturing
o Environmental sensors
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o Revealing/sharing information
3. Features of the IoT
3.1. Overall aspects
(Order(s) of magnitude bigger than the Internet, No computers or
humans at endpoint, Inherently mobile, disconnected, unattended)
3.2. Applications/services aspects
3.3. Networking aspects
3.4. Link/physical layer aspects
3.5. Smart/connected objects aspects
3.6. Smart environment aspects (home/office/building, etc)
4. General issues
o Scalability
The IoT has larger overall scope than communications with
conventional hosts. There will be small (home environment) or
large scale (factory, building) application area. Objects
communicate with each other and with people seamlessly. Each
constituent might be offering different services. Basic
functionalities such as communication, service discovery need to
be functioning efficiently in both small and large scale
environment. Scalability regarding addressing can be taken as an
example. IPv4 address is finishing, object-to-object communication
needs huge number of IP addresses in order to uniquely identify
each objects. As a scalable solution, IPv6 can be used which can
accommodate as many things as required to include in the IoT.
o Interoperability
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World of physical objects is extremely diverse. They have
different communication, information and processing capabilities.
Each object would also be subjected to very different conditions
such as power energy availability and communication bandwidth
requirement. In order to facilitate communication and cooperation
common practices and standards are required. Interoperability
issue includes device, services heterogeneities. Devices are small,
large, with continuously powered, without power supply.
Interoperability solution should be maintained to provide seamless
interaction among them. Service description, publishing, and
discovery mechanisms should be interoperable otherwise the IoT
will be converted into islands of heterogeneous object network.
o Discovery
In dynamic environment of ubiquitous networking, suitable services
for objects must be automatically identified. As users want to
know product information and their availability all the time, it
requires appropriate semantic means of describing their
functionality.
o Data volumes
Depending on application and use cases there is variance in data
volume. In a scenario where there is brief collaboration among
objects data volume will be less. However, in case where there are
large number of objects and interact among very frequently there
are large volume of data. How to handle big volume of data is one
of the important challenges of ubiquitous networking. Volume can
be considered either from device or as a whole network perspective.
Each object has augmented memory, storage and processing
capability. If there are a large number of peer objects
communicating with each other, object runs out of processing,
memory and storage. From network perspective it is also difficult
to handle bulk amount of data if objects produce huge bytes of
data regularly. Solution can be periodic communication between
objects or some data compression and optimization techniques.
o Power supply
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Scope of object is broad in the IoT. It ranges from small to large.
Moreover, things move around and difficult to connect to power
supply all the time. So they need to operate with self-sufficient
energy source. Passive RFID does not contain power supply, which
requires reader in order to get information from it. Not all
objects can be connected to continuous power supply also,
providing battery for each small object may not be feasible.
Therefore, energy efficient communication mechanisms are essential.
o Fault-tolerance
The IoT consists of objects have less power. They are more dynamic
and mobile compare to current state. However, users rely and
believe that network will function properly. To maintain robust
and trust worthy dynamic ubiquitous networking requires redundancy
in several levels and ability to automatically adapt to changed
conditions depending on the required quality of service.
o Security and personal privacy
Users are fighting with security and privacy issue of current
Internet in large extent. When it will be broaden in to ubiquitous
networking, there is even more threat of security and personal
privacy. Confidentiality, authenticity and trustworthiness of
communication partners need to be maintained. Users may want to
give things limited service access not allowing them to
communicate in uncontrolled manner.
o Device adaptation
Initially started with retail and logistic application, the IoT is
covering very general applications scenario integrating things to
the network. It allows objects to collaborate each other and with
person. There are heterogeneous devices, application scenarios,
data format, and communication network. Each connected objects
should be able to adapt the situation where it is now. When a
person with smart phone enters home, it should adapt communication
mechanism, addressing and localized environment. When it reaches
in office environment it should adapt with new situation where the
mechanisms available in home can be different. Adaption in many
senses should be maintained.
o Intelligence
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The smart objects should be able to intelligently co-operate with
the environment in which it will be introduced. Sensing current
environment, acting intelligently according to situation is
required in order to realize true object-to-object communication.
The IoT makes possible for virtually any object around us to
exchange information and work in synergy to increase quality of
our life. There are smart clothes which will interact
intelligently with climate control of car and home to select the
most suitable temperature and humidity for the person. Smart book
interacts with entertainment devices such as TV in order to
elaborate the topic we are reading. Most of the devices act
according to their predetermined set of actions or they will
collaborate with each other based on current context and act
accordingly.
5. Problems
5.1. Identifier for objects and services
There are various kinds of identifier with different identification
codes according to objects and their services. Current identification
schemes for objects are also different from their purposes.
Solution:
o Identification (new naming space, globally unique ID)
With the huge evolved communication objects, the hierarchical
identification schemes are required. The aggregation feature of
IPv6 address is one of example.
According to the classification of Things, the different
identification schemes are required. That is, the information such
as books, medicine and clothes may not require the global
identification because revocation lists are required. It means
some objects will be destroyed.
5.2. Object naming
Current Internet just identifies the specific server which contents
are stored. As the end points of current Internet are hosts,
individual content in a server cannot be identified in the network.
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Solution:
o Naming/addressing for fixed/mobile objects
Object naming services
The name service of Internet such as DNS (Domain Name System)
[RFC1034] has already been one of the most important infrastructures
of the Internet nowadays. For example, DNS is an indispensable system
of the Internet used for translating the "human-friendly" host names
of computers on a TCP/IP network into their corresponding "machine-
friendly" IP addresses. In general, DNS also stores other types of
information, such as the list of mail servers that accept email for a
given Internet domain. By providing a worldwide, distributed name
service, DNS is an essential component of the functionality of the
Internet.
Similarly, object name service will also be one of essential and key
elements in the IoT, which can be used for translating the "thing-
friendly" names of object which maybe belong to heterogeneous name
spaces (e.g. EPC, uCode, and any other self-defined code) on
different networks (e.g. TCP/IP network, constrained network) into
their corresponding "machine-friendly" addresses or other related
information of another TCP/IP or constrained network. The object of
IoT based on a TCP/IP or constrained network can easily communicate
with other object on the same or any other network with the name of
the object by object name service, without considering whether the
address of the targeted object has been changed or not.
To fulfill the aforementioned objective, object naming service based
on the IoT needs to be researched. The compatibility of heterogeneous
name spaces and the efficiency for the constrained network of this
kind of service are supposed to be the most important issues to be
studied in future.
5.3. Security/privacy/authority
The loss of security and privacy in communications and services, with
personal data is becoming available and unwanted communication
becoming rampant.
The overall problem is further aggravated by the diversification of
the Internet with new types of devices and heterogeneous networks.
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The user is confronted with a wide range of methods and devices with
which to access the digital world, and it can no longer be assumed
that a single, independent access per device will suffice, nor that
the user will actually own all these devices.
Solution:
o ID-management for things (security, authentication, privacy)
Basically each object should not be able to authenticate during
the short time because the hundreds of objects may request the
approval at the same time. Therefore, group authentication and
authorization methods are required.
5.4. Presence (of people; of devices)
5.5. Geographic location (self identification of location)
o awareness of location
5.6. Discovery/search
5.7. Tracking of mobile object
Solution:
o TBD
To support the routing and mobility protocols, the IoT networks
have structural characteristics. That is, the mobility support
models are required. Some objects move independently. Others will
move as the one of group. Therefore, according the moving feature,
the different tracking methods are required.
5.8. Data processing /computing
For supporting various applications in the IoT environment,
information should be able to transfer among objects operating under
varied perspectives without humans.
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Solutions
o Information model (data store, retrieval, transfer, etc)
According the Information model, the functionality of data
processing should be distinguished.
o Policy/preferences
5.9. Heterogeneous networking interfaces (IP and non-IP, etc)
o Interworking model with proxy (gateway)
Each gateway should support the multiple interfaces, which are
evolved in different heterogeneous network.
5.10. Global connectivity (IPv6)
Each object should support the end-to-end communications. And also
outside-initiated services may be supported into the inner network.
5.11. Scalability
In IETF LISP, Shim6 and Other WG, ID/LOC separation methods have
been developing. For more scalable and robust network, ID/LOC
separation features are required.
5.12. Universal interoperability
5.13. Autonomics (self-configuring, intelligence for control)
o Remote control and management/maintenance of objects
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IPv6 auto-configuration and multi-homing features are useful for
the autonomics. The scope-based IPv6 addressing features are
easily applied for self-configuration such as smart building and
smart grid.
5.14. Power/energy storage
5.15. Coordination among many objects
Like the Full-function device (FFD) and Reduced Function Devices
(RFD) in sensor network, the objects of IoT should be classified
in viewpoint of functionalities.
5.16. Web Services
Each object may be identified through the web services. It means
that the object should be identified by the URL/URL.
6. Summary and future work
This document has explained the concept of the Internet of Things and
several characteristics of objects. In addition, this document has
investigated key technical issues and specifies problems for the IoT.
For future work, we need to find possible solutions for each problem.
It would be a good starting point to develop a new architectural
framework in order to solve problems.
7. Security Considerations
TBD
8. IANA Considerations
This document has no actions for IANA.
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The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011
9. References
9.1. Normative References
TBD
9.2. Informative References
[1] ITU-T Internet Reports, "Internet of Things," November 2005.
[2] Zouganeli E., Svinnset, I.E, "Connected objects and the
Internet of things-a paradigm shift," Photonics in Switching
2009, September 2009.
[3] Harald Sundmaeker, Patrick Guilemin, Peter Friess, Sylvie
Woelffle, "Vision and challenges for realizing the Internet of
Things," March 2010.
[4] Luigi Atzori, Antonio Iera, Giacomo Morabito, "The Internet of
Things: A survey," Computer Networks, Volume 54, Issue 15,
pp.2787-2805, October 2010.
Appendix I: Case study on typical use cases of the IoT
TBD
Appendix II: Relationships with existing working groups in IETF
o 6LoWPAN (IPv6 header compression)
o ROLL (IPv6 routing for low power/lossy networks)
o Core (Constrained RESTful Environments, former 6LoWApp (Low power
applications) BoF)
o RRG (Routing research group)
o HIPRG (Host identity protocol research group)
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The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011
Author's Addresses
Gyu Myoung Lee
Institut TELECOM, TELECOM SudParis
9 rue Charles Fourier, 91011, Evry, France
Phone: +33 (0)1 60 76 41 19
Email: gm.lee@it-sudparis.eu
Jungsoo Park
ETRI/SRC
161 Gajeong-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 305-700, Korea
Phone: +82 42 860 6514
Email: fnumber@gmail.com
Ning Kong
CNNIC
4 South 4th Street, Zhongguancun, Haidian District, Beijing, 100190,
China.
Phone: +86 10 5881 3147
Email: nkong@cnnic.cn
Noel Crespi
Institut TELECOM, TELECOM SudParis
9 rue Charles Fourier, 91011, Evry, France
Phone: +33 (0)1 60 76 46 23
Email: noel.crespi@it-sudparis.eu
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