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--- en:iot-reloaded:iot_system_design_challenges [2023/10/31 22:57] – [Data ownership issues] gkuaban
+++ en:iot-reloaded:iot_system_design_challenges [2025/05/13 10:33] (current) – [IoT System Design Challenges] pczekalski
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-====== IoT System design challenges ======
+====== IoT System Design Challenges ======
+The Internet of Things transforms industries, lifestyles, and economies by enabling interconnected devices to collect, share, and act on data. However, its rapid expansion is accompanied by significant technical, economic, and societal challenges. Below, we delve deeper into these issues, exploring their nuances and potential mitigation strategies (figure {{ref>iotsdc1}}).
+<figure iotsdc1>
+{{ :en:iot-reloaded:iot_system_design-page-2.png?600 |IoT System Design Challenges}}
+<caption>IoT System Design Challenges</caption>
+</figure>
-===== Device hardware limitations =====
+===== Device Hardware Limitations =====
-Most IoT devices are often powered by an energy storage system (e.g., a battery or a capacitor/supercapacitor/ultracapacity) with limited energy capacity. When all the energy stored in the energy storage system is depleted or consumed, the device will shut down if the energy storage system is not changed or recharged. Changing or recharging the energy storage systems of IoT devices in an IoT infrastructure with hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of IoT devices may be tedious and costly. The limited available energy to power the IoT devices constrain the design choices for IoT devices. That is, the primary goal of IoT designers is to minimise the energy consumption (or to maximise the energy efficiency) of IoT devices. The following IoT choices are often made to minimise the energy consumption (or to maximise the energy efficiency) of IoT devices and deal with other device limitations:
+IoT devices often rely on compact, energy-constrained hardware, such as batteries or capacitors, to function. These energy storage systems have limited capacities and once depleted, the devices shut down unless recharged or replaced. Managing the energy needs of hundreds or thousands of such devices in an IoT ecosystem becomes a significant logistical and financial burden.
-   *Use of low-power computing devices: Using microcontrollers or microprocessors to decrease the computational power of IoT devices, reducing the energy required to power these devices.
-   *Use of low-power networking and communication protocols/technologies: Using low-power communication and networking technologies that provide acceptable quality of service while minimising the energy consumption of the IoT device.
-   *Use of energy-efficient security mechanisms: Using energy-efficient security mechanisms to protect IoT systems is sometimes required to maintain a balanced trade-off between energy consumption and security, which is very challenging.
-   *Incorporation of efficient energy management mechanisms: To reduce energy consumption, idle computing and networking devices are often switched off, which may degrade the quality of service. Hence, it is required to maintain a balanced trade-off between quality of service and energy consumption.
-   *Interoperability: Choose standardised hardware and technologies to avoid interoperability issues.
-When designing IoT systems, the design choices should be made in such a way as to maintain a balanced trade-off between energy consumption, quality of service, and security. Since most of the hardware limitations result from the need to minimise energy consumption, incorporating energy harvesting systems to harvest energy from the environment to supply the IoT devices and recharge the energy storage systems in IoT devices is essential. It will relax the energy consumption constraint and increase the functional capabilities of IoT devices.
+**Design Constraints and Strategies**
+**1. Minimising Energy Consumption:**\\
+IoT device design prioritises energy efficiency to prolong operational lifetimes and reduce maintenance costs. Common strategies include:
-===== Connectivity issues =====
+  * **Low-power computing devices:** Utilising microcontrollers with optimised performance-to-power ratios.
+  * **Low-power communication protocols:** Leveraging protocols such as ZigBee, LoRaWAN, or BLE for energy-efficient data transfer.
+  * **Energy-efficient security mechanisms:** Implementing lightweight cryptographic techniques to balance security needs with energy limitations.
-Data is the lifeblood of IoT systems, and robust connectivity is required to facilitate data transfer between IoT devices, networking nodes, computing devices (fog nodes and cloud data centres) and applications. Some IoT applications require real-time monitoring and control of systems and processes to improve efficiency and productivity and facilitate decision-making processes. Most IoT devices are connected to the Internet through wireless access networks, which are highly complex, especially in urban areas with dense deployments of wireless networks. Ensuring reliable and efficient connectivity between the various systems in an IoT infrastructure (from the IoT perception layer to the application layer) is a challenging problem for IoT designers and developers.
+**2. Energy Management:**\\
+Mechanisms such as sleep modes or duty cycling are integrated to deactivate idle components, thereby conserving energy. However, this often compromises quality of service (QoS). Striking a balance between energy savings and performance remains a design challenge.
-In order to minimise the energy consumption of IoT devices to prolong (maximise) their lifetime, low-power communication and networking protocols and technologies have been adopted. However, the energy-efficiency or energy-saving goal is achieved at the expense of performance (networking reliability, throughput, packet delays, packet losses, packet collisions in shared wireless channels). Achieving a reasonable balance or trade-off between energy consumption and network performance is challenging but crucial when designing IoT networks.
+**3. Energy Harvesting:**\\
+Incorporating energy harvesting systems (e.g., solar, thermal, or kinetic energy) can supplement energy needs, reducing reliance on batteries. Yet, these systems face limitations, including intermittent energy availability and integration challenges due to size and weight constraints.
-Apart from the technical issues of network reliability and quality of services, the cost of connectivity is also essential, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. The higher cost of Internet connectivity and maintenance of the local IoT network will make the cost of operating the IoT infrastructure very high, reducing the return on investments and discouraging the adoption of IoT solutions. Therefore, the networking solution or technologies chosen when designing IoT networks should be reliable and relatively cheap to provide the users with reliable connectivity at a reasonable cost.
+===== Connectivity Issues =====
+Data is the backbone of IoT systems, making robust connectivity essential. IoT devices primarily rely on wireless networks to communicate, which introduces complexities in ensuring reliability, speed, and cost-efficiency.
-===== Energy and sustainability issues =====
+**Challenges in Connectivity**
-Most IoT devices are powered by cost-effective, small-sized batteries with limited energy capacity. Recent advances in low-cost and low-power IoT technologies have enabled the cost-effective, energy-efficient, data-driven, and flexible automation of cyber-physical systems. However, the energy required to power these systems and related infrastructures will be enormous when hundreds of billions of IoT devices are connected to the Internet, increasing the carbon footprint of the IoT industry and sustainability concerns.
+**1. Network Performance Trade-offs:**\\
+Energy-efficient protocols (e.g., BLE, Zigbee, LoRa WAN, and SigFox) often compromise throughput, latency, and reliability, leading to packet delays, losses, or collisions. Balancing energy efficiency and network performance is a core challenge.
-In order to ensure that IoT devices are small and
+**2. Scalability in Dense Deployments:**\\
-cheap for commercial deployment in large numbers, they are generally designed to have limited battery capacity, low computational power, limited memory, and use low-power networking and communication protocols and technologies. The essence of minimising energy consumption is to prolong the battery life and the lifetime of IoT devices (the time required to deplete all the energy stored in the battery of the IoT device), minimising downtimes and the cost of recharging or replacing IoT batteries.
+In urban areas, where wireless networks overlap, interference and bandwidth limitations degrade performance. This is especially critical for real-time IoT applications like healthcare monitoring or autonomous systems.
-There are increasing concerns about the resource sustainability and environmental impact of deploying billions or trillions of IoT devices in various sectors (e.g., intelligent transport systems, smart health care, smart manufacturing, smart homes, smart cities, smart agriculture, and smart energy) of the society or economy. There is a growing demand for energy to power the small IoT devices, transport the IoT traffic through the Internet, and analyse the massive amounts of data generated by the IoT devices at the fog nodes or cloud data centres, increasing the carbon footprint from IoT-based services.
+**3. Cost of Connectivity:**\\
+Small and medium-sized businesses often struggle with the high costs of maintaining IoT networks. Reducing operational expenses without compromising connectivity quality is a priority.
-One way to reduce the carbon footprint of the IoT industry and increase its sustainability is to incorporate energy harvesting in IoT systems and infrastructure. Although energy harvesting reduces some of the energy and sustainability challenges in the IoT industry, it has its challenges. One of the challenges with energy harvesting is the intermittent nature of the energy source, as energy availability depends largely on environmental factors that fluctuate significantly. Because of the need to keep the IoT devices or systems small and light and the low energy density of some energy sources, energy harvesting is sometimes minimal and barely satisfies the needs of IoT systems. Thus, one design challenge is to size the energy harvesting systems, the energy storage systems, and the energy demand of IoT systems in such a way as to ensure reliability (reduce related downtimes or outages).
+**Solutions to Connectivity Challenges**
+  * Adoption of advanced networking technologies such as 5G and edge computing to enhance speed and reduce latency.
+  * Employing hybrid connectivity solutions that combine wireless and wired networks for reliability.
+  * Optimising network design to ensure cost-effective, scalable, and robust connectivity.
+===== Energy and Sustainability Issues =====
+With billions of IoT devices deployed globally, the systems' energy demands and environmental impact have become significant concerns.
+**Energy and Environmental Challenges**
-===== Interoperability and scalability issues =====
+**1. Massive Energy Demand:**\\
+IoT devices, networks, and data centres collectively require substantial energy, increasing their carbon footprint.
+**2. Sustainability Concerns:**
+  * IoT devices' production, operation, and disposal contribute to electronic waste.
+  * Data transmission and processing in cloud systems further exacerbate energy consumption.
+**Mitigation Strategies**
+  * **Energy-Efficient Design:** Prioritising low-power technologies and algorithms.
+  * Energy Harvesting Integration: Leveraging renewable energy sources to power devices.
+  * Circular Economy Practices: Promoting reuse, recycling, and environmentally friendly manufacturing processes.
-===== Regulation, standardization and governance =====
+===== Interoperability and Scalability Issues =====
-Initial research in IoT was focused on developing proprietary solutions that were vendor-specific [124]. However, some efforts have been made by the Internet Engineering Force (IETF) to
+The diversity of hardware, software, and communication protocols in IoT ecosystems creates significant interoperability challenges, especially when integrating devices from multiple vendors.
-standardise some IoT protocols, such as IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LowPAN) [125], Routing over Lower power and Lossy networks (ROLL) [126] and Contraint
-RESTful environment (CoRE) [127] by its 6LowPAN, ROLL and CoRE working groups. Using heterogeneous IoT devices, protocols, and platforms developed by different vendors could result in inadequate regulations, standardisation and governance in the IoT domain [110]. These result in multiple security vulnerabilities and difficulties scaling up IoT application deployments. It
-will also slow down the rate of adoption of IoT in the food and agriculture industry, but adequate regulations, standardisation, and governance will enable interoperability, scalability and development of IoT solutions, taking into consideration security requirements.
+**Challenges**
-===== IoT Security Issues =====
+  * Lack of standardised protocols leads to fragmented ecosystems, making device integration complex and costly.
+  * Scalability issues arise when expanding networks, particularly when handling increased data traffic and device management.
+**Solutions**
+  * Adoption of open standards such as 6LoWPAN and MQTT to ensure compatibility.
+  * Utilising middleware solutions to facilitate communication between heterogeneous devices.
+  * Implementing modular designs that simplify network expansion.
+===== Regulation, Standardisation, and Governance =====
+The absence of universal IoT standards impedes collaboration and innovation while increasing security vulnerabilities.
-===== Data ownership and management issues =====
+**Regulatory Challenges**
-The debate about the ownership of data in the context of IoT is still an open issue, and it is very controversial. This is because there are different stakeholders in the value chain of the IoT ecosystem. The stakeholders in the IoT ecosystem and in the various sectors where IoT systems are being deployed to solve specific problems or create value are very concerned about
+  * Ensuring data privacy, security, and ethical use of IoT systems.
-privacy, ownership, the possibility of losing control over their data and the fear that their data could be misused. The question is whether the data belongs to the users (individuals or businesses using IoT services), IoT network provider, cloud platform provider or cloud infrastructure provider.
+  * Developing governance frameworks that accommodate diverse stakeholders, including manufacturers, service providers, and users.
-Resolving data ownership issues and creating data protection plans or strategies is challenging for IoT designers as it involves technical, legal, and ethical issues that are sometimes very complex to resolve. The IoT data management plan and strategy should be developed during the design and deployment stage, covering aspects such as data types, data lifecycle, data governance, and data security. Ownership of measurement data collected from the environment, data about the IoT devices, the data about the users of the devices, and the metadata (e.g., location data, timestamps, and labels) is critical, as well as how the data is stored and used.
+**Steps Forward**\\
+  * Collaborative efforts by organisations like IETF and ISO to develop global standards.
-Another challenge is to develop a data governance plan or strategy. That is, to develop a set of policies, procedures, regulations, and standards that should be followed when addressing issues regarding data ownership, data access, and data sharing within an organisation or across organisations. The objective is to ensure that IoT data governance policies, procedures, regulations, and standards are clear, fair, and simple to guarantee consistency, transparency, and accountability among all the stakeholders (e.g., data owners, users, service providers, and regulatory agencies).
+  * National and international regulations to enforce compliance, protect consumer rights, and foster interoperability.
-It is also challenging to ensure data privacy (protection of the IoT data) throughout all the stages of the data life cycle, from the data collection, transmissions, processing, analysis, storage, and deletion (if necessary) stages. At every stage of the data life cycle, it is important to ensure data security. That is, to ensure that the data is kept confidential, to maintain data integrity, and to ensure that it is readily accessible or made available to relevant stakeholders. Data protection plans should be designed to ensure the timely detection and prevention of data security breaches. However, it is challenging to guarantee long-term data security due to the rapid changes in the cybersecurity ecosystem and attack landscape.
+===== IoT Security Issues =====
+IoT systems are prone to cyber threats due to their distributed nature and resource-constrained devices.
+**Security Concerns**\\
+  * Inadequate security mechanisms in low-cost devices expose them to attacks like data breaches, botnets, and device hijacking.
+  * The interconnected nature of IoT systems amplifies risks, as a single compromised device can jeopardise the entire network.
+  * Integrating strong security mechanisms in IoT is challenging due to hardware constraints.
+  * Some manufacturers ship devices without adequate security mechanisms, leaving them vulnerable to cyberattacks.
-===== Cost issues =====
+**Mitigation Strategies**\\
+  * Implementing strong encryption and authentication protocols.
+  * Regular firmware updates and vulnerability assessments.
+  * Educating stakeholders about secure practices.
-===== User acceptance and adoption =====
+===== Data Ownership and Management Issues =====
-When designing and developing IoT applications, it is important to take into consideration those factors that could affect the acceptance of these solutions by the stakeholders. Some of these factors include perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived cost, perceived cost, perceived compatibility, perceived value, [5], perceived behavioural control, social influence, trust [129], and the challenges discussed above. If these issues are not addressed in the course of development of the solutions, then adoption may be slow. Stakeholders may need to
+The debate over data ownership is complex, involving technical, legal, and ethical dimensions.
-understand the capital expenditure (CAPEX) and the operational expenditure (OPEX) that IoT will be added to their business, its value and the return on their investments.
+**Key Challenges**\\
+  * Defining ownership among stakeholders (e.g., users, providers, and third parties).
+  * Ensuring data privacy, integrity, and availability across its lifecycle.
+**Proposed Solutions**
+  * Developing clear data governance frameworks to outline policies and responsibilities.
+  * Leveraging blockchain technology for transparent and secure data management.
+===== Cost Issues =====
+High design, deployment, and maintenance costs can discourage IoT adoption, particularly among smaller organisations.
+**Balancing Cost and Quality**\\
+  * Cheaper devices often compromise quality and security, increasing long-term expenses.
+  * Strategies to lower costs without sacrificing essential features include economies of scale, open-source solutions, and government subsidies.
+===== User Acceptance and Adoption =====
+The success of IoT systems depends on their perceived value and ease of use.
+**Challenges in Adoption**
+  * Stakeholders may resist due to cost, complexity, and privacy concerns.
+  * Lack of education and awareness about IoT benefits.
+**Solutions**\\
+  * Conducting user training and providing transparent information.
+  * Highlighting ROI and long-term benefits to stakeholders.
+The potential of IoT to revolutionise industries and improve quality of life is immense. However, its growth depends on addressing hardware, connectivity, security, sustainability, and adoption challenges. By focusing on innovative solutions, robust governance, and stakeholder collaboration, the IoT ecosystem can overcome these hurdles and achieve its transformative potential.

en/iot-reloaded/iot_system_design_challenges.1698793065.txt.gz · Last modified: 2023/10/31 22:57 by gkuaban