Enabling Cloud Connectivity for Mobile Internet of Things Applications

The number of small embedded devices connected to the Internet is increasing. This growth is mostly due to the large number of Internet of Things (IoT) deployments, with applications such as: industrial monitoring, home automation, and others. One common aspect with the majority of application areas is the lack of mobility. Most IoT devices are stationary and often use IEEE 802.15.4/6LoWPAN solutions. When a high level of mobility is required, the use of IEEE 802.15.4 is not possible without adding additional hardware for the user to carry. In this article, a holistic network architecture consisting of heterogeneous devices is presented. The architecture is composed of Embedded Internet Systems (EIS) and uses standard communication protocols. One important feature is the use of the Service-oriented architecture (SOA) paradigm. The use of SOA, by utilization of the CoAP protocol and standard services, enables the proposed architecture to exchange sensor- and actuator data with an Internet-based cloud as well as a user's local cloud consisting of sensor IoT devices, smart phones and laptops. Another component of the architecture is a web-based human-machine interface for configuration, monitoring and visualization of sensor and actuator data using emerging web technologies for structured data processing. Results from experiments and real-world tests show that the proposed architecture can support sample rates of up to several kHz while enabling sensor data to be transmitted to SOA services in real time. This proves that the use of SOA, and Restful web services in particular, is feasible on resource-constrained platforms while supporting true mobility.