Supporting multicast and broadcast traffic for groups of connected devices

In order to secure the Internet of Things, we have proposed to split connected devices into groups, called communities of devices. Each of those communities connects devices authorized to communicate with each other using a defined set of applications. To isolate information exchanged within each community, the network can be “sliced”, with each slice being dedicated to a community. However, such a network architecture is challenging to the control of multicast and broadcast traffics, especially when each of the devices can pertain to several communities simultaneously. This paper exposes specific issues regarding multicast and broadcast traffic within the described IoT environment. It proposes an appropriate and innovative solution to work around those issues.