Realization of a Novel, Lightweight and Secured CoAP Based Monitoring System in Smart Logistics

Internet of Things (IoT)-where the physical components are able to communicate with each other and with the internet-is one of the driving forces behind the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Nowadays, IoT applications have become widespread across many industries. However, due to the resource-constrained nature of IoT devices, they cannot be secured using conventional security protocols that are already developed. Hence, lightweight implementations of IoT security are the need of the hour. This paper proposes a secure and tamper-resistant system for monitoring the status of items in a container during transportation and storage using IoT devices. As smart logistics often transport items that are sensitive to environmental changes such as temperature and humidity, the security of data obtained from these sensors is the main focus of this research. To evaluate the performance of the system, a pilot-scale silo has been fabricated. Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is used as the communication protocol and a lightweight implementation of Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) protocol has been adapted for the smart container architecture to incorporate cryptographic security. The low power consumption of the lightweight DTLS-secured CoAP implementation will drastically increase the efficiency of the smart logistics architecture without compromising its security.