SensPnP: Seamless Integration of Heterogeneous Sensors With IoT Devices

The increasing growth of Internet of Things (IoT) applications induces the need for easy integration of third-party peripherals, which is restricted in present IoT devices. In this paper, we present a novel plug-and-play (PnP) solution for the above stated problem. The proposed PnP solution, named SensPnP, is the combination of embedded hardware and firmware that has the capability of integrating third-party embedded sensors with the IoT devices without any prior information about the sensors and the Internet. We present an architecture of a PnP-enabled IoT device, which supports heterogeneous embedded peripheral communication protocols. A novel embedded protocol detection approach for enabling seamless integration of sensor with IoT device is proposed. To enable sensor communication, we propose an algorithm for automatic driver management of the connected sensor with an IoT device. This is achieved through a low-cost and low power switching and identification hardware with a light-weight identification and driver management firmware stack. To show the effectiveness of the proposed solution, we practically implemented a prototype in a real test-bed. The analysis of the PnP time, protocol identification time, the memory footprint, lifetime, and overall cost of the proposed PnP solution under different operating conditions establishes superiority of its circuitry and firmware. Experimental results show that SensPnP requires minimal memory footprint, reduced energy consumption, and reduced PnP time compared to the existing solutions. Additionally, the overall cost analysis shows that the cost of SensPnP is noticeably less compared to existing solutions. Thus, the cost-efficiency of SensPnP makes it more acceptable to the consumers when compared with existing solutions.