Internet-of-Things Communication Protocol for Low-Cost Devices in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

Abstract

In this paper, we present a new communication protocol for low-cost Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices that need to gather and transmit sensor data and receive remote commands. Taking into account that an IoT-network may employ different communication technologies, we define several important protocol features such as data encryption, integrity checking, sender authentication and data retransmission in case of packet delivery failures. We describe our approach to implementing each of the protocol features as part of our HybridNET system for industrial device control and communication. The hardware base includes cheap 32-bit microcontrollers, radio connectivity (SX1276 and others) and wired connectivity (mainly RS485 and Ethernet). We also describe the protocol packet structure in detail as well as our implementation for routing packets in larger IoT-networks. The experimental results are very promising and show that our protocol performs very well and delivers very good performance and reliability.