Understanding IoT Architecture: Hardware and Software Components

Introduction

IoT architecture combines hardware and software components to enable seamless device connectivity and data exchange. Hardware includes sensors, actuators, and gateways, while software comprises protocols, cloud platforms, and analytics tools. Together, they form the foundation for IoT applications in various domains.

This article provides an overview of the components required to design an efficient IoT architecture. As we know, IoT (Internet of Things) has been evolving at a very rapid rate. Due to this, research on new IoT devices and IoT wireless technologies are also rising to bring IoT products at a cheaper and faster rate.

IoT has been classified into two categories: “people to things,” referred to as C2B (Customer to Business), and “things to things” or “machine to machine,” referred to as M2M. People to Things involves IoT devices available at home, such as wearables, fitness-related devices, connected goods, etc. M2M involves everything related to manufacturing and automation industries.

Let us understand the basics of IoT architecture. As we know, an IoT system consists of three main parts: sensors, network connectivity, and data storage applications. The same has been depicted in figure-1. As shown in the figure, sensors in the IoT devices either communicate directly with the central server for data storage or communicate via gateway devices.

Sensors for various applications are used in different IoT devices as per different applications such as temperature, power, humidity, proximity, force, etc.

A gateway takes care of various wireless standard interfaces, and hence one gateway can handle multiple technologies and multiple sensors. The typical wireless technologies used widely are 6LoWPAN, Zigbee, Zwave, RFID, NFC, etc.

A gateway interfaces with the cloud using backbone wireless or wired technologies such as WiFi, Mobile, DSL, or Fibre. As shown, IoT supports both IPv4 and IPv6 protocols. Due to the support of IPv6, which has about a 128-bit long IP address length, there are enough addresses available to the growing demand for IoT devices.

DTN (Delay Tolerant Networks) is the unique feature of IoT that takes care of the large variable delay requirement of IoT-based networks compared to traditional computer networks. As shown, IoT service providers offer varied QoS with different pricing and design needs for memory, CPU, and battery consumption.

IoT Hardware Architecture

As we have seen, an IoT device consists of an upper protocol stack and physical and RF layers. The system can be constructed using MCUs (Micro-controller Units). The choice of MCU depends on system-on-chip resources, power required, and interfaces needed as per different sensors. The memory requirements of IoT hardware also need to be carefully studied.

In order to finalize the IoT hardware architecture, the following aspects need to be collected. These parameters will help finalize an ideal IoT hardware prototype as well as the cost of the required IoT hardware components.

• Type of sensors/actuators
• Communication interface type
• Amount of data to be captured and transmitted
• Frequency of the data transportation

IoT Architecture for Software

Typically, IoT software architecture is based on open-source components. Figure-2 above depicts the IoT architecture commonly in use for most systems. As shown, Linux is widely used, as it doesn’t require waiting to finalize the target hardware, and software development can go in parallel.

Now-a-days many companies are working to provide ready-to-use IoT frameworks for various IoT-specific applications. The CoAP protocol is used, which is unique to IoT applications and offers a common mechanism to communicate with IoT devices.

Vendors of IoT Frameworks

The following table mentions IoT frameworks vendors, providers, or developers.

Conclusion

A well-defined IoT architecture integrates robust hardware and software components to ensure system reliability and scalability. Understanding these components helps in building IoT systems tailored to specific industry needs. As IoT continues to grow, having a clear grasp of its architecture will be critical for successful implementation.