An Overview of Internet of Things and

Wireless Communications

Umit Deniz Ulusar Fadi Al-Turjman Gurkan Celik

Computer Engineering Department Computer Engineering Department Institute of Science and Technology
Akdeniz University METU, Northern Cyprus Campus Electrical-Electronic Eng. Dept.
Antalya, Turkey 99738 Kalkanli, Guzelyurt, Mersin 10, Akdeniz University
umitulusar@akdeniz.edu.tr Turkey Antalya, Turkey
fadi@metu.edu.tr gurkancelik07@gmail.com

Abstract—Innovations in technology that have enabled to achieve its potential [3][4]. Hence, we focus in this article on
efficient wireless tiny devices propelled the concept of Internet of the design aspects of wireless connections in the IoT era [2].
Things. It is expected that mobile data traffic will experience 8-
fold growth between 2015 and 2020 and the number of mobile
II. WIRELESS COMMUNICATION IN IOT
connected devices will reach 11.6 billion by 2020. Main factors of
this exponential growth and wide acceptance are the integration For wireless communication, there is a transceiver and
of several technologies and communications solutions such as receiver antennas that are attached with some geometry. The
wired and wireless sensor and actuator networks, next generation transmitter propagates a signal that is modulated onto the
communication protocols, identification technologies, and carrier frequency. Speed of signal is roughly the speed of
artificial intelligence for smart objects. In this work, we explore
light. Between these two antennas there can be obstacles that
the role of the IoT in various fields, consider technological
aspects, and examine the challenges and opportunities the IoT can cause the signal to be reflected, refracted or diffracted.
offers. Modelling physical phenomena are essential for rapid
addressing various network deployment problems. Figure 1
Keywords—path loss; heterogeneous networks; wireless sensor
depicts a wireless communication model where the line of
network; Internet of things
sight is highlighted. Other design issues of networks are path
loss, delay and mean queue length (MQL) [5].
I. INTRODUCTION
The Internet of Things (IoT) was initially presented at the
end of the last century and is recently gaining grounds in
various fields of technology. Nowadays, IoT is enabling
several applications/services in academic/industrial disciplines
ranging from environment to healthcare and medical fields
[1][2]. The main idea of this concept is the ubiquitous presence
around us with variety of things or objects that are connected to
the Internet such as mobile phones, laptops, daily used objects
like refrigerators, televisions and smart sensors.
Mainly, due to the rapid proliferation of wearable devices,
smart sensors and smartphones, the IoT enabled technology is
evolving from conventional hub based system to more
personalized systems. The successful utilization of IoT enabled Fig. 1. Path loss, distance and line of sight are main parameters for wireless
communication model.
technology in e-health and smart cities will enable faster and
safer preventive care, lower overall cost, improve person-
centric practice and enhance sustainability. Similar benefits are A. Path Loss and Loss of CommunicatiÕn
available for other fields such as security, monitoring and Wireless communication is susceptible to various
industrial management applications. interferences which can corrupt the communication. Path loss
Efficient IoT-enabled systems can be realized by providing is the reduction in signal power of communication signal as it
highly customized access to rich information and efficient propagates through space. Transmitter power is the amount of
decisions to each individual situation with unobtrusive energy a transmitter can produce and closely related with the
monitoring. Wireless communications are at the heart of this energy source that is being used with the device. Receiver
concept, and their development is a key issue if such concept is sensitivity is the minimum received signal power for a

978-1-5386-0930-9/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

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successful signal reception. For a successful communication,
the signal power at the receiving end of the network has to be
above the sensitivity level of the receiving device. Main path
loss reasons are heavily dependent on the physical
environment. Other path loss reasons are; gain and height of
the transmitter/receiver antennas, distance between transmitter
and receiver, communication frequency range, obstacles, user
mobility and environmental conditions.
Various researchers have studied path loss and offered
different models. Some of models are Hata Okumura, Egli,
Green-Obaidat, Welfisch-Ikegami and TM90. Hata Okumura
model is the most known model for PL [5]. IoT devices can
exist in different environments. As a result of this, stochastic
fading path loss model typically gives the closest values to the
real measurements.
B. Propagation Space and Environment
Environment around propagation space affects signal
characteristics and due to the mobile nature of devices and
users in IoT, in order to be able to create an accurate model for
wireless communication, various environmental conditions
must be considered. There are three widely-acknowledged
factors that significantly change signal prorogation
characteristics and network parameters: location, population
and flora. Population wise the environment is typically divided
into two subgroups; urban and rural. In urban areas, user
mobility within the network is significantly higher. In terms of
flora, vegetation of the environment and humidity increases the
attenuation of radio waves [6]. Different weather conditions
and locations effect the path loss parameter such as attenuation
is different if the device is located indoor or outdoor, under a
tree or in an open area.
Some of the widely-known terrain models are ITU, ITU-R
452, Longley-Rice Irregular. The ITU terrain model combines
free-space path loss with a single diffraction. ITU-R 452
estimates path loss by aggregating free-space attenuation,
absorption due to atmospheric gases, knife-edge diffraction,
obstruction from the curvature of the earth and tropospheric
scatter [6].
C. Wireless Communication in IoT using Q-Theory
Q-theory from a pure performance point of view has been
quite popular in the literature, however the mean energy
consumption and energy efficiency of the wireless
communications in IoT are not sufficiently considered. This is
mainly due to the fact that usually base stations have unlimited
power supply [7], which is not the case in IoT. With the rapid
increase in data traffic and handheld devices, improving energy
efficiency helps network operators to reduce the amount of
CO2 emission levels and the operational costs as energy
accounts for a significant part of their expenditures [8][9].
Therefore, it is very important to measure energy consumption
and look into how to save power in such systems and queuing
theory is the most popular approach in this field.
In a queuing system, customers arrive on the system and
leave after they are being served. The term “customer” is a
general term and varies in different application. In the context
of IoT wireless networks it usually represents packets. In
previous research studies [10][11], queuing systems have been
used to study the energy consumption of a campus wireless
local area network (WLAN). Also, performance evaluation of
wireless heterogeneous environments as well as wireless
cellular networks as a queuing systems have been studied
extensively in articles such as [12], [13] and [14] without
considering the energy consumption of the system. This
necessitates a special care and further analytical studies about
energy consumption in IoT.
D. Routing
Routing is the process of directing data across a network
using the optimum path to reach from transmitter to receiver.
The optimum parameter depends on various parameters and
routing model. Widely-known models are minimum delay,
minimum cost or maximum lifetime. Between transmitter and
receiver, there can be intermediate nodes which relay the
signal. Data routing in sensor networks are classified into three
main categories; data-centric, hierarchical and location-based
[15]. Some design considerations are delay, energy
consumption, error rate and reliability. Sequential Assignment
Routing (SAR), The Stateless Protocol for Real-time
Communications in Sensor Networks (SPEED), Real-Time
with Load Disturbed Routing (RTLD), Multiple Constraint
Multi-Path (MCMP) are some of the widely-used routing
models [6].
III. WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS (WSNS) AND
ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES
Wireless sensor network (WSN) has been regarded as a
promising data acquisition tool that can measure ambient
conditions, process and reveal events happening near sensors
and send collected data through a gateway or directly to a
collection center [16]. Energy consumption, memory storage,
communication bandwidth, localization, geographic routing
and data aggregation are major design issues.
Fig. 2. IoT application areas.

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 Another type of WSNs is wireless multi-media sensor
networks (WMSNs) that are mainly designed for realizing the
IoT paradigm by fostering applications such as smart cities,
smart agriculture, smart security and emergency systems [6].
Figure 2 shows some of the application areas of WSNs.
Information Centric Sensor Networks (ICSNs) is a new
paradigm that focus on delivering information from the
network based on user requirements by observing past actions
and outcomes, rather than serving as a point-to-point data
communication network [17].
A. Energy Consumption and Heterogeneous Networks
(HetNets)
One of the main goals of future wireless communication is
to decrease the energy consumption of devices to prolong their
operational time. Designing hybrid network topologies that can
bring the network closer to the mobile user provides a more
energy efficient communication. HetNet is a form of wireless
network which supports different Radio Access Technologies
(RATs). The basic idea is to combine energy hungry Macrocell
Base Stations (MBS) and Femtocell Base Stations (FBS).
Combining multiple RAT’s creates interoperability problems
such as mobility, handover and QoS. Deployment of femtocells
will also reduce the need for adding expensive macro base
station towers [18]. FBS can also be used to aggregate mobile
traffic and relay to macrocells or to other access networks.
Recently, FBSs have been used by many mobile operators in
outdoor deployments in rural and heavily populated areas. In
the near future, mobile FBSs will become more prominent and
will offer better mobile coverage and capacity [15].
B. Radio Frequency Identity (RFID)
IoT has already been integrated into our daily lives. The
amount of data produced by connected devices increased
exponentially and there is an immense research shift in finding
ways to process data in the most efficient and secure way.
Radio Frequency Identification is a unique identity of an object
and is fundamental to the realization of the IoT because it
enables things to be linked with their identity [19]. An RFID
system consists of a tag and a reader. Passive tags are typically
powered by electromagnetic signals generated by readers. Each
tag has an identification number and a memory that stores
additional data such as manufacturer and product type [20].
The reader is the active component of the system and attached
to an energy source [21].
IV. CHALLENGES AND DESIGN FACTORS
The Internet has changed the way people interact with each
other and the IoT has the potential to add a new dimension by
enabling communications with and among smart objects.
Creating a new all connected system through the use of
enabling technologies has design challenges as the application
areas are often context specific with complex requirements. In
this section, we discuss some of the major design issues for
seamless integration of WSNs in IoT applications.
A. Availablity
Main goal of the IoT is to provide observations on real-
world events and objects. Many such objects may move
around, thus the IoT devices attached to them has to follow
them. Handling such mobility is a key requirement for future
IoT solutions. During this mobility, lack of coverage and
handover are the main service failures. Other availability
problems may be related with software bugs, hardware failures,
human error or a combination of these factors.
B. Scalability
The scalability of the IoT refers to the ability to add new
objects, services and functions without significantly affecting
the quality of existing services. Adding new devices may be
challenging in the presence of different hardware platforms and
communications protocols. Besides, scalability is a major issue
for real time data processing and storing collected data for
future use.
C. Energy-efficiency
With the increase of number of base stations and connected
devices, current mobile networks experience explosive growth
in energy consumption. Improving energy efficiency has
positive economic and environmental impacts and may help to
reduce electromagnetic radiation. Data compression
algorithms, gathering techniques and energy-aware routing
protocols that monitor available energy in each node and select
the optimal path while satisfying the QoS requirements has
been proposed [8][9][10]. Improving energy efficiency also
reduces the operational cost.
D. Cost
Another factor is the cost of deployment, maintenance and
operation of a network. An active research area is the
development of deployment strategies for minimum building
and maintenance costs. Also, cost aware routing protocols are
being investigated for minimizing operating costs [22]. Some
routing algorithms such as minimum cost forwarding routing
are proposed to minimize expenses. Recently, simple passive
RFID tags have become available at affordable prices. Similar
price drop on encryption technologies may be a solution for
security issues.
E. Security
For some of the applications of the IoT in the industrial
control, transportation and healthcare, it is imperative to ensure
a secure IoT system. IoT systems using IP networks for
communication are vulnerable to known and potential security
problems and attacks. The potential impact of security flaws
could create significant damage to the infrastructure and for
eHealth applications even can result in loss of life. Device
identity and authentication mechanisms are one of the
fundamental elements in securing an IoT infrastructure. Most
IoT devices may not have the required processing power to
support the current authentication protocols. In order to
overcome security issues, new authentication schemes,
encryption/authentication algorithms and faster and cheaper
processors are required.

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F. Privacy
IoT may be regarded as the extension of Internet, but the
ways in which data collection is and will be achieved are
different. There will be numerous occasions where personal
data will be digitized without the consent and control of
individuals during the continuous data collection from sensor
nodes. Furthermore, current privacy problems typically arise
for active Internet users, but in the IoT scenarios, privacy arise
for all individuals. Legal regulations are required to ensure that
collected data should be used only in the aim of supporting
authorized services, provide guarantees and mechanisms to
individuals to be able to control which of their personal data is
being collected and by whom.
G. Reliability
Reliability has a very similar meaning with availability and
refers to the proper working of the system. In order to realize a
reliable information distribution IoT device has to be able to
provide some resilient to failures. Reliability can be achieved
by compatible operation of software, hardware and other
network components. Otherwise, unreliable sensor
measurements, data gathering and transmission can lead to
long delays, loss of data, and eventually wrong decisions.
V. SUMMARY AND OPEN RESEARCH ISSUES
This study covers some of the fundamental concepts of IoT,
path loss, terrain and environment, routing, heterogeneous
network and radio frequency identity. Since the end of last
century, the Internet has changed the way people communicate,
moving interactions between people to web pages, chat rooms
and blogs. The IoT has the potential to add a new perspective
by providing smart objects that are directly connected to
Internet, can communicate with each other and provide
continuous data on the surrounding environment.
Future research areas are various: development of smarter,
autonomous, decision making sensor nodes that can observe
and understand the needs and act upon them, smarter, more
energy efficient routing protocols, the integration of sensor
networks with wired networks, security and identification
technologies are some of them.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is supported by Tubitak project 115E198 and
SRP FEN-16-YG-5.
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