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Future Applications and Research Challenges of IOT

Habib Ur Rehman Muhammad Asif Mudassar Ahmad
Computer Science Department, Computer Science Department, Computer Science Department,
National Textile University, National Textiel University, National Textile University,
Faisalabad, Pakistan. Faisalabad, Pakistan. Faisalabad, Pakistan.
habib_tuf@hotmail.com asif@ntu.edu.pk mudassar@ntu.edu.pk

Abstract—Internet of Things (IoT) extends the concept of a

digital world into the physical world. This extension will lead
the human to be more secure, comfortable and happier than
before. The merger of the internet and things also influence
the growth of the economy due to its numerous applications.
IoT applications cover almost all aspects of human life and
make the connectivity possible at anytime, anywhere and to
anything in near future. Implementation of this type of
connectivity opens many research challenges for the research
community. This paper mainly focuses on the different
domains of future IoT applications and their research
challenges.

Keywords—Internet of things, Research challenges, Health

care, Security

I. INTRODUCTION
Digital world revolutionizes our life styles by
incorporating the things and the internet in a more
organized and disciplined way. This merger had a great
impact on our economy, governance, and industry in terms
of efficiently utilizing the resources as well their better
organization. One of the main ideas that play a big part in
the revolution of the digital world is Internet of things. It
was first coined by British Scientist kavin Ashton in 1999
Fig.1 Projected Market share of different IoT applications domains
when he was working on item identification with RFID
tags in supply chain management in which all operation
Due to its diversification, it is important to know what
performed without the involvement of humans. [1] After
IoT is, [1] defines IoT as “An open and comprehensive
that many developments have been made in the IoT and it
network of intelligent objects that have the capacity to
becomes an emerging field for future. By 2020 this
auto-organize, share information, data, and resources,
technology will become leading technology around the
reacting and acting in face of situations and changes in the
world. In [2] authors predict that by the end of 2020 nearly
environment”
212 billion smart objects being deployed in the market.
Further machine to machine traffic flow will show IoT is a connection of objects that behave intelligently
enamours increase in the market by 45% till 2020. It will with the situation. Simple objects will become smart in IoT.
greatly impact on the economic growth in almost all fields To fulfil this dream there are some requirements of IoT
of life. Fig 1 depicts the projected market share of different which are: Dynamic Resource Demand, Real Time Needs,
IoT applications domains [3]. Exponential Growth of Demands, Availability of
IoT is the combination of two words: The Internet and Application, Data Protection, and Users Privacy, Efficient
things. The Internet means connectivity, a thing cover not Power Management, Access to an Open and Inter Operable
only electronic devices but also includes living things System and execution of Application Near to end User.
(animals, human, birds and etc.) and non-living things These requirements will be managed by the corporation of
(clothes, food and etc.) and the word “of” connect these different technologies like: Radio frequency Identification
two words to form an IoT. Further IoT gives the concept of (RFID), Internet Protocol (IP), Electronic product code,
ubiquity. Bar code, Wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi), Near field
communication (NFC), Actuators, Wireless sensor
network (WSN) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).[4] Further

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IoT has some aliases like Cyber Physical Systems,
Pervasive Computing, Ubiquitous Computing, Machine to
Machine Interaction, Human Computer Interaction and
Artificial Intelligence.
IoT is expanding its application domain over the globe
and covering the different fields like logistics and
transportation, Healthcare, smart environments, personal
and social, agriculture and schools [5]. In transportation, it
includes assisted driving, mobile ticketing and
environmental monitoring augmented maps. When we talk
about health it includes tracking of patients, identification
and authentication, data collection, and sensing. Personal
and social aspect covers following applications domain:
social networking, Historical queries, losses, and thefts.
Figure-2 describes the application domain of IoT
Applications [3].
For example, a car equipped with IoT technology will
not only assist the drivers by providing the facility of maps
i.e. giving directions and suggesting best routes to reach
the destination. Further, it also connects the driver with
traffic management system of the city and more
importantly informs the driver about the condition of the
car by in cooperating with the sensors present in the
engine and gives the real-time data to the driver. Apart
from that, it will also connect to the manufacturer for
feedback about different parts of the car. In that way, it
will not only help the driver but also the manufacturer to
manufacture the best products. When a fault occurs in any
part of the car, information not only distributed to the
driver but also to the manufacturer. It will also assist the
driver to reach the nearest maintenance shop intelligently
and perform the following task automatically: taking an
appointment to that shop, checking the availability of
worker as well as defected part (in the case of replacement
identified by the system). Further, it will also notify other
users of that defected part for necessary actions well
before time for safe driving. This is the one way the
internet of things improves the human life. There are many
other scenarios and projects which lead us safe and
comfortable life just because of IoT paradigm.
The rest of the paper is organized as Section 2 describes the
different application domains of IoT Section 3 discusses
the recent research challenges of IoT.
II. APPLICATION OF IOT
IoT is now become very exciting and challenging
technology for applications developer due to its diverse
nature which covers different aspects of life. IoT
application domain not restricted to one aspect of human
life like building concept as a smart building or smart
homes but also dominant in other fields [6] like health,
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Smart
Transportation Homes
Market
Application
Smart domains of IoT
City
Agriculture
Industry Healthcare
Fig. 2: Application domains of IoT
agriculture, environmental monitoring, smart businesses,
banking and etc. We have divided the application domain
of IoT into the following domains and discuss their
respective application that made human life more
comfortable, easier and healthier.
A. Smart Environment:
Smart environment includes smart homes, smart
buildings, and smart city. Smart homes equipped with IoT
infrastructure gives us a comfortable life and more
importantly, this technology gives the concept of
efficiently utilizing the resources. Smart homes [7] and
buildings [8] also help to determine the needs of human by
collecting the real time data. The main object of this
technology is the sensors that will not only sense the data
but also communicate with the appliances and make them
efficient in terms of energy resources, utilization and
security. For example, Lights will be on and off according
to human need. AC temperature will adjust according to
requirements as well as it will switch on and off as per the
situation. There are many other applications in this regard
but the concept is to enhance the comfort level of the
human within the building premises. Smart city [9] is the
concept of advanced city infrastructure equipped
innovative services and merger of technology within the
city. Smart city will be able to utilize the concept of IoT to
efficiently utilizes the available resources and provide the
services to people to feel more comfortable, secure and
well aware. Traffic control system connected with IoT is
one of the projects of the smart city. In this system
information of traffic congestion or traffic jam will

transfer to the vehicle driver and also share an alternate
route in order to avoid the congestion. Further smart car
parking, smart waste management, smart grids, smart
health and smart education are some more examples of
smart city projects around the world.
B. Environmental Monitoring
IoT technology can effectively use for environmental
monitoring like temperature, rain fall and river height etc.
All these systems integrate with a central or global system
for decision making with the help of IoT technology.
Further with the development of wireless sensor network
linked with IoT, we can monitor those areas where a
human can’t reach like volcanic eruption areas, mountain
abysses and some of the remote areas. One of the
application scenarios of IoT in this regard is the fire
detection mechanism or monitoring the fire. It also
includes the safety of human with the technology. For
example, with the help of IoT sensors, temperature sensors
sense the fire and quickly inform the rescue team. Further,
it also incorporates the other data like a number of human
beings, assets, the intensity of the fire, material present
over there and some other related information that help
people for better rescue as well as it reduces the damage.
In [10] authors introduces IoT enabled emergency
information supply chain architecture for elderly people to
help them for safe exit in the case of emergencies like in
the case of forest fire and flood etc. They will inform well
before time and can easily escape from those situations.
There are many other scenarios that will also manage more
efficiently like earth quick and tsunami when we centrally
collect the data in a regular and organized way with the
help of IoT technology.
C. Health Care
IoT improves the health care [11] department due to its
innovative applications. IoT technology changes the way
of medication and treatment by using some innovative
ideas. Now monitoring the patient becomes easy and
manageable with IoT technology. Sensor technology
senses the patient blood pressure, body temperature,
breathing activity of patient etc. The data from those
sensors either periodically or real time will collect and
share to health management system equipped with IoT
technology. Further patient living can also be a monitor for
proactive measures related to health. In [12] authors
discuss the technologies related to medicine reminder in
health homes. Furthermore, discussing the health issue of
an elderly people [13] authors describe the use of health
smart homes in order to monitor the patient’s special for
elderly people. We can emerge the concept of telemedicine
and information system under the umbrella of IoT. In [14]
authors enhances the functionalities of health smart homes
with IoT technologies. They use the images and facial
expression to enhance the functionality of smart homes in
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terms of health. First tracking of person is done with the
help of sensor, then with the help of face expression
emotion recognition can perform to enhance the healthcare
assistant for people.
Discussing more health care of elderly people paper
[10] discuss the ambient assistant living for elderly people.
This paper introduces the mechanism that successfully
detects and generates the alarms in the case of stroke by
monitoring the brain activities.
D. Smart Business
There are many things that are included in the smart
business but the more fascinating is the use of RFID
technology to introduces the concept of smart businesses
and inventory control management system. We can track
and monitor the goods with the help of RFID technology.
Further, with the help of RFID, we can check the
availability of the product in stock real time as well as it
also helps in inventory management. Discussing more the
smart business we can track as well as check the quality of
products by combining the RFID and bio sensors. Further
by using the IoT we can enhance the productivity of our
business by the quality of our products.
E. Social Networking
Social networking interlinks the Society for sharing the
information and values with each other. It provides us
platform for better communication. There are many
applications that connect people in a unique way when we
relate to the concept of IoT. The concept of the web of
things is also important in this regard that plays a vital role
in social networking innovations.
F. Security and Surveillance
Security is an important aspect when we integrate the
different technologies under the single management
system. IoT gives us more secure world by using its
innovative technologies. Security includes the security of
homes, buildings, shops and car parking are now easy to
manage with the help of IoT. [15] In the military there are
numerous applications of IoT through which we can better
control and have an eye on the battle field by using the
sensors.
III. RESEARCH CHALLENGES
Due to its massive scaling and coverage, the internet of
things attracts the scientist and researcher for its research.
IoT is still under development phase that means much
more works needs to be done to make this concept. During
the last decade’s lot of work has been done in the different
domains of IoT which includes application development,
security, privacy, its connectivity, protocols, architecture
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Application
Architecture Networks
IoT
Reserach
Challanges
Standards Privacy
Security
Fig 3 Domains of IoT research challenges
and much more. But still, there are some research
challenges that need to be focused for future work in the
above mentions domains of IoT. This paper mainly
focuses on the Applications areas, Standards,
Networking/Connectivity issues, Architecture, Security
and privacy issues of IoT. Figure-3 depicts the domains of
IoT research challenges.
Application development for IoT has many research
challenges. Application developed for IoT should be
capable to handle the real-time data and communicate with
the other devices. Further, it should not only deal with
sensing and actuate rather it will in cooperate with the
human as well e.g. Human to Human (H2H), Human to
Machine (H2M) and Machine to Machine (M2M).
Including more about application development, it also
satisfies the requirement of IoT which is distributed and
heterogeneous in nature. Further in future, considering the
IoT perspectives some of the possible applications types
are as follows: Application those who predict the natural
disasters , Industrial applications that includes simulations
, monitoring the performances of varies phenomenon ,
Water security monitoring applications , application
needed to designing the smart homes and Medical
applications which includes monitoring the activities and
health parameters , medical intakes. Further applications
for agriculture which include smart packing, alerts via text
message about the land defect, intakes etc. Including more
about future applications: applications for intelligent
transport system design like monitoring that traffic, law
enforcement, controlling the environmental pollution.
Some of the future applications also touch areas like
applications for smart cities, smart meetings and smart
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security. There are many organizations that are working on
applications development for IoT and some are working
on environments for IoT. Microsoft Eye on Earth is an
example of that kind of contribution in the field of IoT. A
cluster of European Research project for IoT (CERP-IoT)
is also working on the development of IoT applications.
A. Universal Standards:
There is a need for universal standards to communicate
with such heterogeneous environment of devices.
Although ETSI and IETF communities are working on
standards related to IoT and develop standards but still the
universal standard for communication is still a research
challenge in IoT.
B. Networks/ Connectivity:
As the connectivity is basic ingredient of this
technology and we want to connect anything, anytime and
anywhere, so we need to focus on the connectivity or
networks issues of IoT. In IoT unique identifier for all
communication devices demands to build an effective
addressing policy for IoT enable devices and IP standard
integration. As we know that billions and trillions of
devices are connected in the world for this purpose there is
a need of identity management system which provides us
efficient addressing for devices which work globally.
Further, an appropriate mechanism is also required for
mobility in IoT. One of the research challenges that is still
open is the traffic characterization and combining the
concept of traffic characterization and modelling for
implementation of quality of service in IoT. Quality of
service in the field of IoT is another challenge for
scientists in IoT. As there are many devices which are
interconnected and having the energy issues due to their
size and battery-operated devices or sensors that have a
great impact while choosing the best routing protocol for
them. There is a need to develop a protocol that satisfies
these needs. IoT uses different routing protocols with little
modification as used in a wireless network or ad-hoc
network. In [16] Authors develop a new routing protocol
ERGID for emergency response that meets most of the
requirements of IoT but still has some problems related to
packet loss and energy efficiency when compare it with
existing routing protocols of IoT. So, it is another research
challenge to develop a routing protocol for IoT which is
efficient in terms of energy, scalability and performance.
C. The architecture of IoT:
As we are in the initial stages in the development of
IoT phase so there is a need to build standard architecture
for communication. The architecture provides the
interoperability between the devices, it simplifies the
development and finally equipped with standards that
provide easiness during implementation. In the case of the

internet of things, there are some reference architectures
those who contribute in the IoT communication [17]. For
example Reference Architecture Modale industries (
RAMI 4.0 ) that meet some industrial needs in terms of
IoT, Industrial Internet Reference Architecture (IIRA) ,
European Union projects and European
Telecommunication Standard Institute Technical
Committee , European Research Cluster of Internet of
Things ( IREC) working on development of standard
architecture for IoT that particularly work on user
experience, user to machine communication, machine to
machine communication , device management , data
collection , scalability , Security features and overall
communication pattern for users in IoT. Further European
project FP7 project Internet of Things Architecture (IoT-
A) are working on the standard architecture for Internet of
Things (IoT). Big data is also playing a vital role in
terms of architecture so we need to focus on this aspect
while conducting research for the standard architecture of
IoT.
D. Cellular Computing:
Mobile phones are active agents in the file of IoT.
Mobile phones and its applications contribute a lot in
Participatory sensing, Eco feedback, Actuation, Health,
Sports, Gaming, Transportation, Interaction with things
and Social interaction with the people [18]. Due to its wide
application domain, this area needs to be focused in
research. There are some open issues related to that.
Heterogeneity among the devices and users in an IoT is a
big challenge that needs to be discussed in near future. We
need to concentrate on the lower level interactions as
standards have been developed for application layers. In
some applications of IoT we need continues sensing that
give the opportunity to build some mechanisms that fulfil
the demands of signal processing, continues sensing and
more importantly storage devices. The third issue is related
to crowd sensing that includes problems related to research
are: Quality of sensing measurement, dealing with
unreliable, noisy and incomplete data and preferences of
locations as per individuals. Fourth is the context problem
that emphasizing the impact of context while collecting the
data especially when we are exposed to an event for a very
short period of time. Security is another challenging area
of mobile phone computing for research especially
security for shared resources in IoT. Some solution has
been made for this purpose such as Relay infrastructure for
secure access but we need some standard solutions for IoT.
In IoT, trillions of devices are connected which generate a
huge amount of data shared at one time. So, the privacy of
personal information in terms of its sharing is a big
challenge for researchers. Some approaches have been
developed those who focused on quality are
AnonySENSE, Social Access Controller (SAC) but we
need a further extension and develop some more standards
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for privacy issues in mobile phone computing. Reliable
information and data coaction is another very important
factor in IoT and it's critical when we are working on the
health monitoring applications. Some other issues that
need to be focused on research challenge are Search and
Discovery, Personalization, Emotional analysis,
Persuasion and big data analysis [19].
E. Security:
Almost trillions of devices are connected in IoT and
share the data with each other that might be sensitive data
like in banking sector e.g. PINs for an account and
personal information etc. that needs to be secure for secure
communication. Security in IoT technology plays a vital
role to overcome these scenarios. In [20] [21] papers
authors discuss the security issues and their possible
solutions. Normally we use encryption mechanism to
protect the data or information but in the case of IoT, the
devices have much less processing power and energy
resources as compared to traditional Internet devices so
there is a need to write such algorithms of encryption that
meets the requirements of IoT. Further identity
management is also a part in security to introduce the
unique identifier for each device and has the mechanism to
secure them. For secure communication in IoT, there must
be a mechanism for authentication and data integrity. In
some scenarios of IoT devices exposes to open
environment or unattended for some period of time during
its working so there is a possibility of physical attacks as
well as a proxy attack on the devices or links. There is a
need to build some security mechanisms that help in
protecting the data or links to get safe communication.
Key management scheme will also be established for this
purpose. As IoT needs to process a large amount of data it
is very hard to maintain security on devices for a long time
to keep data secure. To secure the data which is unattended
and not used for some period, a concept of digital
forgetting may apply which delete the information or data
after some specific time when there will be no need of it. It
also helps to maintain the security. For example: If we
share some picture today via some social site then after
some specific period it will be deleted automatically from
your account. There is a need to develop some standard
system for digital forgetting to make it more efficient. We
need the comprehensive type of security architecture that
meets all the requirement of security in terms of IoT.
F. Privacy:
In IoT trillions of users connected with each other and
there is a massive amount of data that we can share on this
platform but there is a problem of privacy. There should be
a mechanism in which we can say that data of the specific
user can only be used when this data is authorized by the
user. Further, this data can only be used for some specific
purposes and for some specific domain and must not be
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publicly accessed. For this purpose, we need to make a
privacy policy for all devices, protocols and application
that should follow the above mention points.
G. General Resaearch challenges of IoT:
As IoT gives the new paradigm to society so there is a
need to change in laws [22] as per this new era of
technology. There should be a threat for sanctions in the
case of violations of rules. Further, there is a need to be
work on the global accountability related to legal aspects
of using this new technology.
For IoT communication as it handles a large number of
sensor and actuators, we need a dedicated spectrum so that
devices can effectively communicate with each other.
Further a standard mechanism for spectrum management.
In IoT huge number of devices relates to each other in
order to share the information. Due to the processing of
this huge amount of data devices will consume more
amount of energy. It will affect the lives of devices that are
connected under the umbrella of IoT. We need to adopt
some mechanisms that will reduce the energy further we
can use green technology for IoT devices so that we will
make them energy efficient.
These are some research challenges that need to be
focused in near future to fulfil the dream of IoT
implementation in the real world.
IV. CONCLUSION:
Internet of things improves the human life by
incorporating the internet and things together. IoT will not
only provide the human comfort but also improve the
efficiency of the things and make them intelligent. Due to
diverse nature of IoT, it will become the most emerging
technology in near future. In this paper, we have discussed
different applications related to IoT domain: how these
applications contribute to society. This paper will also help
the researchers and practitioners to understand potential
research challenges of IoT that will become research
trends for future.
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