Communication Protocols for the Internet of Things

Introduction

The computer networks are an interconnection of the computer systems to share the information that has evolved tremendously. The computer networks, which were emerging in the late 1960’s, has become the information pool that is available nowadays in the form of Internet from the early 1990s.

The Internet is a network of networks. A software layer, which sits on the top of the operating system, is responsible for implementing the distributed system model. The World Wide Web (WWW) is the distributed system that runs on the top of the internet and offers webpages to the users. The main goal of the network is to share the resources. The resources can be program, physical devices, or data. The communication between the systems on the network can be done by a set of protocols (or rules). Most of the network support layered protocol approach in which each layer provides services to the above layer and protects from the details of the protocols used in the lower layers.

The protocol stacks are based either on the OSI model or the TCP/IP model. Both the models have a set of layers and each layer has its own set of protocols. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standard organization that develops the protocol standards that comprises the Internet Protocol Suite. The IETF is divided into working groups and each work group is meant for a specific application. The Request for Comments (RFCs) are the technical reports that are submitted to the IETF. The RFCs are available online and can be accessed from the websitewww.ietf.org/rfc. The ITU (International Telecommunication Union) is an organization that standardizes the international telecommunications. The communication protocol is very significant irrespective of the physical medium used by the network.

The below sections provide information about the communication protocols used in the Internet of Things network and the protocols at each layer level are discussed.

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  Section 1 describes the Internet Protocol Suite and the different layers present in the IoT Protocol Suite.

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  Section 2 describes the Physical and Link Layer protocols.

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  Section 3 describes the Adaptation Layer and its benefits.

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  Section 4 describes the Network layer protocols and its benefits.

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  Section 5 briefs the Transport layer.

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  Section 6 explains about the Application layer protocols and its simulations.