Today, we talk about the communication protocols in IoT, and the IoT communication protocols comparison.
As the number of IoT devices continues to increase, the communication or connection between these devices has become an important topic to think about.
Communication is very common and critical for IoT, both near-field wireless transmission technology and mobile communication technology affect the development of IoT.
And in communication, communication protocols are especially important, being the rules and conventions that both entities must follow to complete their communication or services.
What are the communication protocols used by IoT?
IoT communication protocols applicable
This paper presents several available IoT communication protocols with different performance, data rates, coverage, power, and memory, and each of them has its own advantages and more or fewer disadvantages.
Some of these IoT communication protocols are only suitable for small home appliances, while others can be used for large smart city projects.
IoT communication protocols are divided into two main categories.
One type is access protocol:
Generally responsible for networking and communication between devices in the subnet
Another type is communication protocol:
It is mainly a device communication protocol running on top of the traditional Internet TCP/IP protocol, which is responsible for data exchange and communication between devices through the Internet.
First, Physical layer and data link layer protocols in IoT communication protocols
1. Long-distance cellular communication
(1) 2G/3G/4G in IoT communication protocols
(2) NB-IoT
Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) in IoT communication protocols has become an important branch of the Internet of Everything.
Built on cellular networks, NB-IoT consumes only about 180 kHz bandwidth and can be deployed directly on GSM networks, UMTS networks, or LTE networks to reduce deployment costs and enable smooth upgrades.
Focused on the Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) Internet of Things (IoT) market, NB-IoT is an emerging technology that can be used in a wide range of applications around the world.
It features wide coverage, multiple connections, fast speed, low cost, low power consumption, and excellent architecture.
NB-IoT Applications
Scenario applications brought by NB-IoT networks include smart parking, smart firefighting, smart water, smart streetlights, shared bicycles, and smart home appliances, etc.
(3) 5G NR
The fifth-generation mobile communication technology, 5G new radio in IoT communication protocols is the latest cellular mobile communication technology generation.
The performance goals of 5G are high data rates, reduced latency, energy savings, reduced costs, increased system capacity, and large-scale device connectivity.
5G NR Applications
AR/VR, Telematics, Smart Manufacturing, Smart Energy, Wireless Healthcare, Wireless Home Entertainment, Connected Drones, UHD/panoramic live streaming, Personal AI assistance, Smart Cities.
2. Long-range non-cellular communication
(1) Wi-Fi
Due to the rapid popularity of home WiFi routers and smartphones in previous years, WiFi protocols in IoT communication protocols have also been widely used in the smart home field.
The biggest advantage of WiFi protocol is that it can directly access the Internet.
Compared with ZigBee, smart home solutions using Wifi protocol eliminate the need for additional gateways, and compared with Bluetooth protocol, the reliance on mobile terminals such as cell phones is eliminated.
The coverage of commercial WiFi in public places such as urban public transportation and shopping malls has revealed the potential of commercial WiFi for scenario application.
(2) ZigBee
ZigBee in IoT communication protocols is a wireless communication protocol for low-speed and short-range transmission and is a highly reliable wireless data transmission network.
The main features are low speed, low power consumption, low cost, support for a large number of online nodes, support for a variety of online topologies, low complexity, fast, reliability, and security.
ZigBee technology is a new technology that has emerged recently, relying mainly on wireless networks for transmission, which can be connected wirelessly at close range and belongs to wireless network communication technology.
The inherent advantages of ZigBee technology make it gradually become a mainstream technology in the IoT industry, and it is used on a large scale in industry, agriculture, smart home, and other fields.
(3) LoRa
LoRa™ (LongRange) in IoT communication protocols is a modulation technology that provides a longer communication distance compared to similar technologies.
LoRa gateways, smoke sensors, water monitoring, infrared detection, positioning, and drainage plugs are widely used in IoT products.
As a narrowband wireless technology, LoRa is using time difference of arrival to achieve geolocation.
Application scenarios of LoRa positioning: smart city and traffic monitoring, metering and logistics, agricultural positioning monitoring.
3. Proximity communication
(1) RFID
Radiofrequency identification (RFID) is the abbreviation of Radio Frequency Identification.
The principle of non-contact data communication between the reader and the tag is to achieve the purpose of identifying the target.
RFID has a wide range of applications, typical application scenarios.
Animal chip, car chip immobilizer, access control, parking control, production line automation, material management, etc.
The complete RFID system consists of three parts: a reader (Reader), electronic tag (Tag), and data management system.
(2) NFC
The full name of NFC is near-field communication technology.
NFC is based on non-contact radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, combined with wireless interconnection technology research and development, it is increasingly popular in our daily life with a variety of electronic products to provide a very safe and fast way of communication.
Applications
NFC has the functions of human-machine interaction and interaction between machines.
(3) Bluetooth
Bluetooth technology is an open global specification for wireless data and voice communication, which is based on low-cost proximity wireless connection, a special proximity wireless technology connection for fixed and mobile devices to establish a communication environment.
Bluetooth enables wireless information exchange between many devices including cell phones, PDAs, wireless headsets, laptops, related peripherals, and more.
Using Bluetooth technology, can effectively simplify the communication between mobile communication terminal devices, and also successfully simplify the communication between devices and the Internet Internet, so that data transmission becomes more rapid and efficient, and broaden the road for wireless communication.
4. Wired communication
(1) USB
USB, an abbreviation for Universal Serial Bus, is an external bus standard for regulating the connection and communication between computers and external devices. It is the interface technology applied in the field of PC.
(2) Serial communication protocol
Serial communication protocol refers to the specification of the content of the data packet, which contains the start bit, body data, parity bit, and stop bit, and both parties need to agree on a consistent data packet format in order to send and receive data normally.
In serial communication, the commonly used protocols include RS-232, RS-422, and RS-485.
Serial communication is a communication method between peripherals and computers that transmits data by bit through data lines.
This communication method uses fewer data lines and can save communication costs in long-distance communication, but its transmission speed is slower than parallel transmission.
Most computers (excluding notebooks) contain two RS-232 serial ports, and notebooks usually use USB-serial modules for serial communication, which is also a common communication protocol for instrumentation and equipment.
(3) Ethernet
Ethernet is a computer local area network technology.
The IEEE 802.3 standard of the IEEE organization sets the technical standard for Ethernet, which specifies the content of the protocols including the physical layer of connectivity, electronic signals, and media access layer.
(4) MBus
MBus remote meter reading system (symphonic mbus), is a European standard 2-wire dibus, mainly used for consumption measurement instruments such as heat and water meter series.
Second, Network layer, transmission protocol in IoT communication protocols
1. IPv 4 in IoT communication protocols
Internet Protocol version 4, the fourth revision in the development of the Internet Protocol, is the first version of this protocol to be widely deployed.
IPv4 is the core of the Internet and the most widely used version of the Internet protocol.
2. IPv6 in IoT communication protocols
IPv6 is the Version 6 of the Internet Protocol.
Since the biggest problem of IPv4 is the limited network address resources, it seriously restricts the application and development of the Internet.
The use of IPv6 not only solves the problem of the number of network address resources but also solves the barrier for multiple access devices to connect to the Internet.
3. TCP in IoT communication protocols
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is a connection-oriented, reliable, byte-stream-based transport layer communication protocol.
TCP is designed to accommodate a layered protocol hierarchy that supports multiple network applications. Pairs of processes in host computers connected to different but interconnected computer communication networks rely on TCP to provide reliable communication services between them.
TCP assumes that it can obtain simple, possibly unreliable datagram services from lower-level protocols.
4. 6LoWPAN in IoT communication protocols
6LoWPAN is a low-speed wireless personal area network standard based on IPv6, i.e. IPv6 over IEEE 802.15.4.
Third, Application layer protocols in IoT communication protocols
1. MQTT protocol in IoT communication protocols
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport) in IoT communication protocols, which mainly provides two message modes of subscription/publishing, is more simple, lightweight, and easy to use, especially suitable for message distribution in restricted environments (low bandwidth, high network latency, unstable network communication), and belongs to a standard transport protocol for IoT.
In many cases, including in constrained environments such as machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, and the Internet of Things (IoT).
Among them, it has been widely used in communication sensors via satellite links, occasional dial-up medical devices, smart homes, and some miniaturized devices.
2. CoAP protocol in IoT communication protocols
CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol) in IoT communication protocols is a Web-like protocol in the IoT world for small, low-power sensors, switches, valves, and similar components that need to be remotely controlled or monitored over standard Internet networks, and servers cannot respond to unsupported types.
3. REST/HTTP protocol in IoT communication protocols
RESTful in IoT communication protocols is a resource-based style of software architecture. The so-called resource is an entity on the network or a specific piece of information on the network.
A picture, a song is a resource.
RESTful API is an implementation based on the HTTP protocol.
HTTP is an application layer protocol that is characterized by simplicity and speed.
An application or design that meets the Rest specification is RESTful, and an API designed according to the Rest specification is called a RESTful API.
4. DDS protocol in IoT communication protocols
DDS (Data Distribution Service) in IoT communication protocols distributed real-time data distribution service middleware protocol, it is the distributed real-time network TCP/IP, used to solve the real-time network protocol interconnection, its role is equivalent to the bus on the bus.
5. AMQP protocol in IoT communication protocols
AMQP in IoT communication protocols, that is, Advanced Message Queuing Protocol, an application layer standard advanced message queuing protocol that provides unified messaging services, is an open standard for application layer protocols, designed for message-oriented middleware.
Clients and messaging middleware based on this protocol can pass messages and are not restricted by different products of clients/middleware, different development languages, and other conditions.
Erlang implementations include RabbitMQ and others.
6. XMPP protocol in IoT communication protocols
XMPP in IoT communication protocols is a protocol based on XML, a subset of the standard common markup language, which inherits the flexibility of development in the XML environment. Therefore, XMPP-based applications have superb scalability.
After being extended, XMPP can handle user needs by sending extended messages and build applications such as content distribution systems and address-based services on top of XMPP.
Fourth, IoT communication protocols comparison
1. NB-IoT and LoRa in IoT communication protocols comparison
(1) Frequency band.
Lora works in the unlicensed band below 1GHz, and no additional payment is required for the application. NB-IoT and cellular communication using the band below 1GHz is 2113 licensed and requires a fee.
(2) Battery power life.
LoRa modules have unique characteristics in handling interference, network 5261 overlaps, and scalability, but do not provide the same quality of service 4102 as cellular protocols.
NB-IoT cannot provide the same battery life as LoRa due to quality of service considerations.
(3) Device cost.
For the end node, the LoRa protocol is simpler than NB-IoT, easier to develop, and 1653 more applicable and compatible with microprocessors. At the same time, low-cost and relatively mature LoRa modules can be found in the market, and there will be upgraded versions coming out one after another.
(4) The network coverage and deployment schedule.
The NB-IoT standard was announced in 2016, and in addition to the network deployment, the corresponding commercialization and the establishment of the industrial chain will take a longer time and effort to explore.
The entire industry chain of LoRa is relatively mature, while many countries around the world are in the process of or have completed national network deployments.
2. Bluetooth, WiFi, ZigBee in IoT communication protocols comparison
At present, the advantage of WiFi is widely used, and has been popular in thousands of homes; ZigBee’s advantage is low power consumption and self-organizing network; UWB carrier-free wireless communication technology is the advantage of transmission rate; Bluetooth advantage of simple networking.
These 3 technologies, also have their own shortcomings, no one technology can fully meet the full requirements of the smart home.
(1) The emergence of Bluetooth technology makes it possible for short-range wireless communication, but its protocol is more complex, high power consumption, high cost, and other characteristics are not quite suitable for the requirements of low-cost, low-power industrial control and home network.
Especially Bluetooth’s biggest obstacle is the restricted transmission range, the general effective range of about 10 meters, and the anti-jamming ability is not strong, information security issues are also the main factors that restrict its further development and large-scale applications.
(2) WiFi is also a short-range wireless transmission technology, you can access the wireless signal at any time, mobility, more suitable for application in the office and home environment.
WiFi also has a fatal drawback. Because WiFi uses radiofrequency technology to send and receive data through the air, it uses radio waves to transmit data signals and is more susceptible to outside interference.
(3) ZigBee is an internationally accepted wireless communication technology, which can access up to more than 65,000 ports per network port, suitable for home, industry, agriculture, and many other areas of use.
ZigBee also has the advantages of low power consumption and low cost.
3. MQTT and CoAP in IoT communication protocols comparison
(1) MQTT in IoT communication protocols is a many-to-many communication protocol used to transfer messages between different clients through intermediate agents, decoupling producers, and consumers, by making the client publish, letting the agent decide the route, and copying the message.
Although MQTT supports some persistence, it is best used as a real-time data communication bus.
(2) CoAP in IoT communication protocols is primarily a peer-to-peer protocol for transferring state information between the client and the server.
Although it supports the observation of resources, CoAP is best suited to a state transfer model that is not entirely event-based.
(3) MQTT clients establish long connections TCP, which usually indicates no problems, CoAP clients and servers both send and receive UDP packets.
In a NAT environment, tunneling or port forwarding can be used to allow CoAP, or like LWM2M, the device might initialize the front-end connection first.
(4) MQTT does not provide support for messages to hit type tags or other metadata to help clients understand that MQTT messages can be used for any purpose.
But all clients must know the upward data format to allow communication, CoAP, on the contrary, provides built-in support for content negotiation and discovery, allowing devices to probe each other to find ways to exchange data.
IoT communication protocols have their own advantages and disadvantages, and choosing the right one depends on your own application.
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