Enabling IoT Connectivity and Interoperability by Using Automated Gateways

Abstract

As an essential part of the Industry 4.0 strategy, the Internet of Things is developing to “Internet of Everything”. The number of interconnected devices and the amount of data produced increases constantly. Various devices are communicating using various protocols, exchanging data using various data formats and connecting to various software applications. In an IoT-Architecture, a gateway is a fundamental component needed for enabling device interoperability. While a great deal of research has already been done on IoT in cloud computing, fog computing, and edge computing, there is still no intensive activity in the field of gateways in particular. Even the basic gateways can act as a proxy between low-end IoT devices and data centres, automated gateways can provide significantly higher functionality to solve the problems of diversity of protocols, data formats and the custom needs of various devices including used applications. This paper presents a concept of an automated gateway dealing with the problems of protocol conversion, device management, middleware abstraction, resource management and traffic optimisation. The gateway is designed as a modular plug-and-play architecture and was evaluated for MQTT, ZigBee, WebSocket and Amazon WebServices. The architecture can be extended by including additional modules to support further protocols and services. Finally, the gateway defines its protocol and translates incoming messages into an optional uniform format, which can be used by the client to enable more complex message flows. Thus, it provides a solid foundation for further development towards standardization of communication interfaces and interoperability of IoT devices.