An IoT sensor and scenario survey for data researchers

Abstract

This work surveys Internet of Things (IoT) experimental research published since 2015. We summarize the IoT state of the art during the last 2 years and extract important data that we apply to enhance the analysis of IoT solutions. The IoT scenario presents a promising universe to data analysis. This raises a number of questions: which are its most popular applications? What is the definition of scale in an IoT application? What sensors are more often used and for what IoT applications? How can a researcher compare IoT scenarios? To investigate these concerns, this survey analyzes 2 years’ worth of contributions made in three main scientific publishers. We focus on IoT experiments that were actually implemented using real equipment within one or more scenarios. Our first contribution is the classification of those IoT scenarios into seven main aspects. Each analyzed research study presents a specific configuration of a scenario’s variables and sensors. Our second main contribution takes place after the scenario mapping phase. We identify as many as 19 common categories of data types in use. The interrelation among the scenarios and the data types from sensors should assist data researchers in understanding current IoT dynamics.