Secure Environmental Monitoring for Industrial Internet of Things: from Framework to Live Implementation

Abstract

Worldwide changes in climate and increasing pollution level are tremendously affecting the need for environmental monitoring solutions. Recent activities in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) together with Cloud computing paradigm brought an entirely new perspective on monitoring as part of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). However, most of the systems developed today are still facing lack of flexibility and security. This work presents the results of prototyping the IIoT wireless environmental monitoring system from both hardware and software sides. The developed mechanisms enable connectivity in infrastructure and mesh-like modes, where each sensor could act as relay allowing for improved node-failure resistance and scalability. Next, the authentication mechanism is proposed to enable transparent migration of any node between different network segments while keeping the overall operation secure. Finally, proof of the concept prototype deployment in real-life conditions shows the potential of metropolitan-scale utilization of the developed system.