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A Tutorial on Internet of Things: From A
Heterogeneous Network Integration Perspective
Ke Xu, Member, IEEE, Yi Qu, and Kun Yang, Member, IEEE
Abstract—The days that the Internet is the only focus of the information society have already gone and innovative network paradigms
such as Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, smartphone networks, social networks and industrial networks are gaining popularity
and establishing themselves as indispensable ingredients of the future smart universe. Among them, IoT is the most widespread one
that is envisioned to involve all things in the world. However, its potential will never be fully explored before the complete formation of
the cyberspace, where humans, computers and smart objects are pervasively interconnected. Therefore, one of the most important
development trends of IoT is its integration with existing network systems. In this tutorial, we provide a detailed analysis on this issue.
With particular attention, the latest achievements, technical solutions and influential ongoing projects are described and possible visions
and open challenges are also discussed.
Keywords—Internet of Things, heterogeneous networks, integration.
F
1 INTRODUCTION
I
NTERNET of Things (IoT) is the network of physical
objects embedded with actuators, RFIDs, sensors, soft-
ware and connectivity to enable it to interact with man-
ufacturers, operators and/or other connected devices to
reach common goals [1]. It has been a hotspot both in
academia and industry since it was proposed by Kevin
Ashton in 1999.
As a paradigm that is envisioned to involve all things
in the world, IoT can never be an isolate kingdom. It has
extensible and compatible features and is always ready
to absorb advantages in every aspect of information
domains. Its potential will never be fully explored before
the complete formation of the cyberspace, where human-
s, computers and smart objects are pervasively intercon-
nected. This process can be regarded as the integration
of IoT and existing network systems including cloud
computing, Internet, smartphone, social and industrial
networks. Actually, in recent years, the integration of
heterogeneous network systems have become a main
source of network innovations and has stimulated the
proposition of novel interdisciplinary concepts such as
Cloud of Things (CoT), Web of Things (WoT) and Social
Internet of Things (SIoT).
With the deepening of integration processes, system
boundaries are disappearing and territories originally
belonged to IoT are becoming shared domains. As shown
in Fig. 1, many interdisciplinary territories and overlaps
exist between IoT and existing network systems. Gener-
ally, IoT expands the scale of the Internet from computers
• Ke Xu and Yi Qu (corresponding author) are at Department of Computer
Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, and Tsinghua National
Laboratory for Information Science and Technology.
• Kun Yang is at School of Computer Science & Electronic Engineering,
University of Essex.
to everything while the Internet and smartphone net-
works together provide IoT with fast network backbones.
Moreover, leveraging cloud computing, infrastructures
and platforms provided by IoT and the Internet are
utilized by social, industrial and smartphone networks
to offer human society with innovative services.
Specifically, short-range wireless transmission tech-
nologies commonly adopted in IoT are unsuitable for
long-distance and high-speed connection. Leveraging
network infrastructures provided by the Internet and
smartphone networks are necessary to interconnect the
numerous, various and globally distributed objects. Fur-
ther, IoT itself cannot store, compute or analyze massive
data collected from trillions of sensors. This weakness
is exactly the strength of cloud computing, whose com-
putation and storage can be regarded as infinite, such
that the IoT-Cloud integration will lead to a win-win
situation. Moreover, the combination of IoT and social,
industrial and mobile networks will promote the spring-
up of close human-object interactions, premium products
and various novel applications. All of these services
are highly desired and the integration of heterogeneous
network systems will create a better life for mankind.
Recently, a flourish of efforts have been paid to study
this issue. In [2], the authors focus on the integration
between IoT and social networks. And in [3], current
researches of IoT in industries are reviewed in detail.
The adoption of IoT system in smart cities is introduced
in [4] while the cluster of IoT and cloud computing
is presented in [5]. Different from these studies that
only focus on one aspect, in this tutorial, we provide
a comprehensive review on the integration of IoT and
existing network systems including cloud computing, In-
ternet, smartphone, social and industrial networks. With
particular attention, the latest achievements, technical