The state of international Internet of Things research

Abstract

There is a massive increase in the amount of data that is generated globally. This data is traditionally generated by a number of different autonomous devices. The Internet of Things (IoT) is about interfacing these autonomous devices to communicate without human intervention and generate integrated data. Intelligence is then required to process this integrated data and make it available to the humans for decision-making. This paper documents the international research that is going on in the area of IoT. It shows the main role players and the research territory they operate in. It also documents future research trends. The question that this research answers therefore is, “Who are the main role players in IoT research internationally, in which research space do they operate and how is their work shaping the future of IoT research?” The research is a qualitative study. A number of IoT conference that have been held since 2008 when the first IoT conference was held in Zurich, Switzerland were identified. From the conference programs, contact details of individuals who had submitted papers were identified. Emails were sent to the various stakeholders requesting information on their institutions, areas of application of IoT research and projects they were working on. Responses received pointed to websites and publications which were then sampled to extract the relevant information.