Recently, Internet of Things (IoT) deployments have shown their potential for aiding the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Concerns regarding how the IoT can specifically drive SDGs 6, 11 and 9 in developing countries have been raised with respect to the challenges of deploying licensed and unlicensed low-power wide area network (LPWAN) IoT technologies and their opportunities for IoT consumers and service providers. With IoT infrastructure and protocols being ubiquitous and each being proposed for different SDGs, we review and compare the various performance characteristics of LoRaWAN and NB-IoT networks. From the performance analysis of our networks, NB-IoT, one of the standardised promising cellular IoT solutions for developing countries, is more expensive and less energy-efficient than LoRaWAN. Utilising the same user equipment (UE), NB-IoT consumed an excess of 2 mAh of power for joining the network and 1.7 mAh more for a 44-byte uplink message compared to LoRaWAN. However, NB-IoT has the advantage of reliably and securely delivering higher network connection capacity in IoT use cases, leveraging existing cellular infrastructure. With a maximum throughput of 264 bps at 837 ms measured latency, NB-IoT outperformed LoRaWAN and proved robust for machine-type communications. These findings will help IoT consumers and service providers understand the performance differences and deployment challenges of NB-IoT and LoRaWAN and establish new research directions to tackle IoT issues in developing countries. With Nigeria as a case study, for consumers and organisations at a crossroads in their long-term deployment decisions, the proposed LPWAN integrated architecture is an example of the deployment opportunities for consumer and industrial IoT applications in developing countries.

With the recent increase in the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) technology globally, cybersecurity-related issues have been raised, particularly with the limitations of IoT devices, privacy and other security standards guiding IoT development as wireless technology evolves. With the enterprise and the massive IoT market expected to reach $7.6 B and$1.2 B in 2024 respectively, according to Gartner, and several operational vertical IoT use cases and platforms experiencing cyber vulnerabilities. Based on the findings from our recent LPWANs IoT testbeds and their operational performance in certain use case scenarios, this paper summarizes the key wireless technology security requirements for IoT deployments. We first compare the security requirements of legacy and emerging IoT technologies as it relates to smart city applications and examined the effectiveness of the existing countermeasure opportunities as it affects the overall system performance in critical and non-critical machine type communications. We concluded by recommending countermeasures opportunities and frameworks to secure industrial IoT platforms to cope with future cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

With the evolution of smart grid and applications, power distribution networks need scalable, flexible, distributed and secure end-to-end communication. This work aims to highlight the necessary bandwidth that is needed to effectively monitor and communicate with all the secondary substations of Distribution Network Operators (DNOs). In order to determine the bandwidth requirements, the current and future applications in each secondary substation should be known. Two levels of security are employed – IPsec and TLS – to give flexibility and resilience. Different test scenarios and several setups were employed on a fully secured IP based Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) through an IEC 62870-05-104 protocol, aiming to understand the bandwidth cost of different security techniques. The analysis depicts an average of 2-3 fold increase in bandwidth if both IPsec and TLS are used be to secure the connected asset.

Recently, container and cloud-based orchestration technologies are important requirements for data and functional integration of new control and automation services in distributed networks. The industrial adoption of Docker Swarm and Kubernetes based orchestrators are due to their abilities to support large-scale deployment, reduce capital cost, enable interoperability, introduce flexibility, minimize vendor lock-in and identify scalable means of deploying new functions with minimal performance and monitoring related issues. In this study, we performed a comprehensive study of the requirements and strategies in a Containerized Docker Swarm Orchestration Framework (CDSOF) as an efficient, cost-effective, secure and resilience device management tool for remote administration, configuration and supervision of virtualized large-scale Ethernet connected multi-tenanted assets. In a performance and security comparative analysis to Kubernetes and Apache Mesos, Docker Swarm is the leading solution with support features for overlay networks such as Flannel and Weave. Finally, we established the design and test specifications to guide our substation Virtual Remote Terminal Units (vRTUs) implementation.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the general term for interconnecting objects interacting to achieve a common goal such as in the monitoring of physical phenomena and control of mission-critical infrastructures. The recent paradigm shifts in industrial communication technology necessitate that industrial parameters such as temperature, pressure, vibrations and leaks should be remotely monitored using reliable wireless technologies. They can provide a wide range of new service capabilities that would improve industrial operations and meet business needs. Examining the wireless technologies proposed to enable such connections, factors such as the infrastructural interoperability, cost of deployment, security and mobility need dictates the choice of wireless connections. Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) as an enabler of such services with massive connectivity options, good power utilization, long-distance transmission, higher data throughput in 4G and 5G applications has not been explored to a great degree. In this paper, we have shown an in-depth practical approach to setting up an NB-IoT test network and carried out different deployment testing using NB-IoT devices and an LTE/NB-IoT base station. The findings provide the necessary security requirements, the test network power and latency performance and the global spectrum deployment options for a potential private licensed NB-IoT network.

Radio frequency and channel investigation using software defined radio in MATLAB And simulink environment