A Distributed ICN-based IoT Network Architecture: An Ambient Assisted Living Application Case Study

The distributed Information-Centric Networking architecture has shown enormous potential to replace the host centric Internet architecture. A number of solutions such as Named Data Networking have become available. Building application services and integrating other technological design on top of ICNs is a challenging task, and has many open issues, hence an efficient distributed architecture needs to be developed. In this paper, we address the case of using IoT architecture targeted for ambient assisted living applications, on top of named data networking. We have proposed a complete architecture and implementation details for device & service networking, communication model, management, and naming. Within each model we have proposed mechanisms which support node mobility, hand-off, packet design, and push & pull data services without changing NDN data exchange model. This architecture is flexible, scalable, and can be adapted to other application specific IoT networks. We also have implemented the proposal on NDN simulator, and evaluated different services. The communication overhead and mobility implications have been studied to show effectiveness of new services with negligible cost to the network.