Characterizing time-critical internet of things

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly being adopted in diverse domains, many of which require strict timing constraints and predictable behavior. Despite the growing importance of timing characteristics in IoT applications, current approaches to address timing requirements are often fragmented, context-specific, and lack a unified understanding. Consequently, addressing timing aspects in IoT remains largely ad hoc and dependent on individual applications, making it challenging to generalize findings or systematically apply established solutions. The goal of this study is to provide a comprehensive understanding of how timing is defined, characterized, and measured within the IoT community. We conducted this study through a systematic and structured mix methods research approach. First, we performed a systematic review of the literature, extracting and analyzing information from 38 primary studies, selected from a rigorous process involving 1176 studies. Second, to complement the literature findings, we conducted an expert survey involving 28 respondents from academia and industry, representing a variety of roles with specialized expertise in IoT systems and timing-related issues. We identified two primary characterizations of timing within the IoT: time-criticality and predictability. Additionally, we collected and categorized 113 distinct timing metrics from literature into commonly found layers of an IoT system. The majority of the surveyed practitioners and researchers (75%) agree with our categorization and consider this research useful and relevant (71.5%). We believe that our study provides practitioners and researchers with insights into timing characteristics and metrics in IoT applications, towards the ultimate goal of standardization.