Andrea De Simone, Giovanna Turvani, Fabrizio Riente
{"title":"通过LoRaWAN进行低功耗物联网设备的无线增量固件更新","authors":"Andrea De Simone, Giovanna Turvani, Fabrizio Riente","doi":"10.1016/j.iot.2025.101772","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Remote firmware updates in Internet of Things (IoT) devices remain a major challenge due to the constraints of many IoT communication protocols. In particular, transmitting full firmware images over low-bandwidth links such as Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) is often impractical. Existing techniques, such as firmware partitioning, can alleviate the problem but are often insufficient, especially for battery-powered devices where time and energy are critical constraints. Consequently, physical maintenance is still frequently required, which is costly and impractical in large-scale deployments. In this work, we introduce <em>bpatch</em>, a lightweight method for generating highly compact delta patches that enable on-device firmware reconstruction. The algorithm is explicitly designed for low-power devices, minimizing memory requirements and computational overhead during the update process. We evaluate <em>bpatch</em> on 173 firmware images across three architectures. Results show that it reduces update payloads by up to 39,000×for near-identical updates and by 9–18×for typical minor revisions, eliminating the need to transmit full firmware images. Experimental results further demonstrate significant time and energy savings, with performance comparable to more complex alternatives. <em>bpatch</em> is released as open-source and, although demonstrated on LoRaWAN, the approach is flexible and can be adapted to other IoT communication technologies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":29968,"journal":{"name":"Internet of Things","volume":"34 ","pages":"Article 101772"},"PeriodicalIF":7.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Incremental firmware update over-the-air for low-power IoT devices over LoRaWAN\",\"authors\":\"Andrea De Simone, Giovanna Turvani, Fabrizio Riente\",\"doi\":\"10.1016/j.iot.2025.101772\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<div><div>Remote firmware updates in Internet of Things (IoT) devices remain a major challenge due to the constraints of many IoT communication protocols. In particular, transmitting full firmware images over low-bandwidth links such as Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) is often impractical. Existing techniques, such as firmware partitioning, can alleviate the problem but are often insufficient, especially for battery-powered devices where time and energy are critical constraints. Consequently, physical maintenance is still frequently required, which is costly and impractical in large-scale deployments. In this work, we introduce <em>bpatch</em>, a lightweight method for generating highly compact delta patches that enable on-device firmware reconstruction. The algorithm is explicitly designed for low-power devices, minimizing memory requirements and computational overhead during the update process. We evaluate <em>bpatch</em> on 173 firmware images across three architectures. Results show that it reduces update payloads by up to 39,000×for near-identical updates and by 9–18×for typical minor revisions, eliminating the need to transmit full firmware images. Experimental results further demonstrate significant time and energy savings, with performance comparable to more complex alternatives. <em>bpatch</em> is released as open-source and, although demonstrated on LoRaWAN, the approach is flexible and can be adapted to other IoT communication technologies.</div></div>\",\"PeriodicalId\":29968,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Internet of Things\",\"volume\":\"34 \",\"pages\":\"Article 101772\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":7.6000,\"publicationDate\":\"2025-09-27\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Internet of Things\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"94\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542660525002860\",\"RegionNum\":3,\"RegionCategory\":\"计算机科学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q1\",\"JCRName\":\"COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Internet of Things","FirstCategoryId":"94","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542660525002860","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS","Score":null,"Total":0}
Incremental firmware update over-the-air for low-power IoT devices over LoRaWAN
Remote firmware updates in Internet of Things (IoT) devices remain a major challenge due to the constraints of many IoT communication protocols. In particular, transmitting full firmware images over low-bandwidth links such as Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) is often impractical. Existing techniques, such as firmware partitioning, can alleviate the problem but are often insufficient, especially for battery-powered devices where time and energy are critical constraints. Consequently, physical maintenance is still frequently required, which is costly and impractical in large-scale deployments. In this work, we introduce bpatch, a lightweight method for generating highly compact delta patches that enable on-device firmware reconstruction. The algorithm is explicitly designed for low-power devices, minimizing memory requirements and computational overhead during the update process. We evaluate bpatch on 173 firmware images across three architectures. Results show that it reduces update payloads by up to 39,000×for near-identical updates and by 9–18×for typical minor revisions, eliminating the need to transmit full firmware images. Experimental results further demonstrate significant time and energy savings, with performance comparable to more complex alternatives. bpatch is released as open-source and, although demonstrated on LoRaWAN, the approach is flexible and can be adapted to other IoT communication technologies.
期刊介绍:
Internet of Things; Engineering Cyber Physical Human Systems is a comprehensive journal encouraging cross collaboration between researchers, engineers and practitioners in the field of IoT & Cyber Physical Human Systems. The journal offers a unique platform to exchange scientific information on the entire breadth of technology, science, and societal applications of the IoT.
The journal will place a high priority on timely publication, and provide a home for high quality.
Furthermore, IOT is interested in publishing topical Special Issues on any aspect of IOT.