Lightweight & secure industrial IoT communications via the MQ telemetry transport protocol

Abstract

Massive advancements in computing and communication technologies have enabled the ubiquitous presence of interconnected computing devices in all aspects of modern life, forming what is typically referred to as the “Internet of Things”. These major changes could not leave the industrial environment unaffected, with “smart” industrial deployments gradually becoming a reality; a trend that is often referred to as the 4th industrial revolution or Industry 4.0. Nevertheless, the direct interaction of the smart devices with the physical world and their resource constraints, along with the strict performance, security, and reliability requirements of industrial infrastructures, necessitate the adoption of lightweight as well as secure communication mechanisms. Motivated by the above, this paper highlights the Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) as a lightweight protocol suitable for the industrial domain, presenting a comprehensive evaluation of different security mechanisms that could be used to protect the MQTT-enabled interactions on a real testbed of wireless sensor motes. Moreover, the applicability of the proposed solutions is assessed in the context of a real industrial application, analyzing the network characteristics and requirements of an actual, operating wind park, as a representative use case of industrial networks.