Green Internet of Things (GIoT): Vision, applications and research challenges

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.suscom.2020.100448Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Surveying green requirements of IoT at various levels.

  • Exploring how to achieve GIoT technology in various aspects.

  • Investigating GIoT role in improving human life.

  • Presenting open issues and future directions of GIoT.

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) as an emerging technology provides interconnections between various objects with three features, i.e., anything, anyplace, and anytime. Due to the high number of objects in the IoT and their proximity to humans, energy efficiency is a fundamental requirement for this technology. In general, paying attention to energy efficiency at various levels of IoT leads to Green IoT (GIoT), which decreases costs while reducing human health threats. In this paper, the effective measures that can be taken to achieve GIoT are investigated at various levels, including hardware, software, communication, and network architecture. In addition, opportunities, challenges, and applications of GIoT in various aspects are considered to clarify its limitations. Given the crucial significance of environmental preservation in human life, business models and business platforms of this technology are investigated that have introduced by active IT companies. Moreover, open issues and directions of GIoT, including standardization, technical challenges, innovations, and security are reviewed for further research. It is hoped that effective policies for GIoT development will be provided by addressing the salient challenges and formulating appropriate standards. The investigations indicate that the green goal should certainly be addressed in the overall cycle of GIoT, including design, production, utilization, and ultimately disposal/recycling.

Introduction

Energy demand is always growing due to population growth and the definition of new services. The world’s population is projected to reach 9 billion by 2050, according to which global energy consumption is likely to increase by at least 50 % in the next three decades. Moreover, most industrial applications rely on fossil fuels as the leading energy resource, which has led to increased CO2 and a worrying increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Increasing GHG emissions has prompted environmental researchers to warn rising climatic temperatures and the need to transition to more efficient energy management and sustainable technologies [1]. Green energy and renewable energy that can be obtained from solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal are an appropriate alternative to traditional energies. In recent years, there has been a tendency to use renewable energy in various applications such as power generation and distribution, fuel production, and energy supply to moderate the role of fossil fuels in human life [2]. It should be emphasized that this type of energy can improve the quality of human life, enhance people’s health, and do less damage to the environment. In general, energy saving can be achieved by improving the energy efficiency of production processes and the use of energy-efficient monitoring and management systems [3].

In general, Computers and communication systems are considered to be the essential components of Information Technology (IT) that used in almost every aspect of modern life such as public services, e-health, banking, business, defense, education, and entertainment. According to the conducted researches, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) consumes about 2–10 % of the world’s energy [4]. In the past years, ICT activists have often focused on performance and cost, and decreasing energy consumption and mitigating the environmental impact has mainly been ignored. Whereas, new issues such as rising electricity cost, resource constraints, and significant increases the CO2 and GHG emissions have potentially increased attention to green energy. Fig. 1 illustrates the CO2 emissions by various ICT categories.

Given that data centers, including servers, cooling, and electrical infrastructure, consume energy and also have a long uptime, according to the figure, considerable energy is required for their efficient and regular operation [6]. In addition, the increase in the number of wireless equipment and mobile-connected devices in recent years, while increasing mobile data traffic, has led to an increase in demand for mobile energy. Likewise, more than 50 % of ICT power consumption is attributed to users and network devices in mobile and wireless networks, and this amount is still growing. Consequently, new strategies are needed to optimize power consumption in these devices as well as the use of green energy sources [7].

Internet of Things as an emerging technology brings out an intelligent world with a wide array of physical objects that can communicate with each other and other machines and electronic gadgets through Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and Device-to-Device (D2D) communications. The real benefits of IoT for various businesses are realized when objects can be integrated with vendor-managed inventory systems, business analytics, customer support systems, and business intelligence applications in addition to interconnecting with each other. Given that an IoT typically includes a large number of objects and things, even a slight reduction in the energy consumption of each network element can dramatically decrease the total energy consumption of the network. In addition, the generated data by this technology, known as big data, is stored on servers that their energy management is vital to achieving an energy-efficient network. Likewise, since IoT elements typically communicate with each other via wireless channels, green wireless communication plays an important role in achieving an energy-efficient IoT [8]. Therefore, the economical and energy-efficient IoT known as GIoT is a prominent research topic that emphasizes the reduction of energy consumption in IoT elements, which is in line with the smart and sustainable world goal. Generally, focusing on energy efficiency in GIoT design and development is an important factor in reducing the GHG generated by IoT technology and increasing the popularity of this technology [9].

This paper addresses GIoT technology due to the particular features such as improved energy efficiency, eco-friendly, and rapid expansion in various applications. However, the challenges of GIoT are also analyzed to clarify its problems for researchers in the field. In addition, green requirements of GIoT are considered in various network levels, including hardware, software, communication, and architecture. Energy efficiency is an essential goal in the design, construction, configuration, and standardization of GIoT that are discussed in this paper. Therefore, this paper surveys all the effective techniques, policies, schemes, architectures, and the related challenges and problems of this technology.

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the concept of IoT and GIoT. In Section 3, classifications related to GIoT technology and its applications are introduced. The following section presents business models and platforms of this technology. Moreover, open issues and future directions of this technology will be explained in Section 5. Finally, Section 6 presents the summary and concludes the paper.

Section snippets

The concept of IoT and GIoT

In this section, the basic concept of the Internet of things and the Green Internet of Things are presented to highlight the differences between them.

GIoT technology

In general, a GIoT can be achieved by addressing the essential requirements in four components, i.e., green hardware, green software, green communication, and green architecture. These four components of the GIoT are illustrated in Fig. 4 and investigated as follows.

Business models

The business model should generate dependable schemes for particular customer groups so that each reliable technique and approach must address the issues and problems of a specific group of customers. In general, most entrepreneurs and executives claim that customers are not explicitly aware of their related needs until a new technology is invented. Regardless of the role of entrepreneurs and investors who invent and produce new technology, the people who buy and use that product determine the

Open issues and directions for further research

Although GIoT has numerous merits and advantages, it suffers from some of the challenges and problems listed below that should be addressed by researchers in future studies.

Summary and conclusions

GIoT is a requirement for years to come that can help preserve the world for future generations by reducing energy consumption. In this paper, a certain definition for GIoT and its features have been introduced, as well as required measures and procedures to achieve this technology. The fundamental requirements of GIoT have been addressed in four layers, i.e., hardware, software, communication, and architecture. Moreover, the applications of GIoT in various contexts and as well as advantages of

Author contribution

All authors have participated in (a) conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of the data; (b) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and (c) approval of the final version.

This manuscript has not been submitted to, nor is under review at, another journal or other publishing venue.

Declaration of Competing Interest

None.

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