CDD: Coordinating Data Dissemination in Heterogeneous IoT Networks

Data dissemination in Internet of Things (IoT) networks provides a fundamental service for many critical applications. However, traditional dissemination schemes were investigated for an isolated IoT network, and did not fit the coexistence scenario of heterogeneous IoT networks. Motivated by the latest innovations in cross-technology communication (CTC) techniques, this article proposes CDD, a framework utilizing a WiFi-based access point (AP) to simultaneously conduct fast data diffusion in heterogeneous IoT networks (e.g., WiFi and ZigBee). We shed light on the network features in the coexistence scenario and then review the key challenges of coordinating dissemination based on CTC techniques. With these network features and challenges in mind, the CDD framework includes a series of designs to conduct efficient data dissemination in heterogeneous networks using a WiFi AP. The framework is implemented and evaluated on a real-world testbed. The results demonstrate that CDD can reduce the dissemination delay and significantly outperform the state-of-the-art approaches.