Unit - III CHALLENGES IN DIGITAL

TRANSFORMATION
3.1 IoT Standardization
3.2 IoT security
 IoT Security Framework based on Artificial
Intelligence Concepts
 Self-protecting
 Self-optimizing and Self-healing
3.3 IoT enabling the Digital Transformation of Industry
3.4 Case study - Farming Food and IoT: where we are going
3.5 Challenges
3.1 IoT Standardization
In recent publications mapping emerging technologies to their Hype Cycle, Gartner
positions the IoT at the top of the “Peak of Inflated Expectations” [14]. The assessment is widely shared
and is reflected by significant IoT related activities in companies of all sizes, in industry standards
groups, consortia, alliances and in the press and media. Many observers also remark on the
number of technologies, alliances and consortia across the IoT landscape and agree that a
consolidation is imminent. These expectations broadly align with the lifecycle phases that Gartner’s
model predicts for IoT. Gartner’s view is that IoT will reach the “Plateau of Productivity” in 5–10
years – somewhere around 2020–2025. On that basis, they anticipate that the period 2015–2019
will see a consolidation phase with a corresponding reduction in hype, a periodof intense development
of standards, and a transition into a period of real product development.

Standardisation will play a key role in the consolidation of IoT landscape; since many of
the benefits of IoT will occur based on widespread adoption, the development of global
standards is pivotal to ensuring economies of scaleand impact.
The standardisation priorities for AIOTI WG03 [61] will be a focusof European
engagement and steering in the standardization process. In collaboration with other AIOTI
working groups, the focus will be to:
 Maintain a view on the landscape of IoT standards-relevant activitiesbeing driven
by SDOs, Consortia, Alliances and OSS projects.
 Provide a forum for analysis, discussion and alignment of strategic, cross-domain,
technical themes and shared concerns across landscape activities
 Develop recommendations and guidelines addressing those concerns Engage the
IoT community in disseminating and promoting the resultsand steering emerging
standards
In collaboration with ST505, AIOTI WG03 will build an understanding of SDOs,
Alliances, and Consortia; their respective specifications, technologies, and spheres of influence;
and the breadth, depth and sustainability of any Open Source Software, which has established a
usage profile.
The outputs of the landscape work will drive the WG03 program. Analysis of gaps,
divergences, common concerns, and major players will inform the agenda of challenges to be
addressed, guidelines and recommendations to bedeveloped and groups to be engaged with.
The following table provides the three key challenges the workgroup is currently responding
to.
AIOTI WG03 will support the implementation of the goals set by the EC and
promote the use of open standards through actions that: (1) supportthe entire value
chain, (2) apply within IoT domains and cross-IoT domains and (3) are integrating
multiple technologies. This is done based on streamlined international cooperation,
which enables easy and fair access to standard essential patents (SEPs). In order to
accomplish this goal several potential challenges can be foreseen, which are
presented in the following table.
3.2 IoT Security
Security needs to be designed into IoT solutions from the concept phase and integrated at
the hardware level, the firmware level, the software level and the service level. IoT applications need
to embed mechanisms to continuously monitor security and stay ahead of the threats posed by
interactions with other IoT applications and environments. Trust is based on the ability to maintain
the security of the IoT system and the ability to protect application/customer information, and as
well as being able to respond to unintended security or privacy breaches. In the IoT it is important
to drive security, privacy, data protection and trust across the whole IoT ecosystem and no
company can “do it alone” in the loT space; success will require organizations to partner, value
chains to be created and ecosystems to flourish. Yet as loT users start to bring more players, service
providers and third party suppliers into their value chain, tech firms and loT solutions providers will
face increasing pressure to demonstrate their security capabilities.
 The worlds of IT and operational technology (OT) are converging, and IT leaders must manage
their transition to converging, aligning and integrating IT and OT environments. The benefits that come
from managing IT and OT convergence, alignment and integration include optimized business
processes, enhanced information for better decisions, reduced costs, lower risks and shortened
project timelines. IT and OT are converging in numerous important industries, such as healthcare,
transportation, defence, energy, aviation, manufacturing, engineering, mining, oil and gas, natural
resources and utilities. IT leaders who are impacted by the convergence of IT and OT platforms
should consider the value and risk of pursuing alignment between IT and OT, as well as the potential
to integrate people, tools and resources used to manage and support both technology areas. A shared
set of standards and platforms across IT and OT will reduce costs in many areas of software
management, while the reduction in risks that will come from reducing malware intrusion, internal
errors and cyber-security can be enhanced if IT security teams are shared, seconded or combined
with OT staff to plan and implement holistic IT-OT security.
The evolution of connected devices as nodes to the IoT brings limitless possibilities. As
more and more everyday things are connected to the Internet – medical devices, automobiles, homes,
etc. – the long-term forecast for the IoT is staggering: by 2020, there will be 212 billion installed
things, 30 billion autonomously connected things and approximately three million petabytes of
embedded system data, all of which combined are expected to generate nearly $9 trillion in
business value. IoT applications fall into three basic categories :
• Mobile or desktop applications that control IoT devices;
• IoT firmware and embedded applications;
• Applications on open IoT platforms (for example, apps built for Apple
Watch).
All of these applications need to be protected or they run the risk of
undesirableoutcomes such as:
 Improper or unsafe operation of IoT devices;
 Theft of confidential data, private user information or application-
related intellectual property;
 Fraud and unauthorized access to payment processing channels;
 Damage to companies brand image and deterioration of customer,
prospect and partner trust.
In the case of IoT, applications can be attacked in many ways, often involving apps that
first obtain access to the IoT application, then start monitoring, controlling, and
tampering with the device. A holistic approach that involves the device, data, network
and application layers is required and the following chart summarizes key IoT security
components that must be considered:
The following policy recommendations on net neutrality and IoT, given the current
relevance of net neutrality to the European policy debate, following agreement of the
Telecoms Single Market legislative package are given in and summarised below:
 Embed “safe and secure software” design and development methodolo-gies
across all levels of device/application design and development and
implement security into that life cycle at the same time.
 Design, deliver and operate adaptive and dynamic end-to-end security over
heterogeneous infrastructures integrating IoT, networks and cloud
 infrastructures. It is recommended to use underlying standardised OS and
hardware security features where architecture permits.
The deployment should not be specific or propose a modification of existing
OS and hardware already integrated by IoT.
• Develop best practices confirming minimum requirements for pro-vision
of secure, encrypted and integrity-protected channel, mutual authentication
processes between devices and measures securing that only authorised agents
can change settings on communication andfunctionality.
• Develop a “New Identity for Things” – To date, Identity and Access
Management (IAM) processes and infrastructures have been primarily focused
on managing the identities of people. IAM processes and infras-tructure must
now be re-envisioned to encompass the amazing variety of the virtualized
infrastructure components. For example, authentication and authorization
functions will be expanded and enhanced to address people, software and
devices as a single converged framework.
• Develop a Common Authentication architecture – by investigation of a
Secure Identity and Trusted Authentication mechanism, for example one
which takes into account different authentication standards and willprovide a
single-sign-on solution for IoT applications moving between different systems.
• Certification – the certification framework and self-certification solu- tions for
IoT applications have not been developed yet. The challenge will be to have
generic and common framework, while developing business specific
provisions. This framework should provide evaluationassurance levels similar
to the Common Criteria for Information Tech- nology Security Evaluation
(IS0/IEC 15408), which should serve as thereference.

3.2.1 IoT Security Framework based on Artificial Intelligence

Concepts
Large-scale applications and services based on the IoT are increasingly vulnerable to
disruption from attack or information theft. Vulnerability in general terms is defined
as the opportunity for a threat to cause loss. A threat is any potential danger to a
resource, originating from anything or anyone that has the potential to cause a threat.
Clearly, specific and more intelligent security solutions are required to cope with these
issues, which if not addressed may become barriers for the IoT deployment on a broad
scale.
Swarm intelligence (SI) is such a technological area, which can inspire the design of new IoT
security solutions. A subfield of artificial intelligence, Security needs to be designed into IoT solutions
from the concept phase and integrated at the hardware level, the firmware level, the software level
and the service level. IoT applications need to embed mechanisms to continuously monitor security
and stay ahead of the threats posed by interactions with other IoT applications and environments.
Trust is based on the ability to maintain the security of the IoT system and the ability to protect
application/customer information, and as well as being able to respond to unintended security or
privacy breaches. In the IoT it is important to drive security, privacy, data protection and trust
across the whole IoT ecosystem and no company can “do it alone” in the loT space; success will
require organizations to partner, value chains to be created and ecosystems to flourish. Yet as loT
users start to bring more players, service providers and third party suppliers into their value chain,
tech firms and loT solutions providers will face increasing pressure to demonstrate their security
capabilities.
The worlds of IT and operational technology (OT) are converging, and IT leaders must manage
their transition to converging, aligning and integrating IT and OT environments. The benefits that
come from managing IT and OT convergence, alignment and integration include optimized
business processes, enhanced information for better decisions, reduced costs, lower risks and
shortened project timelines. IT and OT are converging in numerous important industries, such as
healthcare, transportation, defence, energy, aviation, manufacturing, engineering, mining, oil and
gas, natural resources and utilities. IT leaders who are impacted by the convergence of IT and OT
platforms should consider the value and risk of pursuing alignment between IT and OT, as well as
the potential to integrate people, tools and resources used to manage and support both technology
areas. A shared set of standards and platforms across IT and OT will reduce costs in many areas
of software management, while the reduction in risks that will come from reducing malware
intrusion, internal errors and cyber security can be enhanced if IT security teams are shared,
seconded or combined with OT staff to plan and implement holistic IT-OT security.
 The evolution of connected devices as nodes to the IoT brings limitless possibilities. As
more and more everyday things are connected to the Internet medical devices, automobiles, homes,
etc. the long-term forecast for the IoT is staggering: by 2020, there will be 212 billion installed
things, 30 billion autonomously connected things and approximately three million peta bytes of
embedded system data, all of which combined are expected to generate nearly $9 trillion in
business value. IoT applications fall into three basic categories:
• Mobile or desktop applications that control IoT devices;
• IoT firmware and embedded applications;
• Applications on open IoT platforms (for example, apps built for Apple Watch).
All of these applications need to be protected or they run the risk of undesirable outcomes such as:
• Improper or unsafe operation of IoT devices;
• Theft of confidential data, private user information or application-related intellectual property;
• Fraud and unauthorized access to payment processing channels;
• Damage to companies brand image and deterioration of customer, prospect and partner trust.
In the case of IoT, applications can be attacked in many ways, often involving apps that first obtain
access to the IoT application, then start monitoring, controlling, and tampering with the device. A
holistic approach that involves the device, data, network and application layers is required and the
following chart summarizes key IoT security components that must be considered. The following
policy recommendations on net neutrality and IoT, given the current relevance of net neutrality to
the European policy debate, following agreement of the Telecoms Single Market legislative
package are given in and summarised below:
• Embed “safe and secure software” design and development methodologies across all levels of
device/application design and development and implement security into that life cycle at the same
time.
• Design, deliver and operate adaptive and dynamic end-to-end security over heterogeneous
infrastructures integrating IoT, networks and cloud infrastructures. It is recommended to use
underlying standardised OS and hardware security features where architecture permits. The
deployment should not be specific or propose a modification of existing OS and hardware already
integrated by IoT.
• Develop best practices confirming minimum requirements for provision of secure, encrypted and
integrity-protected channel, mutual authentication processes between devices and measures
securing that only authorised agents can change settings on communication and functionality.
• Develop a “New Identity for Things” To date, Identity and Access Management (IAM) processes
and infrastructures have been primarily focused on managing the identities of people. IAM
processes and infrastructure must now be re-envisioned to encompass the amazing variety of the
virtualized infrastructure components. For example, authentication and authorization functions
will be expanded and enhanced to address people, software and devices as a single converged
framework.
• Develop a Common Authentication architecture by investigation of a Secure Identity and Trusted
Authentication mechanism, for example one which takes into account different authentication
standards and will provide a single-sign-on solution for IoT applications moving between different
systems.
• Certification – the certification framework and self-certification solutions for IoT applications
have not been developed yet. The challenge will be to have generic and common framework, while
developing business specific provisions. This framework should provide evaluation assurance
levels similar to the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation (IS0/IEC
15408), which should serve as the reference.
3.2.1 IoT Security Framework based on Artificial Intelligence Concepts
Large-scale applications and services based on the IoT are increasingly vulnerable to disruption
from attack or information theft. Vulnerability in general terms is defined as the opportunity for a
threat to cause loss. A threat is any potential danger to a resource, originating from anything or
anyone that has the potential to cause a threat. Clearly, specific and more intelligent security
solutions are required to cope with these issues, which if not addressed may become barriers for
the IoT deployment on a broad scale.
Swarm intelligence (SI) is such a technological area, which can inspire the design of new IoT
security solutions. A subfield of artificial intelligence, SI studies the emergent collective
intelligence of groups of agents based on social behaviour that can be observed in nature, such as
ant colonies, flocks of birds, fish schools and bee hives, where a number of individuals with
limited. capabilities are able to produce intelligent solutions for complex problems.
Vulnerability and reaction to threats seem to be a common thread and IoT can take inspiration
from ant colonies, flocks of birds, fish schools and bee hives on how to react to threats.
Clustering is therefore an important area and has been applied in many domains, such as spatial
data analysis, image processing, marketing and pattern recognition, etc. For example, ant-based
clustering is a type of clustering algorithm that imitates the behaviour of ants, with a perfect social
organization where each type of individual specializes in a specific activity within the colony.
In IoT security, the purpose of clustering is to cluster IoT objects into groups according to some
predefined rules addressing the issues inherent in detecting and dealing with threats.
The essence of this concept can be best illustrated by the following rules of separation, alignment,
cohesion of the first multi-agent algorithm developed by Craig Reynolds in 1986 simulating swarm
behaviour.
• Separation: going away from other agents. In the IoT context, this rule would become preserving
the distributed nature of the IoT system in the absence of threats, so that individual resources can
be focused on the functions to be performed by each object. Unnecessary clustering would
consume resources and would even expose intelligence crowding to attack.
• Cohesion: going to the centre of the surrounding agents. In the IoT context, this rule would
become steering resources and intelligence towards one or several points of attack.
• Alignment: heading towards the same direction of other agents. In the IoT context, this rule
would become steering along a path of attack. Complex behaviour can be programmed as rules,
based on self-organization.
The basic concept is to define rules and constraints and let the IoT system self-organize in the
presence of threats. The self-organization properties may help security architects and other
professionals to discover new security solutions.
3.2.2 Self-protecting, Self-optimizing and Self-healing IoT Concepts
Self-protecting capability features opens up the possibility for IoT to be used in systems that need
to protect themselves from malicious attacks, because security, privacy and data protection are at
stake. IoT may offer other capabilities in addition to self-protection, such as self-optimization and
self-healing. With enhanced swarm intelligence, IoT objects are capable of cooperating and
sharing resources efficiently. This allows for solving numerous optimization problems, which are
otherwise difficult to implement due to the large resources required. Self-optimization capabilities
mean that SI can be used in many IoT applications, such as optimal node localization, optimal
coverage control, and a wide variety of intelligent routings: shortest transportation path, best
available channel at a point in time, minimum energy consumption.
The use of swarm intelligence supported by edge technologies (such as WSN), makes it possible
to add more and more cognitive intelligence to the IoT objects, and at the same time add increasing
swarm intelligence to the collaborative and connectivity space. Thus, IoT objects strive to improve
to a higher level of local intelligence, close to human intelligence, in order to
fulfil their function in a distributed manner, while the collective intelligence is centralized in order
to solve problems that are more complex.
Swarm intelligence allows IoT to adopt a wide range of solutions already found in AI, data mining
and robotics, so that IoT applications become more robust, flexible, adaptable, scalable and self-
organized. The self-organization property allows for the formation of swarms of various shapes
and sizes.
Each IoT object, which is part of the swarm has an agent with just enough knowledge about its
object (such as position, speed) in order to engage the object in collaborative tasks with other
objects in the swarm. Thus, IoT objects may be fixed or mobile and the IoT objects may enter and
leave the swarm as necessary, without disturbing the meshing architecture of the IoT system.
Self-healing systems are another application of IoT. The self-healing property is found in
systems that detect and diagnose problems, and thus must embed some form of fault tolerance.
Fault-tolerance based on SI implies the generation of alternative transportation paths and the
recovery of faulty paths, so that the information is not lost and need not be retransmitted.
3.2.3 IoT Trust Framework
Common IoT threats are presented in together with requirements to make the IoT secure, involving
several technological areas. The common thread seems to be the need for end-to-end security.
Trust and usability are very important success factors for IoT, the security and privacy of which
need to be addressed across all the IoT architectural layers and across domain applications.
Performance, complexity and costs are all factors, which influence adoption in addition to those
that engender trust. While important progress has been made and actions have been planned to
address usability, there nevertheless remain a number of potential gaps inthe overall “trust”
framework.
The adoption of fine-grained authorization mechanisms allows for more flexible resource control
and enables tolerance when fronting unknown risks.
In addition, IP security protocol variants for the IoT with public-key-based cryptographic
primitives in their protocol design such as Datagram TLS (DTLS), the HIP Diet EXchange (DEX),
and minimal IKEv2, can fulfil the requirements of the IoT regarding scalability and
interoperability. End-to-end authentication, integrity confidentiality and privacy are essential.
It is very important for all IoT objects to collaborate with each other and with the environment in
order to generate the most appropriate clustering for the task at hand, whether that be optimizing
functions, locating and isolating attacked objects, alleviating damage, or healing. Objects’
trustworthiness is therefore an important feature, which must involve addressing issues such as
security, user access, user credentials/authentication, privacy, disclosure, and transparency.
Developing an IoT trust framework addressing security, privacy,and sustainability in IoT products
and services, as well as emphasising, “security and privacy by design” as part of IoT product and
application development and deployment, is an important research priority for IoT
activities.
It is important to keep in mind that all the technologies must be tailored to the constraints of IoT
scenarios and to the characteristics of IoT devices, including limited memory, computing
resources, security and backup connectivity.
Block chain technology is useful as a transaction-processing tool that can address trust and security
issues and move towards open source and security based on transparency allowing the
democratization of trust. This is done by holding a record of every transaction made by every
participant and having many participants verify each transaction, providing highly redundant
verification and eliminating the need for centralized trust authorities.
3.4 IoT Enabling the Digital Transformation of Industry
IoT refers to an ecosystem in which applications and services are driven by data collected
from devices that sense and interface with the physical world. Important IoT application domains
span almost all major economic sectors: health, education, agriculture, transportation,
manufacturing, electric grids, and many more. Proponents of IoT techniques see a world in which
a bridge’s structural weaknesses are detected before it collapses, in which intelligent transportation
and resilient electrical grids offer pleasant and efficient cities for people to live and work in, and
in which IoT-supported e-applications transform medicine, education, and business. The
combination of network connectivity, widespread sensor placement, and sophisticated data
analysis techniques now enables applications to aggregate and act on large amounts of data
generated by IoT devices in homes, public spaces, industry and the natural world. This aggregated
data can drive innovation, research, and marketing, as well as optimise the services that generated
it. IoT techniques will effect large-scale change in how people live and work. A thing in IoT can
be an inanimate object that has been digitised or fitted with digital technology, interconnected
machines or even, in the case of health and fitness, people’s bodies. Such data can then be used to
analyse patterns, to anticipate changes and to alter an object or environment to realise the desired
outcome, often autonomously. IoT allows for tailored solutions, both in terms of production and
services, in all industry areas. IoT data analytics can enable targeted medical treatment or can
determine what the lot-size for certain products should be, effectively enabling the adaptation of
production processes as required. In the context of manufacturing this would enable greater use of
customized outcomes rather than trying to predict mass market demand. The IoT can empower
people in ways that would otherwise not be possible, for example by enabling independence for
people with disabilities and specific needs, in an area such as transport, or helping meet the
challenges associated with an ageing society. Those countries that anticipate the challenges while
fostering greater use will be best placed to seize the benefits.
IoT ecosystems offer solutions comprising a large system beyond a platform and solve
important technical challenges in the different vertical and across verticals. These IoT technology
ecosystems are instrumental for the deployment of large pilots and can easily be connected to or
build upon the core IoT solutions for different applications in order to expand the system of use
and allow new and even unanticipated IoT end uses.
In applying the research and innovation, recommendations is important to consider the
good practices developed to help policy makers move ahead and promote the positive elements of
the IoT while minimising challenges and ensuring broader goals, including the following [6]:
• Evaluate and assess the existing policies and practices to determine that are suitably
supportive of the IoT, and do not constitute unintentional barriers to potential IoT benefits.
 • Promote the use of global technical standards for the IoT developed by standards setting
bodies or industry consortia in order to support the development of an interoperable IoT ecosystem,
while stimulating the emergence of new systems, boosting innovation and reinforcing
competitiveness.
• As the communication technologies evolve, evaluate spectrum resources to satisfy IoT
needs, both current and future, as different elements of the IoT, from machines to edge devices,
need a variety of spectrum resources that is fit for purpose.
• Promote skills to maximise opportunities in the labour market and support workers whose
tasks become displaced by IoT-enabled and IoT Robotic Things and systems, with adjustment
assistance and re-skilling programmes.
• Build trust in the IoT by managing digital security and privacy risks in line with the global
and European regulations and practices and by developing a Trust IoT framework based on cross-
border and cross-sector interoperability of policy frameworks in the context of DSM.
• Support and further develop open data frameworks that enable the reuse of government
data sets and encourage industry to share their non-sensitive data for public benefit.
• Promote and support the development of identity for things to address numbering,
discovery, identity and access management. Flexibility is needed for numbering as different
services or IoT users may have different requirements.
• Encourage the exploitation of the project results, support the private sector innovation
taking advantage of the IoT, and improve the conditions for the creation of start-ups and IoT
business models that are built around the opportunities created by the IoT applications and large
scale pilots.
3.5 Farming, Food and IoT: Where We Are Going
There is a good technology base for application of IoT in farming and food, so far current IoT applications
and technologies in the agri-food domain are still fragmentary and lack seamless integration. Especially
more advanced solutions are in an experimental stage of development. Operational applications are mainly
used by a small group of innovators and still focus on basic functionalities at a high granularity level.
However, we expect that this situation will change rapidly in the coming years. IoT technologies are
currently maturing fast and most recently, IoT is in the spotlights of both users and technology providers in
the farming and food domain. As a result, important advancements will be achieved, especially concerning:
• Ensuring the integration of existing IoT solutions with open IoT architectures, platforms and standards;
• Scaling-up the usage of interoperable IoT technologies beyond the innovators, including simplification of
existing solutions to ensure attractiveness for the mainstream farmers and food companies;

• Further improvement of IoT technologies to ensure a broad usability in the diversity of the agri-food
domain, e.g. different climate conditions, crop and soil types.
These technology developments are expected to drastically advance the development and application of the
information technologies that were introduced in the previous section:
• Precision Agriculture: will be extended to Smart Farming, in which a farm becomes a smart web of
interoperable farm objects. A major improvement that will be added, is the seamless integration of sensing
and monitoring, smart analyses and planning and smart control of farm operations for all relevant farm
processes (‘whole farm management perspective’).
• Tracking and Tracing systems: will develop towards end-to-end visibility and real-time tracking and
tracing on a fine granularity level, e.g. up to individual products. Moreover, traceability will be increasingly
integrated with smart sensing systems and consequently add data about product features, production
methods, and ambient conditions.
• Food Safety and Quality Management systems: will transform from a defensive, reactive approach
towards a proactive approach, in which food chains can be monitored, controlled, planned and optimized
remotely based on real-time information of a broad range of relevant parameters. To achieve this, more
types of sensors will be put into practice, the timeliness of sensor information will be increased, the
interoperability and thus end-to-end visibility of sensor data will be improved, more advanced remote
control will be realized by implementing new actuators, and more intelligence will be added to food safety
and quality management, for example: early warning in case of food incidents, rescheduling in case of
unexpected food quality deviations and simulation of product quality based on ambient conditions
(resulting in e.g. dynamic best-before dates).
• Food Processing and Manufacturing will increasingly be transformed into agile control systems in
which processing machines function as autonomous connected objects with embedded intelligence. This
will especially be achieved by integrating new and cost-effective sensors for real-time monitoring of
processing activities, ensuring machine interoperability, and implementing algorithms for early detection
of food safety and quality issues.
• Consumer Food Awareness will develop towards a fully consumer centric approach that combines IoT
technologies for different application areas, including Smart Homes, Smart Shopping, and Smart Health
and Leisure. These applications will combine food-related information from different stakeholders for
personalised food intake advices. IoT allows for the decoupling of physical flows and information aspects
of farm and supply operations. Farming processes and food supply chains can be monitored, controlled,
planned and optimized remotely and in real-time based on virtual objects instead of observation on site.
Hence, farming and food will be transformed into smart webs of connected objects that are context-
sensitive and can be identified, sensed and controlled remotely. This is expected to change agri-food
processes in unprecedented ways, resulting in new control mechanisms and new business models such as:
• Data-Driven Farming: IoT will help farmers to change from ‘management by gut feeling’
towards ‘management by facts’, which is of crucial importance to survive its increasingly demanding
business environment. The IoT sensing and connectivity technologies allow to feed decision-making tools
with timely and accurate operational data.
• Circular Economy/Green Farming and Food: IoT will facilitate the control of using and
distributing resources and it targets at a new dimension of symbiosis within the sector of food and farms.
Collaboration with different industries can be facilitated that can supply their waste e.g. in form of heat,
water, pressure or fertilizer. While also classical symbiotic systems like aquaponics will highly benefit from
new IoT enabled control solutions facilitating distributed and autonomous operation.
• Autonomous Farm Operations: IoT will improve the connectedness and intelligence of farm
automation. As such it will enable farm equipment to become autonomous, self-adaptive systems that can
operate, decide and even learn without on-site or remote intervention by humans. Examples are automated
precise control of farming equipment, weeding robots and self-driving tractors.
• Demand-driven Farming: IoT will enable farms to adjust and very accurately predict the
volume and quality of supply by the precise and timely monitoring and control of production processes,
also considering new interaction models that will communicate, feedback and predict the demand stemming
from business as well as consumer side. As a consequence, farms can depart from the traditional supply-
oriented, cost price driven, anonymous approach to a value-based, information-rich approach in which
demand and supply continuously are matched, both in offline and online distribution channels and
combinations.
• Outcome-based Agricultural Services: IoT will significantly improve the possibilities to
measure and control farm processes. As a consequence, farming will increasingly shift from competing
through just selling products and services, to the ability to deliver quantifiable results that matter to
customers, e.g. crop yield, energy saved or machine uptime.
• Urban Farming: IoT will support to situate fully-controlled indoor food production in urban
areas close to the consumers. It will combine the advanced sensing and actuating technologies of IoT with
new cultivation technologies for indoor farming (especially hydroponics, lighting).
• Agile Food Factories: IoT will enable a decentralised and flexible control concept for food
processing by adding food sensors, local data processing and intelligence, and connectivity to food
processing equipment.
• Virtual Food Chains: IoT will enable to virtualize food supply chain management, which allows
for advanced remote (re)planning, monitoring and control capabilities and for new business models, for
example: specialised virtual orchestrators that provide added value services and local-for-global trade by
SMEs.
• Personalised Nutrition: IoT will allow for nutrition monitoring and personalised advices by
using smartphones, that make use of connected sensors, wearables like smart watches, equipment at home
(e.g. refrigerators, weighing machines) and outdoor equipment (e.g. in canteens, restaurants, super markets,
fitness clubs).
3.5 Challenges
ICT technologies and IoT in particular are rapidly changing farming and the food industry. They
have the potential to bring in the future, through large-scale deployments, huge benefits in the form of a
more sustainable agriculture, ensuring food security with a lower environmental impact and guaranteeing
healthier food production. However, reaping the full benefits will require overcoming certain IoT related
challenges and barriers, both from technical and non-technical perspectives. At the same time, these
difficulties bring new opportunities for technological development and value creation taking into account
different types of stakeholders.
3.5.1 Technical Dimension Speaking from a technical perspective, without trying to be
exhaustive, the application of IoT to farming and food chains faces a series of challenges such as:
Interoperability and Standardisation Proprietary architectures, platforms and standards
represent a barrier for the wide adoption of IoT in the agri-food sector due to the risks associated to vendor
lock-in, incompatibility with other systems, etc. One of the challenges in the agri-food sector is to properly
capture its particularities in the definition of new global, open standards and the alignment with existing
standardisation initiatives from different stakeholders, stemming either from ICT (e.g. facilitated by the
ETSI) or from agri-food (e.g. AEF, AgGateway, AgXML, GS1, ISO, UN/CEFACT) that need to be
continuously aligned. In farming and food applications, one has to take into account farm management and
traceability systems, agricultural machinery information exchange (including fleet management), and in
general the specific data lifecycle (generation, collection, aggregation, visualization).
Enabling IoT Devices
Many of the benefits promised by IoT, including continuous and fine-grained monitoring of
parameters and variables, will only come through technological breakthroughs such as the increase of
computational power enabling edge computing/analytics, together with the drastic decrease of energy
consumption in sensors and actuators to become (almost) energy-autonomous devices. The large-scale
scope of farming applications also claims for more intelligence in the devices deployed in the field,
including self-configuration and self-management capabilities. In traceability and food safety scenarios
there is a clear challenge in developing new and cost-effective sensors and communication technologies, as
for instance current biosensors, as well as RFID and NFC tags are not always viable (compared to the cost
of the food product), in particular when targeting fine granularity, possibly at the individual product level.
Further attention needs to be dedicated to the device characteristics, since food is rather a commodity with
low profit margins and short lifetimes. Compared to tangible products from other sectors (e.g. clothing,
furniture, multimedia), direct pairing of IoT with fresh produce is rather impossible often-requiring
additional packaging. IoT potentials are not necessarily directly transferrable to food and farm, asking for
additional efforts and costs, assuring that enabling IoT devices will neither be harmful to the environment,
nor the consumers.
Enabling Network, Cloud and Communications Connectivity is essential for making the best of
IoT. However, IoT-intensive precision farming applications take place at food production (farms,
aquaculture facilities), which are located in rural areas, where broadband coverage is still far too low, as
only 4% of the rural European population has access to 4G connectivity, compared to 25% in towns and
cities [36]. The massive deployment of smart devices will demand architectural changes in the
communication networks (even at the Telco level) able to cope with specific data generation patterns and
to rapidly adapt to changing traffic situations, thus bringing the need for advanced SDN/NFV technology.
At the same time, agrifood is asking for IoT devices with a low power communication profile, even if this
will reduce bandwidth and communication frequency, giving technologies like LoRa already quite some
attention.
Information Services Generation and collection of data is just the beginning in IoT applications.
Extracting value from the data, in the form of meaningful and actionable information for the users, is the
final goal. In this regard, although there are already good application examples, information services in the
agrifood domain are still in an incipient stage. Short-term developments are mostly aimed at decision
support systems, based usually on rules engines. More advanced data analytics, allowing for instance
predictive modelling and production planning based on the demand (thus enabling demand-driven farming),
are still a challenge in most agri-food applications. At this, object data has to be combined with a wealth of
(3rd party) archives such as historical and forecasted meteorological data, satellite data, soil-, water- and
air-analyses, logistic systems, and data on prices, logistics, retail, food service, and consumers, diets, etc.
In this context, the usability of the information services is also of high interest: farm management systems
should be easily adaptable to holdings of different sizes, and with a low learning curve for the user, while
facilitating interoperability for horizontal and vertical collaboration of business partners in the agri-food
chain.
Data Security farming and food chains (following the trend in other industries) are becoming
more and more data-driven, so data becomes a precious asset. Indeed, the data captured by farming
machinery potentially conveys a large amount of information, which is critical to the farmers, such as soil
fertility and crop yield, so farmers must have strong guarantees on the protection of their data, in particular
in cases where such data is stored (and possibly processed) in cloud-based services. As a consequence,
many users are currently concerned about data ownership, privacy and security, which too often results in
a lack of confidence and a ‘wait-and-see’ attitude. On the other hand, aggregation of data from different
farms has the potential for generating huge added value. From a technical security perspective, there are
additional challenges to be considered in the domain of trusted data: the integrity and authenticity of the
data generated and stored must be guaranteed. In traceability/safety applications, this is relevant to the
origin of the product as well as the processing undergone, whereas in farming scenarios it is crucial, for
example, in insurance-related issues. Trustworthiness requirements demand challenging solutions, such as
low cost authentication mechanisms for devices/machines.
IoT Platforms There are numerous IoT platforms, stemming from open source initiatives as well
as representing commercial IoT platforms. Besides the challenges with respect to governance, connectivity,
fragmentation, interoperability, and stakeholders, it is emphasised that the need for decision support at the
application level to capitalise on the IoT, requires a loosely coupled, modular software environment based
onAPIs to enable endpoint data collection and interaction. This is specifically true for small- and
mediumsized companies representing the majority in farming as well as parts in the food chain. A particular
IoT empowered app might be enough to help solving a very particular problem. Apps could help to process
or interpret data and make suggestions or give advice measuring the condition of the soil and consolidate
this data in an app that is also predicting rain. As a consequence, the farmer is advised against spraying his
field that day.
3.5.2 Non-Technical Dimension
Besides the (non-exhaustive) technical challenges introduced above, from a non-technical
perspective it is worth to mention other issues that are crucial towards the full development of IoT
applications in farming and agri-food chains.
• Business models: the common trend towards data-driven value chains opens the door to new,
disruptive business models in traditional sectors such as farming and food industries. However, the
sustainability of IoTbased businesses, both for the supply (providers of IoT technology) and demand (agri-
food users) stakeholders must be investigated, specifically in the context of large-scale deployments. From
the point of view of the users, the quantifiable benefit and profitability must compensate for the cost of
acquiring, operating and maintaining the IoT solutions. Upfront costs of acquiring the IoT platforms and
services are currently a real barrier preventing wider adoption, in particular by small-sized farms.
• Societal aspects: IoT-based solutions for the agri-food sector still must prove their value
massively to the users. IoT technologies enable to capture large amounts of data nearly in real time.
However, data must be beneficial to and useable for farmers and all the stakeholders across the food chain.
The benefits of the technology must be brought to real farming scenarios, thus dissemination and awareness
are essential. An added difficulty in this regard is the heterogeneity of the agri-food value chain, including
a large variety of holdings with many different sizes. In addition, to get the full benefit of IoT in farming
applications it is essential that the users have certain digital skills. Currently, half of the EU population is
not properly digitally skilled [36]. Thus, education and training in digital skills is essential to avoid creating
a digital divide in the food and farm community. Farming cooperatives could play a key role in this regard.
• Policy and regulations: policies will play an essential role in the widespread deployment of IoT-
based innovations in farming and food chains. In line with the Digital Single Market strategy [39] of the
European Commission, they must help in lowering the existing barriers, which are slowing down the
adoption of IoT. Just to mention a few which are directly related to some of the challenges/barriers
mentioned above:
◦ Formulating clear security/privacy policies for protecting the farmers’data from unauthorised
disclosure and for controlled and secure access to authorized third parties
◦ Supporting the faster rollout of broadband internet access in rural areas.
 ◦ Enhancing digital literacy skills and inclusion.
• Stakeholder involvement: We observe the changing roles of old and new software
suppliers in relation to IoT, big data and agri-food. The stakeholder network exhibits a high degree of
dynamics with new players taking over the roles played by other players and the incumbents assuming new
roles in relation to agricultural data, information and knowledge. IoT in particular also entails organisational
issues of farming and the supply chain. Further technological development may likely result in two supply
chain scenarios from a stakeholder perspective. One with further integration of the linear supply chain in
which farmers become franchisers. Another scenario in which farmers are empowered by IoT and open
collaboration. The latter would enable also small stakeholders to easily switch between suppliers, share
data with government and participate in short supply chains rather than integrated long supply chains.