Relay Mobile Device Discovery with Proximity Services for User-provided IoT Networks

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) devices deployed in urban areas are seen as data sources for urban sensing IoT applications. Since installing cellular interfaces on a huge number of IoT devices is expensive, we propose to use a user equipment (UE) device with a local wireless interface as a mobile IoT gateway for fixed IoT devices. In this paper, we design a new mobile architecture based on cellular networks to accommodate non-cellular fixed IoT devices by UE devices working as IoT gateways. One key feature is that our architecture leverages proximity services (ProSe) to discover relay UE devices with low overhead in terms of discovery messages. Through simulation studies, we clarify the feasibility of our architecture including the relay UE discovery mechanism in urban areas.