Journal Pre-proof

Information-Centric Networking solutions for the Internet of Things: A

systematic mapping review

Adel Djama, Badis Djamaa, Mustapha Reda Senouci

PII: S0140-3664(19)31690-1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comcom.2020.05.003
Reference: COMCOM 6402

To appear in: Computer Communications

Received date : 17 November 2019

Revised date : 14 March 2020
Accepted date : 1 May 2020

Please cite this article as: A. Djama, B. Djamaa and M.R. Senouci, Information-Centric
Networking solutions for the Internet of Things: A systematic mapping review, Computer
Communications (2020), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comcom.2020.05.003.

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Information-Centric Networking Solutions for the

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Internet of Things: A Systematic Mapping Review
Adel Djama, Badis Djamaa, Mustapha Reda Senouci

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Distributed and Complex Systems Lab.
Ecole Militaire Polytechnique
Algiers, Algeria

Abstract
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Due to the similarity between the data-driven nature of sensor and actuator
networks enabling the Internet of Things (IoT) and the data-oriented model
of Information-Centric Networks (ICN), recent research began investigating
ICN-based IoT systems. This paper provides a thorough systematic
mapping review of such research with the aim to identify their strengths,
weaknesses, and open-research issues. Thus, after introducing the IoT
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ecosystem, its main requirements, existing IP-based solutions, and their
limitations, the survey investigates the ICN-IoT associations that have been
proposed in the recent literature. To do so, a new taxonomy that captures
the fundamental aspects of ICN-based IoT solutions is introduced along
with a multidimensional framework that provides a comprehensive
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multi-criteria analysis of the reviewed research. This paper also summarizes

the main observations learned from the analysis and draws
recommendations about open research issues that require the attention of
the community. Such issues include the lack of standardization efforts,
hybrid ICN/IP deployments, push-based communications, efficient caching
schemes, and QoS solutions.
Keywords: Internet of Things, TCP/IP, Information-Centric Networks,
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Named Data Networking, Content-Centric Networking, Host-Centric

communication, Data-Centric communication

Email addresses: a_djemaa@esi.dz (Adel Djama), badis.djamaa@gmail.com

(Badis Djamaa), mrsenouci@gmail.com (Mustapha Reda Senouci)

Preprint submitted to Computer Communications March 14, 2020

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1. Introduction

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The current Internet architecture is being transformed into a hyper
network of networks called the Internet of Things (IoT) where everyday
objects and devices are interconnected through the Internet whatever their
location (home, work, city, etc.), their form (a table, a car, a book, a

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sensor/actuator, etc.), and their ownership in order to create unprecedented
services and opportunities. Indeed, the IoT will connect 75 billion objects
to the Internet by 2025 [1] and promises to revolutionize our future with
new applications in smart homes, buildings, cities, commerce, agriculture,
travel and transportation, health and personal care, construction, and
industry, to name a few. These applications will create new opportunities
that help increase productivity, facilitating daily activities, enforcing
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security and safety, and promoting innovation. Such a multitude of
applications and number of resource-constrained heterogeneous objects,
however, raises the bar of challenges facing the design and management of
scalable, reliable and secure IoT solutions and architectures.
At first, industrials acting in the field, such as Zigbee, Z-Wave, and
LoRa Alliances started proposing proprietary vertical IoT solutions. For
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instance, the Zigbee Alliance is based on the IEEE 802.15.4 specification
and provides a high-level protocol allowing low-power communication of
personal or domestic constrained devices to create IoT solutions for smart
health, homes, and buildings. While such solutions showed the potential of
IoT, they resulted in creating fragmented vertical markets, built around
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proprietary software stack and protocols, and operate independently in

local and limited scope deployments. This has hindered interoperability
and communication between heterogeneous connected objects.
The lessons learned from the deployment of different vertical standalone
IoT networks in various application fields pushed towards the establishment
of a common horizontal architecture [2]. The aim is to make any IoT
resource accessible from anywhere, by anything, at any time through
provided services over the Internet. To do so, the idea was to reuse and
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adopt the existing Internet architecture and standards, built around the
TCP/IP network stack standardized by the IETF (Internet Engineering
Task Force). Nevertheless, the constraints of IoT environments and the
limits of its objects in terms of energy, computing, memory, and
communication resources have pushed towards adaptations. Thus, the
IETF 6LoWPAN (IPv6 over Low-power Wireless Personal Area Network)

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working group was created with the aim of adapting the IPv6 protocol to

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the constraints of connected objects. Following this, the IETF ROLL group
created new routing protocols dedicated to intelligent objects and the
CoRE group is standardizing application layer protocols. Nonetheless, there
is a fundamental discordance between the host-centric nature of the actual

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Internet architecture and the information-centric nature of the majority of
IoT systems, where the focus is in the generated data itself instead of its
location.
To overcome this problem, the Information-Centric Networking (ICN)
architecture [3] offers an interesting alternative thanks to its native
data-oriented nature. Indeed, ICN secret sauce resides in its capacity of
giving object names, which are managed directly at the network layer in
order to serve content queries. Also, ICN allows multihoming handling
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thanks to its inherent multicast/anycast support, and offers efficient
content-based security mechanisms, by embedding all security-parameters
in the content itself since its creation. Additionally, practical ICN
implementations including NetInf [4], PURSUIT [5], CCNx [6], and
NDN [7] are being deployed. For instance, NDN is implemented on a
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real-world testbed containing 40 nodes and 102 links, deployed over many
countries.
The aforementioned ICN characteristics provide interesting solutions to
IoT applications. Indeed, an ICN-IoT association can exploit the main
strengths of ICN architectures concerning naming, inherent security,
in-network caching, and native mobility support to address IoT
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requirements. For instance, ICN can provide unique and

location-independent names to IoT objects and their data, which
contributes to seamless mobility support, and profits from the nodes storing
capabilities to improve content delivery and reduce network traffic. In this
survey, ICN-IoT research efforts are summarized, analyzed and discussed
through a novel multinational approach, while pointing out the gaps and
possible directions that could shine a spotlight on potential shadowed areas.
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Before that, we introduce in the following related studies.

1.1. Related ICN-IoT surveys

A few studies dealing with the application of ICN in IoT have been
proposed in the literature [8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14].
In [8], considered as the first survey on ICN-based IoT solutions, and after
highlighting the main challenges and opportunities, the authors moved on to

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review existing solutions. In such a review, the power of ICN to address

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IoT challenges has been shown building upon key ICN components, such
as naming, caching, discovery, and security. Nevertheless, this paper has
been mainly devoted to explain the emergent concept of the ICN and its
applicability to the IoT environment, while discussing the possible modes of

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deployment of this association, without an in-depth analysis of the reviewed
research.
The authors in [9] proposed a survey of the literature related to the ICN-
IoT solutions. Indeed, after showing the basic requirements of IoT networks
and the advantages offered by ICN, the authors discussed the feasibility of the
ICN-IoT combination, which was followed by surveying collected approaches
in this field. To this end, they proposed to classify the collected research into
four categories, reflecting the major mechanisms of ICN, namely: naming,
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caching, mobility, and security. Operating systems and simulation tools that
have been used in the ICN-IoT domain have been also listed in this paper.
However, this survey did not address other important intrinsic main features
offered by ICN, such as QoS support, deployment mode, fault-tolerance, load
balancing, and service differentiation.
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In [10], the authors review different research axes in the field of IoT
in terms of development, challenges, and future needs, and highlight the
advantages offered by ICN architectures, as a strongly recommended solution.
Beside, two use cases of applying ICN to IoT applications were discussed in
this survey, namely smart lighting and smart home. However, similarly to [9],
this study lists the research work according to the four main characteristics
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of ICN (caching, naming, mobility, and security) and did not identify any
other features of the surveyed studies.
Another survey analysing ICN usage in IoT networks is proposed in
[11]. The surveyed research was classified according to four application
domains, namely: smart grid, smart building, smart home, and smart
health. Besides, a comparative study, of a chosen subset, has been
conducted regarding ICN properties, including naming, caching, mobility,
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routing, and security. However, these key obvious ICN features, no other
intrinsic functionalities of the investigated solutions that have been
considered in this survey.
The authors of [13], survey the ICN-based IoT solutions from the angles
of communication architectures, design issues, and research opportunities.
To this end, the authors pinpointed the inherent ICN features and their
suitability for the IoT. This is followed by a discussion of existing IoT

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wireless communication standards and their corresponding characteristics,

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before showing the research opportunities of the integration of ICN-based
IoT with cloud computing, software-defined networks, edge computing, fog
computing, and 5G networks. Nevertheless, the survey lacks identification
and discussion of some intrinsic aspects of the reviewed literature, such as

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deployment mode, service model, network supported features, and
guaranteed QoS.
Besides, [12] presents a detailed state of the art on the application of the
NDN architecture in the IoT, while relying on a set of defined modules
adopted in a proposed taxonomy of related research, including device and
data naming, caching, forwarding, routing, access control, data aggregation,
device configuration and discovery. Thereafter, the authors carried out a
comparative analysis of the collected works according to the identified
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modules, before projecting them on the same evaluation grid to identify the
characteristics and functionalities supported by each solution. However,
some key features were not considered in this evaluation grid, such as
security, QoS, and mobility support.
Finally, the most recent collected survey [14], addresses existing ICN
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solutions from the IoT perspective, classified by ICN components and
aspects. Different analysis axes of the surveyed research are considered in
this study, basically related to the domain-specific applications, general
ICN-IoT issues, publish-subscribe model, QoS support, security, mobility,
interoperability with IP-based architectures, and wireless aspect of the IoT.
For each analysis axe, an in-depth discussion has been proposed for the
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research works, while projecting them on the same evaluation grid, with a
description and/or comparison according to the main characteristics.
Besides, research challenges and future directions related to ICN-IoT were
drawn in this survey basing on the proposed analysis. Nevertheless, despite
the rich proposed comparison approach, it can be observed that the survey
has missed some important intrinsic IoT network features, such as fault
tolerance, scalability, load balancing, and differentiation of heterogeneous
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data flows and services.

In summary, each of the above surveys has its main focus, approach,
and considered research. While all of them have considered main inherent
ICN features, a few have tackled other key aspects like QoS, security and
mobility support. None of them, however, has taken into account supported
network features, such as scalabilty, fault tolerance, load balancing, and
differentiation of services. In addition, no methodology was given in these

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surveys, which limit their broadness, completeness and accuracy. Table 1

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summarizes the existing ICN-IoT surveys in the literature, along with their
main characteristics.

Table 1: Existing ICN-IoT surveys and main characteristics.

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Features

Open research
IP-based IoT
requirements
methodology

limitations

Main considered characteristics in the

strengths
ICN-IoT
Adopted

survey

issues
IoT

Ref.
[8]
[9]
[10]
7
7
7
X
X
X
X
7
7 re-
X
X
X
ICN features.
ICN inherent features (in-depth analysis),
operating systems, and simulation tools.
ICN features and ICN-IoT use cases.
X
X
X
[11] 7 X X X ICN features and ICN-IoT application areas. 7
ICN-based IoT issues, communication
[13] 7 7 7 X standards for IoT, and the integration of X
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ICN-based IoT with the existing architectures.
ICN-based IoT applications, ICN features
[12] 7 7 7 X (detailed analysis), service model, ICN data 7
structures, and evaluation metrics.
Domain specific IoT-ICN use cases,
general IoT–ICN issues, Publish–subscribe,
[14] 7 X 7 X X
QoS, security, mobility, synchronization,
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interoperability, and wireless aspect.

Deployment modes, service models,
Our infrastructure modes, ICN features (layer
X X X X X
survey 3), MAC layer, network supported features,
guaranteed QoS, and performance evaluation.

1.2. Contributions of this survey

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The major contribution of this work is a comprehensive survey on the

ICN-based IoT solutions, with an in-depth multidimensional analysis of the
proposed approaches, to identify the potential research areas that are not
widely explored by the scientific community. The key advantages provided
by our work in comparison to the above-listed surveys are highlighted in

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Table 1. specifically, the main contributions provided by our survey can be

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summarized as follows:

• We give an overview on IoT and its main requirements, with a focus

on existing IP-based solutions and their limits to handle the IoT
environment.

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• We present a brief overview on the ICN architecture as well as its
inherent features, which constitute its power while handling IoT
applications.

• We carry out a critical analysis of existing surveys based on the

identified features of the surveyed articles.
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• We adopt the systematic mapping methodology [15] to carry out our
survey study.

• We propose a taxonomy of existing ICN-based IoT papers by classifying

them according to the global context of the presented research works.
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• We provide a rich multidimensional framework to compare the reviewed
ICN-based IoT solutions.

• We carry out an in-depth analysis of existing ICN-IoT studies based

on the proposed multidimensional framework.

• We identify, for each comparison dimension, potential open research

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directions related to the ICN-IoT domain.

1.3. Survey Outline

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2
introduces IoT environments, their requirements and key applications along
with the discussion of the IP-based IoT architecture and its limitations.
This is followed in Section 3 by the presentation of the ICN architecture, its
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key features and promises for the IoT. Section 4 is devoted to presenting
our survey of ICN-IoT research, where a taxonomy of the literature is
proposed and a comprehensive comparative multicriteria analysis is
realized. Open research issues at both the technical and socio-economical
sides are identified and discussed in Section 5. The paper ends in Section 6
with a conclusion summarizing the key insights.

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2. Before ICN-IoT: IoT and IP-based Solutions

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2.1. IoT environments
The rapid development of low-cost, miniature, connected devices, such as
tags, sensors, and actuators allowed to create innovative solutions that can be

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used and deployed in every domain of human life. Such devices might be in
charge of gathering information in different environments, including natural
ecosystems, buildings, and factories, as well as sending the information to one
or more remote stations. They can also monitor key physiological parameters
of our health and generate alarms of any abnormal behavior at the right time
to preserve our lives. They are also expected to make cooperative operations
and decisions, based on the collected information, and act physically in the
deployment environments.
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These smart objects are, generally, characterized by low computation,
memory, and storage capabilities, and may operate under severe resource
constraints such as insufficient wireless bandwidth and very limited ability
to communicate. Indeed, according to their intrinsic capabilities, the
microcontroller-based devices can be classified into five (5) classes [16], as
illustrated in Table 2. The most powerful class of such devices has a
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maximum of 1MiB in RAM, whereas typical classes such as C2 has only
250KiB ROM and 50KiB RAM.

Table 2: Classes of microcontroller-based constrained devices, adapted from [16].

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Class Name RAM size Code size (Flash) Example Energy category
Class 0 (C0)  10 KiB  100 KiB ATtiny85 E1 / E2
Class 1 (C1) ∼ 10 KiB ∼ 100 KiB Waspmote E1 / E2
Class 2 (C2) ∼ 50 KiB ∼ 250 KiB iNEMO E1 / E2
Class 3 (C3) ∼ 100 KiB ∼ 500..1000 KiB M3 open node E1 / E2
Class 4 (C4) ∼ 300..1000 KiB ∼ 1000..2000 KiB A8 Open Node E1

Besides, such devices have strict energy constraints that can be

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categorized into four categories [16], namely event energy-limited (E0),

period energy-limited (E1), lifetime energy-limited (E2), and no
energy-limited (E9). As can be seen from the last column of Table 2, all
presented classes of microcontroller-based devices generally fall within the
energy category E1 or E2 depending on their computing demands and
application type. For instance, the majority of applications deploying such

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devices including smart transportation, smart grids, and smart agriculture

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may work under severe energy constraints where devices are powered by
non-replaceable batteries (E2). It should be noted that even, in the case
where nodes can be mains-powered (energy category E9), low-power
operations are required as not to create a burden on the energy bill.

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Additionally, smart objects are interconnected by a multitude of
communication technologies, including Power Line Communication (PLC),
Visible Light Communication (VLC), Low Power Wide Area Network
(LPWAN), and Low power Lossy Networks (LLN). The latter has been
defined by the IETF, which includes both wired and wireless networks
mainly composed of resources constrained nodes, where several standards
based on a lightweight resource consumption design have been developed,
such as IEEE 802.15.4, IEEE 802.15.4e, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE),
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Wi-Fi HaLow, and Z-Wave. LPWAN technologies with low power and
long-range communication characteristics include SigFox, LoRa, and
NB-IoT.

Table 3: Characteristics of representative IoT communication technologies [17] [18].

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LPWAN LLN
SigFox LoRa NB-IoT ZigBee BLE RFID NFC Z-Wave
ISO/IEC 14443
Standard SigFox Lora-Alliance 3GPP 802.15.4 802.15.1 RFID NFCIP-1 Z-Wave
NDEF
125 KHz(EU) 125 KHz (EU)
Frequency 868 MHz (EU) 868 MHz (EU) Licensed LTE
2.4 GHz 2.4 GHz 13.56 MHz (USA) 13.56 MHz (USA) 868 MHz
bands 902 MHz (USA) 902 MHz (USA) frequency
902-928 MHz (Global) 860 MHz (Global)
Topology star star / star, mesh, cluster star P2P P2P mesh
106, 212
Data rate 100 bps 50 kbps 200 kbps 250 kbps 1 mbps 4 mbps 40 Kbps
ou 424 Kbps
0-10 cm
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10 km (urban) 5 km (urban) 1 km (urban) 30 m (indoors)

Range 10-100 m 15-30 m >200 m 0-1 m
50 km (rural) 20 km (rural) 10 km (rural) 100 m (outdoors)
10 cm- 1 m

Besides, several Operating Systems (OS) and platforms, proprietary or

open-source, have been designed to handle the IoT environment. The
open-source category includes TinyOS [19], Contiki [20], RIOT [21], and
openWSN [22]. Indeed, TinyOS is among the first OSs designed for
low-power wireless devices. Thanks to its BLIP (Berkeley Low-power IP)
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library, TinyOS supports multi-hop IP-based networks consisting of

different motes communicating over shared protocols. Today, the use of
TinyOS in the IoT is very limited and its development is no longer active.
As an alternative, Contiki provides an interesting lightweight and
event-driven kernel with optional preemptive multithreading that can be
applied to IoT. Currently, it is considered as one of the main IoT OSs with
active developments on the Contiki Next Generation (Contiki-NG).

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Recently, RIOT and openWSN start gaining popularity in the IoT space

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thanks to their unique features. For instance, RIOT provides full support of
multi-threading as well as real-time capabilities, while openWSN
implements a fully standards-compliant protocol stack for IP-based
(industrial) IoT solutions.

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Built around smart devices and within their platforms, IoT applications
cover today a wide range of fields, starting from embedded on-body
applications to heavy industrial ones [13]. Fig. 1 illustrates the main IoT
application domains. As can be witnessed from this figure, most of IoT
applications require a certain form of mobility support. Thus, while smart
healthcare, transportation and industrial applications require explicit
mobility support, the reminder requires implicit support since the
connection/disconnection of IoT links may make the nodes appear moving
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even when they are physically static.

Smart
Healthcare
Smart
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Agriculture
Smart
Industry

Internet of Things Smart

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(IoT) Transportation

Smart
Grid

Smart
Smart Home
City
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Figure 1: Main IoT application areas.

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2.2. IoT requirements

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The resource limitations of connected IoT devices, along with the
unreliable nature of their communication technologies, induce several
requirements to be considered by the components of the adopted IoT
architecture [23]. In the sequel, we discuss the most prominent ones.

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• Naming: The deployment of IoT architectures on a wide scale
requires to assign a unique name for each node, its generated data,
and provided services. Such naming scheme must be persistent face to
the dynamic properties of IoT networks (energy depletion, mobility,
failures, etc.). In addition, it must be concise in order to take into
account the storage, processing and communication constraints. At
the same time, the naming scheme should be complete as to capture
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the complexity of IoT environments.
• Security and Privacy: Since IoT nodes make attached physical
entities accessible through the Internet, security becomes a major
challenge. Indeed, IoT systems involve critical infrastructures
including energy and industrial systems, along with critical data
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coming from smart healthcare systems, which have a direct impact on
human lives. This puts forward the critical role of security and
privacy in IoT environments. In fact, failing to protect and secure an
IoT system might prevent its adoption.
• Scalability: Proposed architectures in the IoT have to use reliable
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and flexible mechanisms that scale with the huge number of connected
objects and deal seamlessly with the explosion of the generated data
traffic.
• Lightweight design and Energy efficiency: As discussed above,
the nodes composing the IoT environment vary according to their
resources: computation, memory, bandwidth, energy, and storage,
which requires lightweight proposals and algorithms that could fit in
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such conditions, to preserve network resources and extend its lifetime.

Indeed, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has chartered a
working group [24] just to give guidelines and best practices for
developing lightweight efficient IoT solutions.
• Caching and Storage: Caching techniques permit to improve data
availability in IoT networks and increase their reliability while

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decreasing the response time, especially with the instability of

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wireless connections. Besides, storage capabilities might be also
required for medium and long-term data collection, where preselected
storage points in the network are chosen to optimize computational
and control overhead.

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• Support for mobility and QoS: Architectures designed for IoT
must be able to offer reliable data communication in both ad hoc and
infrastructure modes, in addition to supporting connection failures,
mobility, and ensuring QoS in such heterogeneous networks.

After listing the main requirements of IoT environments, we will discuss

in the following existing TCP/IP-based solutions for connected objects, and
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their proposed mechanisms to address the above requirements.

2.3. IP-based IoT solutions

Currently, IoT networking is mainly based on the TCP/IP architecture,
whose protocol stack was initially designed to satisfy the needs of wired
non-constrained networks interconnecting resource-rich devices [25].
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However, additional standardization efforts have been conducted by the
IETF to extend the reach of TCP/IP. These efforts resulted in the
establishment of many IoT-focused working groups, including ROLL
(Routing Over Low-power and Lossy networks), 6Lo (IPv6 over Networks
of Resource-constrained Nodes), and 6LoWPAN (IPv6 over Low-Power
Wireless Personal Area Networks), which deal with IPv6-based addressing
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and routing mechanisms, along with CoRE (Constrained RESTful

Environments) for application-level services [26] and ACE (Authentication
and Authorization for Constrained Environments) for security. The goal is
to establish adaptive communication layers (Fig. 2) that allow the
integration of resource-constrained objects into the Internet, to take
advantage of existing services and applications.
Indeed, the 6LoWPAN standard proposes an adaptation layer between
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the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC layer (layer 2), and similar technologies, and the
IP network layer (layer 3), as illustrated in Fig. 2. This intermediate layer
permits to build low bit-rate IP communication over constrained links and
therefore expands the capability of TCP/IP-based networks to handle IoT
requirements. The Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks
(RPL) [27] builds upon the 6LoWPAN adaptation layer to provide efficient

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routing mechanisms dedicated to constrained IoT objects. Finally, the

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Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) [28], a lightweight RESTful
protocol presents interesting mechanisms for seamless application-layer
integration and interoperabilty of heterogeneous IoT systems following
REST architectural design. It should be noted that the IETF has, recently,

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chartered a new working group to adopt IPv6 over LPWAN Networks.

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Figure 2: TCP/IP network stack for the IoT.

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2.4. Limitations of the IP-based IoT solutions

Connected IoT objects generate a large amount of data, which is added
to the existing data flows of the other Internet sources, like social networks
(Facebook, YouTube, etc.). As a consequence, ensuring efficient discovery
and access to these objects/data creates a burden for the current host-centric
Internet architecture in terms of addressing capacity, constrained-resource
support and the implicit dependence on third party services [29].
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Indeed, IPv4 has shown its limits for the addressing of objects on the
Internet, due to its reduced address space, which is why IPv6 has emerged
by allowing a wider range of addresses. However, because of its length,
IPv6 cannot be supported without adaptation (e.g., 6LoWPAN) by wireless
sensors/actuators.
Furthermore, address assignment and naming management require
additional burden. For instance, all IP-based solutions implicitly use two

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indispensable network services, the Domain Name Service (DNS) and the

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Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). The latter deals with the
assignment of IP addresses to the nodes in the network, while the former is
in charge of the correspondence between these IP addresses (level 3) and
the names of resources shared between the users (application level). These

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two key services related to the IP architecture require, for each, a dedicated
infrastructure, thus negatively impacting the performance of the
communication protocols and further encumbering the network functioning.
Moreover, being a host-centric architecture, where the address plays a
significant role, IP-based IoT solutions make the continuity and reliability
of communication an arduous task especially in a context of mobility or
network instability. Besides, the IP architecture uses additional protocols to
support security and heterogeneity aspects in the network, which inevitably
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introduces extra complexity and overhead, and is consequently not
recommended in the context of IoT. Table 4 summarizes the basic TCP/IP
support and its limitations for the IoT domain.
As shown in Table 4 and besides the adaptability efforts, the obvious
mismatch, between the host-centric nature of the TCP/IP technology and
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the information-centric nature of IoT systems, has sparked the scientific
community to explore other networking approaches, namely the
Information-Centric Networking (ICN), which constitutes the essence of
this study.

3. Towards Information Centric IoT

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Before discussing the opportunities offered by ICN to handle IoT

environments and the standardization efforts in this field, we present first
an overview of ICN fundamentals and its key properties.

3.1. ICN Overview

The talk of Van Jacobson, in 2006, titled "A New Way to Look at
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Networking" [3] has been considered as the foundation stone marking the
advent of ICN architectures. This new paradigm suggests, through the
decoupling of the transmitter from the receiver, to fetch data directly on
the network layer, by using application data object names instead of the
source addresses. In other words, the ICN architecture is centered on what
while the current IP architecture is centered on where.

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Table 4: Basic TCP/IP support and limitations regarding to IoT requirements.

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IoT
TCP/IP-based support Limitations
requirements
Supported by addressing mechanisms Require a dedicated
Naming
(IPv4 or IPv6) and DNS service. infrastructure.

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The channel is secured not
Supported by end-to-end channel the data.
Security and securing protocols during the entire No failure of intermediate
Privacy communication session between the nodes is permitted during
transmitter and the receiver. the communication
session.
Supported by IP-based addressing and
Autonomous systems, in addition to the
Scalability reliable delivery mechanisms and content Need additional patches.

Lightweight
design and energy
networks).
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retrieval techniques (e.g., P2P and CDN

Supported by 6LoWPAN adaptation

layer, as an overlay on the IoT data link
The additional adaptation
layers negatively impact
both the lightweightness
efficiency existing technologies.
and energy consumption.
Not natively supported.
Supported at the application level at a
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Require application level
Caching pre-selected and pre-configured network
capabilities from network
locations.
devices.
Incur various costs
Supported by restoring the depending on the
Mobility
communication link between the nodes. placement of the mobile
nodes [25].
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Based on the ICN principles, several architecture proposals have

emerged in recent years such as Named Data Networking (NDN) [7],
Publish/Subscribe Networking [5], and Network of Information (NetInf) [4].
The first one (NDN), which is the most prominent instantiation of ICN,
inherits the IP architecture hourglass shape, but substitutes the end-to-end
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data delivery model by a receiver-driven data retrieval model at the thin

waist level, as illustrated in Fig. 3. This new design leads to the shift of the
communication paradigm from location-centric (where) to data-centric
(what).
Network Information (NetInf) [4] allows connecting different network
environments into a single information-centric network by offering two

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of
Email WWW Phone … Browser Chat …

SMTP HTTP RTP … File Stream …

TCP UDP … Security …

Individual Apps

pro
Content
IP Every Node
Chunks
Packets

Ethernet PPP … Individual Links Strategy

CSMA Async Sonet … IP UDP P2P BCast …

Copper Fiber Radio … Copper Fiber Radio …

re-
Figure 3: NDN and IP stack.

models for retrieving NDOs (Named Data Object): via (i) name resolution
and (ii) name-based routing. Depending on the model used in the local
network, content is published by registering a name/locator binding with a
lP
Name Resolution Service (NRS), or use a routing protocol to announce the
routing information. Via name resolution, the consumer sends the request
to the NRS, this returns the available locators of the NDO, thus the
consumer retrieves the data from the best available sources. Otherwise,
through name-based routing, the client sends directly the request, which is
forwarded to the source, besides the data is sent to the consumer when an
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NDO is reached. The two models can be used separately or merged in a

hybrid scheme where it is possible to switch between the two schemes based
on a hop by hop feature.
The Publish Subscribe Internet Technology (PURSUIT) [5] is an EU
Framework 7 Program project launched in 2010 as a continuation to the
Publish-Subscribe Internet Routing Paradigm (PSIRP) [30] (2008-2010), in
which a clean slate routing architecture for ICN is proposed. This latter
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allows shifting the current send-receive based Internet toward the

publish-subscribe paradigm. The PURSUIT architecture consists of three
separate functions: rendezvous, topology management, and forwarding.
When the rendezvous function matches a subscription to a publication, it
directs the topology management function to create a route between the
producer and the consumer. This route is finally used by the forwarding
function to perform the actual transfer of data.

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Services in NDN are based on retrieving data identified by a given

of
name. Therefore, only two types of packets are used: Interest and Data
(Fig. 4). A consumer fetches data by sending an Interest, which
disseminates a name that identifies the targeted data. A Data packet is
transmitted only in response to an Interest and consumes that Interest.

pro
The Data packet, which follows the reverse path taken by the Interest to
get back to the consumer, can be generated by any node having the desired
data, like the producer or in-network storage: persistent storage
(repository) or temporary storage (caching router). In fact, in NDN, a
router can cache Data packets in its content store and uses them to satisfy
further requests.

Interest packet
Name re-
Identifies the data I want to receive
Nonce
optional elements to guide Interest
Data packet
Name
Identifies the data in this packet
DataSignature

Content
matching or forwarding
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Figure 4: NDN packets.

As shown in Fig. 5, each NDN node possesses three data structures:

CS (Content Store), PIT (Pending Interest Table), and FIB (Forwarding
Information Base). The CS is employed to temporarily store the received
Data packets, which permits to enhance the response time of future requests.
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The PIT is used to keep track of incoming interfaces for pending Interests,
which are not yet satisfied. This information is used to bring matched data
packets back to requesters. The FIB of an NDN router and an IP router
are similar, except that the first one contains data name prefixes instead of
IP address prefixes. Thereby, the FIB, which is populated by a name-based
routing protocol, stores data name prefixes and the corresponding destination
interfaces toward potential requested data provider(s). Moreover, each NDN
router integrates a forwarding strategy module that makes the forwarding
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decisions for every Interest packet according to the information stored in the
three above data structures.
In the sequel, we will discuss the main characteristics of the ICN
architecture.

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of
Name Data Communication
Technologies
F01
/LAB1/COURSE1/CH1 10110…… Content Store Net Device
(CS) Interface

pro
Prefix InFaces ……

/LAB1/COURSE1/CH2 F00 Pending Interest Table

(PIT)
F00
Application Application
Prefix OutFaces …… Interface

/LAB1/COURSE1/CH2 F01 Forwarding Information

Base (FIB)

3.2. ICN key properties

re-
Figure 5: NDN Node.

ICN brings interesting features designed directly on the network layer of

the communication stack, which are summarized in Table 5.
These intrinsic features of ICN, which seem very close to the IoT needs,
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give it the opportunity to overcome the inherent IP-based architectures
drawbacks, while propelling it as a promising approach for interconnecting
smart objects.

3.3. Towards ICN-based IoT

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Connected objects in the IoT are supposed to have, depending to the

application context, a high requirement level especially in terms of mobility,
QoS, and response time, for which, ICN promises to bring excellent support ,
thanks to its inherent features. In particular, ICN can address the following
IoT requirements[8]:
• Scalability: Scalability in IoT can be provided by ICN through the
naming mechanism, at the network level, and the routing of content
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based on these names. This allows users to delimit the scope of their
queries by precisely targeting what they are looking for instead of
specifying the location, which contributes positively to support the
huge number of queries of the connected objects.
• Quality of Service: In ICN-based IoT networks, the QoS is
guaranteed by exploiting the in-network capabilities of ICN, such as

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Table 5: Key features of ICN.

of
ICN
Advantages Main considerations in IoT
features
ICN naming schemes should adapt their
object names according to the small MTU
ICN assigns a unique, persistent, and location-independent name size of the IoT protocols (layer 2) to avoid

pro
Naming for every data and/or object. This naming scheme could be flat or packet fragmentation. In the same time,
hierarchical. they need to be generic enough and scalable
to take into consideration evolutivity of
multiple IoT applications.
By exploiting the internal storage space of the nodes in the network,
ICN tries to bring the data as close as possible to the consumers. Caching strategies must deal with the limited
Caching
This caching technique leads to enhanced performances in the memory space of the constrained IoT objects.
network, especially in terms of energy-saving and response time.
Instead of securing the entire communication channel, like
ICN-based Leightweight encryption
in IP-based infrastructure, security in ICN is content-based,
protocols should be used in the context
Security which provides each chunk of data with an auto-authentication
of IoT, which optimize CPU time and
mechanism, called a crypto-signature, that is grafted on the packet
energy consumption of constrained devices.

Stateful
Forwarding
plane
since its creation.
re-
The communication in ICN is consumer-driven, where the Interest
packet is sent by the consumer and forwarded across routers
until arriving at the first node having the matching data. Each
intermediate node keeps track of incoming interest interfaces to
answer them later. This routing mode permits to avoid some DDOS
attacks [29].
ICN forwarding strategies should be adaptive
to cope with nodes’ failures and mobility in
the context of IoT and the PIT overflow in
large IoT deployment.

Only lightweight in-network processing

ICN offers many in-network processing properties, such as data operations should be authorized in IoT
In-network
compression and query aggregation. These features contribute to environment, while taking into account both
Processing
lP
improve reliability, reduce traffic and extend the network longevity. processing and memory capacity of the
constrained devices.
Inherent Thanks to naming schemes and the stateful forwarding plane,
Multicast and anycast operations should
Multicast communication in ICN supports multicast and anycast modes
be on limited scope to avoid broadcast
and simultaneously, by managing the input and output interfaces at
storm problems, and hence save energy and
Anycast the network layer, which are more complex to deal with at the
bandwidth.
Support application layer for IP-based architectures [25].
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queries aggregation and caching techniques, which help improve

response time and reduce the packet loss rate for any type of traffic in
the network.

• Security: In ICN, security is provided by a secured object/name

binding, a crypto-signature, allowing the network and/or its
components to check confidentiality, integrity and access control,
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locally at the network layer, without the need for third-party services,
which greatly facilitates secure content sharing among IoT nodes.

• Energy efficiency: By placing the data near the consumer, thanks

to ICN caching techniques, this reduces the number of packets
transmission hopes and avoids congestion in the IoT network, which
consequently allows saving its energy.

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• Mobility and Fault-tolerance: Thanks to the ICN’s

of
consumer-driven communication model enhanced by naming and
caching mechanisms, consumer mobility is supported by design, as
well as the failure or sleeping of the original data producers, as long
as any node in the IoT network that has the desired data in its cache

pro
can respond to the requests.

• Heterogeneity: The decoupling of the receiver from the transmitter

offered by ICN, thanks to its standardized naming schemes, allows
abstraction of information and services, thus overcoming the highly
heterogeneous nature of the devices constituting the IoT ecosystem,
and giving the opportunity for consumers to search the data by name
regardless of the device it hosts and the used routing service.
re-
Given the advantages of the ICN and its suitability for IoT, several
research projects are interested in this association for the sake of providing
new robust and reliable platforms, able to meet the requirements of current
and next-generation IoT networks. For this purpose, several
standardization work and pre-deployment fundamentals, were initiated by
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the IETF, via the ICN research group (ICNRG) that deals with this new
paradigm and the modalities of its application, especially for IoT
[2, 31, 32, 33].
In the same context, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
has made a number of recommendations concerning ICN-IoT association. For
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instance, [34] specifies a proof-of-concept model for a service that provides

NDN named data in the context of the IoT. [35, 36] deal, respectively, with
the management of IoT data as a service using ICN, and a decentralized IoT
communication architecture based on ICN and blockchain concepts.
Moreover, major IoT operating systems and platforms started proposing
ICN implementations. For instance, the authors of [37] have proposed an
integration of CCNx into Contiki [20] and implemented an experimental
extension, dubbed ContikiCCNx, to enable data retrieving using CCN [7].
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The proposed extension modifies CCNx protocol of the PARC project [6],
to be run as an intermediate layer on top of the MAC-layer protocols
implemented in Contiki. Besides, CCNx-Contiki offers the possibility to run
in a multi-threading environment, while supporting real-time scenarios.
Adding to that, the modularity design of its components, which allow easy
and flexible implementation covering multiple IoT use cases.

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In the same context, and relying on CCNx, CCN-Lite [38] has been

of
proposed to cope with the resource constraints of IoT devices and
communication patterns. It has been integrated into several IoT operating
systems, including RIOT [21]. Integrating CCN-Lite to RIOT enables
CCN-based IoT solutions, with the support of multi-threading, energy

pro
efficiency, and real-world scenarios. Also, with this integration, CCN-Lite
can be run over multiple microcontroller-based IoT hardware (Table 2),
including ARM-, MSP430-, and AVR-based platforms.
On the other hand, ccnSim [39] has been conceived under the
Omnnet++ [40] framework in order to provide a scalable simulator of
ICN/CCN solutions. Its event-driven engine allows to assess CCN
performance in large scale scenarios with large orders of magnitude for
CCN content stores. While, it cannot be run directly on constrained IoT
re-
devices, it can be used to evaluate large scale CCN IoT deployments.
Finally, the well-known Network Simulator version 3 (NS-3) [41] has
benefited from an implementation of the NDN protocol, dubbed ndnSIM
[42]. This latter implements the basic NDN primitives, where all forwarding
and management strategies are directly transcribed from the source code of
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the NDN Forwarding Daemon (NFD). It is worthwhile to mention that
ndnSIM was not initially designed to run over wireless devices with reduced
capacities; however, its latest versions can be run over the IEEE 802.15.4
standard, while supporting ad hoc scenarios. Besides, ndnSIM modular
implementation allows it to be run over all NS3 data link technologies,
while seamlessly managing inter-layer operations. Also, an experimental
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extension is supported, thanks to ndn-cxx library, which allows using the

implemented solution in real-world scenarios.
Table 6 summarizes the main ICN implementations in IoT Operating
Systems and platforms, with insights on their key characteristics, popularity
and targeted platforms.

4. ICN-IoT: A multidimensional vision

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This section is devoted to present our approach, relying on a research

methodology, to survey ICN-IoT solutions. A novel taxonomy of the existing
literature is proposed, along with a comprehensive comparative framework
that is based on a multidimensional vision. Subsequently, a deep analysis of
the surveyed studies is presented, according to the considered comparative
dimensions in the proposed framework.

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Table 6: Main ICN-IoT OS/Platforms.

of
implementation/

on our survey
Languages
First

Popularity
OS/

pro
Type release Main characteristics Targeted platforms
Platform
protocol

year

based
ICN

CCNx- Coexistant IoT native support,

CCN/
Contiki with 2012 C Multi-threading, TelosB, Sky motes Low
CCNx
[37] TCP/IP Modularity, Real-time.
RIOT, Linux kernel,
CCN-Lite CCN/ Overlay Multiplatform, Possible OMNeT++, Android,
2012 C Medium
[38] CCNx UDP native deployment. Arduino, Rfduino,
Raspberry Pi
Custom IoT native support, Multiple platforms
C,
RIOT [21]

ccnSim [39]
Free

CCN/
CCNx
network
stack
Clean
Slate
re-
2013

2012
C++

C++
Multi-threading, energy
efficiency, Real-time.
Event driven, scalablity
support, parallel simulation
engine.
Modularity, NFD full
(ARM, Arduino,
MSP430)

Omnet++
Medium

Medium

ndnSIM NDN/ Clean implementation, Network

2012 C++ NS3, Linux kernel High
[43] NFD Slate Analyse tools compatible,
Real applications support.
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4.1. Adopted methodology
To realize a comprehensive state-of-the-art of existing ICN-based IoT
approaches, we have adopted the systematic mapping methodology [15],
which provides a holistic and coarse-grained overview of any topic, which
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can be described in the following steps.

• Database: To achieve our objective, studies published up-to January

2020 available from domain-relevant electronic databases including
IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, Springer Link, and Science Direct
were collected. Besides, articles related to this domain were also
collected from Arxiv archive, Hindawi, MDPI, Sagepub, Hal, and
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Google Scholar databases, as well as standardization research works,

namely recommendations and drafts. The Total column of Table 7
presents the number of papers found in each database.

• Setting Scheme: In our case, the targeted topic was set to

"Information Centric Networking based Internet of Things".

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Table 7: Number of collected papers per database.

of
Database Total % S1 S2 Filtered %
IEEE Xplore 142 37.66 72 37 48.68
ACM Digital Library 33 8.75 15 7 9.21

pro
Science Direct 18 4.77 15 10 13.16
Springer Link 167 44.29 20 5 6.58
Others 17 4.50 17 17 22.37
Total 377 100 139 76 100

• Search Strings: To do this mapping study, the automatic search

re-
process has been adopted. The keywords used for the search were:
("All Metadata": "Information Centric Networking" AND "Internet of
Things").
• Screening and Filtering Steps : The filtering phase is divided into
two steps: S1 and S2. During the first step (column S1 in Table 7),
the information related to the article’s metadata (title, abstract and
lP
keywords) is analyzed according to the used search string. After that,
the second step (column S2 in Table 7) consisted of performing a full
analysis of the paper, while taking into account the results of the
selection criteria phase described below.
• Selection Criteria: This phase is used to evaluate retained papers
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from step S1 of the filtering process, to retain those that are

potentially relevant, where responses to the research question (RQ)
could be found, and exclude those which are irrelevant, duplicated,
and/or not written in English. Therefore, the considered Inclusion
Criteria (IC) are: Research papers focusing in the application of ICN
in the IoT; while the considered Exclusion Criteria (EC) are: papers
that do not address the application of ICN to IoT as the main
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concern, as well as those consisting solely of bibliographies, table of

contents, references and keynote talks, editorial, or summary of
conferences. The number of retained papers after this phase is given
by column S2 in Table 7.
• Research Questions (RQ): For the retained papers, the following
questions are considered: RQ1 - How are the publications related to

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the ICN-IoT domain distributed over the years? RQ2 - Who are the

of
major contributing authors? RQ3 - Which are the most cited papers?
RQ4-Which are the major journals and conferences that publish articles
about ICN-IoT?
As a response to RQ1, which is related to the time distribution of

pro
publications, Fig. 6 shows that the research community began interest
in the application of ICN to IoT practically around 2013. Since then,
the curve has taken an ascending shape, thanks to the development
of communication standards, simulation tools, and testbed platforms
in this area. These statistics confirm the relevance of the topic, which
gradually gains ground and interest within the research community.

20 re- 18
Number of publications

17
15
15
11
10 8
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6
5
1
0
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
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Year

Figure 6: Papers published per year in ICN-IoT domain after S2.

Regarding RQ2, Table 8 lists the names of researchers who published

more papers in the ICN-IoT field along with their publication number
sorted by publication numbers. It should be noted that, due to the
great number of authors, we have shown only those who published
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more than two (2) articles.

Concerning RQ3, which is related to the most cited papers (based on
Google Scholar citations), Table 9 shows a descendent ordered list of
ICN-IoT articles that have been cited more than 20 times. The
important number of citations showed in Table 9 witness the interest
given the research community to the topic.

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Table 8: Number of contributions per author in ICN-IoT domain.

of
Author’s name Publications count
Marica Amadeo 8
Boubakr Nour 8

pro
Maroua Meddeb 4
Sobia Arshad 3
Ikram Ud Din 2
Safdar H. Bouk 2
Cenk Gündoğan 2
Jeff Burke 2
Oliver Hahm 2
Sugang Li 2
Wentao Shangre- 2

Table 9: The most cited articles in ICN-IoT domain (based on Google Scholar).
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Reference [44] [8] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55]
Number of citations 235 196 124 122 113 109 100 79 72 51 47 40 36
Reference [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [9] [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67]
Number of citations 34 32 31 29 29 29 28 26 23 22 21 20 20
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Finally, the RQ4 addresses to major journals and conferences that

published articles about ICN-IoT. The bubble plot of Fig 7
summarizes the distribution of the collected papers per type and per
database.

In addition to the above research questions, an in-depth comparative

analysis of the collected papers will be given thereafter, based on the proposed
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multidimensional approach.

4.2. Taxonomy of the reviewed literature

From a broad vision, a high-level analysis of the collected articles in the
literature interested in the ICN-IoT, allowed us to classify them into five (05)
categories as shown in Fig. 8.

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22

of
Others
20

18

16

14

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Conf erences
12

10

Journals 4

2
r
EE

er

s
ge

er
vi

AC

th
rin
IE

se

O
Sp

El

re-
Figure 7: Distribution of collected papers per database.

4.2.1. Standardization efforts

This first category brings together standardisation efforts aimed at
establishing the fundamental bases, applicability statements and
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pre-deployment standards of the ICN architecture and its integration with
IoT. This category mainly includes the standardization studies that have
been proposed by the ICNRG group of the IETF [2, 31, 32, 33], and those
undertaken by the ITU [34, 35, 36].

4.2.2. Surveys and comparative studies

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Studies in this category highlight the current state of the art of the ICN-
IoT research, by providing comparative analysis from different angles. Papers
identified in Section 1.1 belong to this category, which include also other
comparative studies that focus on a given characteristic of the ICN paradigm
and its applicability in IoT networks, such as caching mechanisms [68, 69],
and producer mobility support [70].
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4.2.3. Challenges and benefits

Papers in this category focus, on the one hand, on the challenges faced
by IoT networks and, on the other hand, on the advantages of ICN
paradigm and its suitability in the IoT context. They also identify the
criteria to be considered for the effective realization of an ICN-IoT
association. For instance, in [23] a comparative study between ICN and

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ICN-based IoT solutions

of
with evaluation

ICN-based IoT solutions

without evaluation
9.21% 55.26%

pro
9.21%
Standardization
efforts 15.79%
10.52%

Surveys and comparative Challenges and benefits

studies

re-
Figure 8: Percentage distribution of the research works related to ICN-IoT.

TCP/IP based technologies for the IoT is conducted, where an appropriate

analysis is given w.r.t key IoT requirements. Also, the authors in [71]
discuss the security and privacy challenges of ICN in IoT, while in [72] the
need for push-based communication in ICN-based IoT networks is
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highlighted.

4.2.4. ICN-based IoT solutions without evaluation

The studies listed in this category propose new ICN-based IoT
architectures, while addressing different faces of the ICN salient properties.
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For instance, in [73] the authors propose the integration of security

functionalities to the ICN-IoT middleware architecture proposed by the
ICNRG research group in [32]. Also, in [63], the authors propose an
adaptation and modification of MobilityFirst architecture [74] to apply it in
a service-oriented communication in the IoT. In [67] an ICN-based naming
scheme is proposed for the IoT and in [65] the authors provide a security
protocol for IoT devices embedded in an ICN network. This latter manages
the boarding phase of new devices through effective authentication and
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authorization content-based mechanisms. It, also, builds a mesh IoT

network composed of secure devices that deliver reliable communications.
However, solutions belonging to this category do not consolidate their
approaches with experimental or simulation demonstration, where a set of
them rely only on analytical assessment or theoretical proof-of-concept.

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4.2.5. ICN-based IoT solutions with evaluation

of
Although the previous categories are important for enabling the ICN-
based IoT, this one is the most comprehensive since the proposed solutions
are crowned by performance evaluations on dedicated simulators, testbeds,
or real deployment platforms. Some Representative papers are introduced

pro
below.
The research work presented in [44] is one of the first studies that have
addressed the application of ICN in the IoT environment. Various
mechanisms were proposed in this work, especially relating to routing and
caching, which have been evaluated experimentally on an Automation
Building platform. Routing and forwarding have been also addressed in
many papers in this category, such as [49] where authors provide an
re-
NDN-based framework for reliably retrieving data from multiple sources to
reply to the same interest. In [75], the authors propose a geographic
interest forwarding scheme aiming to minimize overhead and energy
consumption in a WSN. Moreover, new approaches were proposed based on
the other intrinsic features of ICN and their benefits for the IoT, including
security handling [47, 76, 54], mobility support [77, 78, 63], caching
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[51, 53, 56], and naming schemes [50, 66, 79].
Finally, applicability of ICN to industrial IoT has been also investigated
in [80] where a solution adapting ICN properties to the well-known TSCH
wireless link-layer technology has been proposed. Fig. 9 lists the collected
research in the ICN-IoT domain along with their counts according to the five
proposed categories.
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4.3. A multidimensional study of ICN-IoT solutions

After classifying the collected papers into five categories and based on a
deep analysis of the proposed research, we have identified several dimensions
that allow for a comprehensive study of such research, which we present in
a multidimensional framework shown in Fig. 10.
In our proposed framework, we have segmented the ICN-IoT aspects
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addressed by the collected research into seven (7) dimensions as follows.

4.3.1. Deployment Mode

This dimension describes the utilized deployment mode of the ICN
architecture w.r.t. that of IP. For that, four (04) deployment modes are
considered:

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Standardization [2], [31], [32], [33],

of
efforts (Total: 7) [34], [35], [36]

Surveys and [10], [68], [70], [9],

comparative [11], [12], [8], [55],
studies (Total: 12) [14], [81], [69], [13]

pro
ICN-IoT Challenges and [45], [72], [82], [59],
research works benefits (Total: 8) [23], [46], [71], [83]

ICN-based
IoT solutions [84], [73], [63],
without evaluation [67], [85], [65], [86]
re- (Total: 7)

[53], [87], [88],

[54], [57], [89], [51],
[90], [91], [92], [80],
[93], [75], [94], [95],
ICN-based [66], [61], [96], [97],
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IoT solutions [50], [44], [52], [98],
with evaluation [99], [100], [60],
(Total: 42) [62], [79], [58], [49],
[101], [47], [48],
[56], [64], [102],
[103], [104], [105],
[106], [107], [108]
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Figure 9: Proposed taxonomy of research works related to ICN-IoT.

• Clean slate: This mode aims to completely replace the existing IP-
based infrastructure with the emerging ICN architecture at all network
levels (local, edge, and core network).
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• Underlay/IP: This mode intends to deploy standalone ICN-based

network blocks, interconnected with the global IP-based
infrastructure via application-level conversion gateways (IP-ICN).

• Overlay/IP: This mode concerns the deployment of the ICN

architecture over the existing IP-based infrastructure, without making
any changes. It results in the deployment of ICN blocks on the

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Number of Nodes (Max)

of
Proof of Concept / Analytical evaluation
Performance Evaluation
Testbed

Simulation / Emulation

DiffServ

pro
hop-count

Bandwidth / Overhead

Throughput

Guaranteed Quality of Service Success ratio (PDR: packet delivery ratio

Energy

Retrieval time / Latency

CPU

ICN-IoT
literature

Supported Features
re- Load balancing
Memory / Storage

Fault-tolerance / Intermittent network

Scalability
Network layer (Layer 3)
Mobility

Security

Routing / Forwarding

Data aggregation
Contribution scope / domain of interest
MAC layer (Layer 2) In-network processing
Constrained devices
Caching
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Infrastructure Without (ad hoc)
Naming
With

Publish / Subscribe
Service Mode Pull
Request / Response
Push
Coexistence/IP

Overlay/IP
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Deployment Mode
Underlay/IP

Clean Slate

Figure 10: Proposed multidimensional framework.

IP-based infrastructure, which are interconnected via ICN/IP

gateways that support both ICN and IP communication modes
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simultaneously.

• Coexistence/IP: This mode foresees the coexistence of the ICN and

the IP on the same level of the communication stack (level 3). The
resulting architecture supports both ICN and IP communication modes
simultaneously and can be deployed at the edge network, as an interface
between the local and the core network.

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The distribution of research related to this dimension per deployment

of
modes is illustrated in Fig. 11. We can observe that the Clean Slate
deployment mode predominates in the collected ICN-IoT research. For
instance, paper [75] presents a geographic interest forwarding scheme in the
context of a standalone WSN, where networking is purely based on a clean

pro
slate NDN technology, while paper [65] proposes a security protocol for IoT
devices, which allows delivering reliable communications based on a mesh
topology of secure devices embedded in a clean slate ICN network. Also,
authors in [102] present a near cache placement strategy for IoT, based on a
multi-objective minimization problem, while considering a clean slate ICN
architecture, and authors of [67] propose an NDN-based integration solution
for IoT, for disseminating high-level knowledge derived from raw sensor
data to consumers, through NDN clean slate deployment mode. Beside, [53]
re-
proposes a CCN-based caching mechanism in an IoT environment, while
measuring energy and bandwidth consumption impact, in a clean slate
CCN deployment architecture, whereas authors in [88] conceive a privacy
solution for E-Health application, based on a Clean Slate NDN architecture.
Concerning the underlay/IP mode, paper [79] proposes a multiple-layer
lP
naming scheme in an ICN-based network which is bridged to the global
Internet and the cloud through a border router, hence enabling ICN
deployment as an underlay/IP architecture; and [97] proposes the
integration of an NDN-based IoT network to the IP-based cloud, as an
underlay, via a translation gateway ICN-to-MQTT. Also, [84] designs a
Smart monitoring and control solution for smart home applications, by
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leveraging the Fog Computing concept and ICN as an underlay of the

IP-based cloud. Whereas in [80], authors present a combination of ICN
routing and TSCH time slot reservation mechanism for IoT, that is
connected, as an underlay, to the global Internet via gateways.
For the overlay/IP mode, authors in [58] propose a service provisioning
ICN-based framework as an overlaid mobile local cloud, on the edge network,
which is based on request-response communication to offer and manage data-
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centric services of IoT networks. Besides, authors in [47] present a Named

Data-based architecture for Building Management Systems (BMS), as an
overlay on a legacy TCP/IP-based IoT application.
Finally, the coexistence between ICN and IP has been addressed in
some of the collected research. For instance authors in [96] propose an
NDN convergence layer design for LLNs, based on the adaptation of the
NDN packet size to cope with the IEEE 802.15.4 MTU size. The purpose is

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to allow the coexistence of IPv6 and NDN on the same communication

of
layer in the context of LoWPAN. Also, in [101], a Named Networking
Control Protocol (NNCP) for IoT is designed, while presenting the possible
coexistence with IP-based networks; whereas in [103], an ICN-TCP/IP
coexistence approach is presented at a local network, based on network

pro
function virtualization technology, which consists of defining a set of regions
and virtual control functions to assist content delivery between these
different regions. Table 10 summarizes the contributions and characteristics
of representative main references in each mode of this dimension with a
focus on the targeted features.

Table 10: Deployment mode of surveyed literature and main characteristics.

Deployment
mode
References

[73], [93], [63],

[67], [85], [65],
Main
Ref.
[75]
re-
Key characteristics/Summary
Forwarding scheme in WSN, based on purely NDN deployment
network.
Reliable communications based on a mesh topology of secure IoT
Targeted
Features
Forwarding,
Security.
[65] Security.
[86], [53], [87], devices deployed in a clean slate ICN network.
[88], [54], [57], Cache placement strategy for IoT, based on a multi-objective
[89], [51], [90], [102] minimization problem, while considering a clean slate ICN Caching.
Clean Slate [91], [92], [75], architecture.
lP
[94], [95], [66], NDN-based integration solution for IoT, for disseminating high level
Interest
[61], [50], [44], [67] knowledge derived from raw sensor data to consumers, through clean
dissemination.
[52], [98], [99], slate NDN architecture.
[100], [62], [49], Impact of CCN-based caching mechanisms in terms of energy and
[48], [56], [102], [53] bandwidth consumption in IoT environment, while adopting a clean Caching.
[104], [105], slate CCN architecture.
[106], [107] Privacy solution for IoT application (E-Health) based on Clean slate Security,
[88]
NDN deployment. Naming.
Smart monitoring and control platform for smart Home application,
None (Proof
[84] exploiting fog computing concept and ICN as an underlay of the IP-
of concept).
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based cloud.
Combination of ICN routing and TSCH time slot reservation for IoT
[84], [80], [93], Routing,
Underlay [80] application, which is bridged, as an underlay, to the Internet via
[97], [60], [79], MAC layer.
/IP gateways.
[64], [108]
NDN-based publish subscribe architecture, connected to the MQTT-
[97] Mobility.
IP-based network via translation gateway.
Standardized Naming scheme for ICN-based IoT application, while
[79] connected to the global cloud and Internet using edge things Naming.
(gateways).
Global ICN-based data management and service provisioning In-network
[58]
Overlay framework, as an overlay on IP-based IoT applications. processing.
[58], [47]
/IP NDN-based architecture for BMS (Building Management Systems), Naming,
[47]
as an overlay on a legacy TCP/IP-based IoT network. Security.
Design of an ICN convergence layer for LLN networks, where NDN Naming,
[96]
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and IPv6 coexist on the same LoWPAN layer MAC layer.

Coexistence [96], [101], A Named Networking Control Protocol for IoT, where coexistence Forwarding,
[101]
/IP [103] with IP-based networks is presented. MAC layer.
ICN and TCP/IP coexistence approach based on network function
[103] Forwarding.
virtualization.

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of
Underlay / IP

16.32%
Overlay / IP

pro
4.08%
6.12% 73.47%
Coexistence / IP

Clean Slate

re-
Figure 11: Deployment modes of surveyed ICN-based IoT solutions.

4.3.2. Service model

The considered service models adopted by existing solutions depend on
lP
the employed communication models in the network, namely: (i) the
Publish-Subscribe model, which consists of the sharing and management of
resources between the publisher and the subscriber; and (ii) the
Request/Response model, where we encounter the push and pull modes.
The former (push mode) supports the direct sending of the data packet
without prior requests. In contrast, the latter (pull mode) consists of
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sending a data packet in response to an interest (natively supported by the

ICN architecture).
Statistical analysis of this dimension, given in Fig. 12, shows that the
majority of the proposed ICN-IoT solutions adopt request/response pull
mode as a communication model, which is natively supported by ICN
networks, while a few of them are interested in the push mode and even less
in the publish-subscribe one.
Jou

For instance, [92] proposes a naive NDN-based architecture for smart

healthcare IoT applications, where pull communications are employed in
response to a user query, while push communications are used to update
the location of frequently used smart objects. Also, [52] proposes an NDN
reliable push-based IoT support, by designing and analyzing three different
schemes, namely Interest notification, unsolicited Data, and virtual Interest

33
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80 73.77

of
60

40
%

pro
20 18.03
8.2
0
Pull Push Pub-Sub

Figure 12: Service models adopted in ICN-based IoT approaches.

re-
polling, all destined to handle periodic or event-triggered data transmission
in the network, which is not supported by the original NDN proposal.
Furthermore, the authors of [108] provide classification and
prioritization of IoT traffic supported through NDN, where push
communication mode is adopted for time and event-based traffic, related to
lP
the different types of used sensors; whereas in [63] authors suggest adapting
and modifying of MobilityFirst ICN instance, to apply it in a
service-oriented IoT communication. For that, the push model is solicited
for sending notifications in a timely and efficient manner.
Besides, paper [56] presents an ICN-based Smart Collaborative Caching
scheme for IoT, where Publish-Subscribe communication model is adopted
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within clustered IoT nodes at the level of fog computing; and finally, authors
in [64] address the case of ICN-based IoT architecture for ambient assisted
living application, in which the Publish-Subscribe communication model has
been used to enable push-based services, through a subscription for different
topics offered by the edge nodes in the network.
Table 11 summarizes the main references and characteristics related to
this dimension. It identifies the targeted application use-cases by each work
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along with the advantages and limitations of each model.

4.3.3. Infrastructure
This dimension reflects whether the infrastructure mode adopted by the
proposed solutions is: ad-hoc or with infrastructure, including if constrained
nodes are supported or not by the architecture.

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Table 11: Service models of surveyed literature and main properties.

of
Service Main
References Targeted use cases Pros Cons
model Ref.
[84], [73], [63], [67], [85],

pro
[65], [86], [53], [87],
[88], [54], [57], [89],
[51], [90], [91], [92], -Natively supported -No support for
[80], [93], [75], [94], -Smart Healthcare. by ICN architecture. producer mobility.
[92]
Pull [95], [66], [61], [96], -Ambient Assisted -Reduces overhead and -Not suited for dynamic
[63]
[50], [44], [98], [99], Living. energy consumption in networks, event-driven or
[100], [60], [79], [58], the network. time constrained applications.
[49], [101], [47], [48],
[64], [102], [103], [104],
[105], [106], [107], [108]
-Not natively supported
-Suited for event-
by ICN implementations
driven IoT applications
Push
[84], [63], [91], [92],
[93], [75], [66], [50],
[52], [62], [108]
re-
[52] -NDN-IoT.
[108]
(Alert/Notification).
-Saves network energy
and supports nodes
mobility.
(NDN and

and operations to enable

push-based support in the
ICN architecture.
-Not natively
CCN).
-Requires additional packets

supported
by the most prominent
ICN instantiations
-Support producer (NDN and CCN).
mobility since FIBs are -Requires modifications
lP
-Fog Computing. dynamically populated. and/or adaptations of some
Publish- [56] -Ambient -Enhance response internal ICN primitives
[86], [97], [100], [56] [64]
Subscribe [64] Assisted Living. time in the network. (Extra packet types
-Suited for time and additional fields in
constrained Interest and Data packets)
applications. -Increase overhead of
exchanged packets and
energy consumption in the
network.
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Statistical analysis depicted in Figure 13 reveals that both modes are

equally present in ICN-IoT research with the infrastructure-based mode
taking around 52.50% and the ad hoc mode, which requires constrained
resources handling taking around 47.50%. Indeed, authors in [91] present a
push communication support for interest notification in an NDN-based
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smart home lighting application, and paper [57] proposes an ICN

keywords-based data retrieval and local processing architecture; both of
them are basically based on wired nodes (infrastructure).
Regarding, the ad hoc deployment mode, authors in [93] propose a
CCN-based architecture for efficient data delivery in ad hoc wireless sensor
environment, and authors in [75] propose a geographic forwarding strategy

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in the context of wireless ad hoc constrained-energy IoT. Whereas in [87],

of
the authors design a robust ICN-based forwarding solution, while targeting
ad hoc mode of IEEE 802.11-based networks. Table 12 summarizes the
infrastructure modes adopted by ICN-IoT solutions along with
representative references and their main characteristics.

pro
Without (ad hoc)
52.50% 47.50%
With re-
lP
Figure 13: Infrastructure mode employed in ICN-based IoT solutions.

Table 12: Infrastructure modes of surveyed ICN-IoT literature.

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Infrastructure References Main Architectures Targeted features

mode Ref.
Ad hoc [67], [65], [86], [53], [87], [92], [80], [93], [93] CCN-IoT Naming and in-network processing
[75], [94], [66], [61], [97], [50], [60], [62], [75] NDN-IoT Forwarding
[58], [49], [107] [87] Wireless ICN Forwarding
With [85], [88], [57], [89], [90], [91], [95], [44], [91] NDN-IoT Naming and forwarding
infrastructure [98], [99], [100], [79], [101], [56], [64], [57] ICN-IoT Naming, in-network processing,
[102], [103], [104], [105], [106], [108] and forwarding
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4.3.4. Contribution scope

This dimension concerns the scope of interest of each collected paper,
allowing the identification of the proposed mechanisms and their position
on the communication protocol stack, mainly: MAC layer and network
layer. The latter includes several ICN’s features which are: naming,

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caching, mobility, security, in-network processing, data aggregation,

of
routing, and forwarding.
Statistical analysis concerning the contribution scope, shown in Fig. 14,
reveals that the most targeted features are located at the network layer,
namely: routing/forwarding and naming mechanisms followed by security

pro
and caching strategies. Besides, in-network processing and mobility are the
least investigated topics. It should also be noted that we have registered a
low number of papers interested in the MAC-layer.

40
34.69 34.69
30
re- 22.45
20.41
%

20
10.2
10 8.16
6.12

0
lPg

ng

ty

r
ng

ye
in

rit

sin

ili
hi
di

la
am

cu

ob
es

ac
ar

AC
Se

oc
N
rw

M
C
pr

M
Fo

rk
g/

wo
tin

et
ou

-n
R

In
rna

Figure 14: Contribution scope of ICN-based IoT solutions.

When it comes to individual contributions at the network layer, authors

in [54] and [88] present, respectively, a flexible ICN-based architecture to
support management operations in IoT environment, and a NDN-based IoT
privacy and security scheme for e-health applications. Both, however, focus
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on naming and security requirements. Besides, caching mechanisms have

been addressed in a multitude of papers including [51], which proposes a
probabilistic distributed caching scheme in a named data IoT network, and
[89], which presents a caching mechanism for efficient data dissemination in
a smart city application. On the other hand, forwarding and routing
strategies have been studied in many papers, including [90] and [106]. The
latter presents an adaptive forwarding based on link recovery to cope with

37
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node mobility in NDN-based IoT networks, whilst the former proposes a

of
simultaneous data retrieval and discovery schemes in an ICN-IoT
architecture, based on semantic aggregation of routing table information.
The MAC layer scope has been also been targeted by the ICN-IoT
research comunity. For instance, the authors of [96] propose an adaptation

pro
layer to cope with the small size of LowPAN packets at the MAC layer. The
authors of [80] have developed a MAC layer solution based on both TSCH
timeslot reservations and ICN Interest multi-hop routing to deliver energy
efficiency in an IoT network, without invoking cross-layer operations.
Table 13 summarizes the contribution scopes of collected ICN-based IoT
solutions along with their main proprieties, characteristics, and challenges.

4.3.5. Supported features

re-
The network characteristics supported by the proposed solutions are
considered in this dimension, namely: scalability, fault-tolerance, and load
balancing. These features are very important, especially with the unreliable
nature and the constrained resources of IoT networks. Indeed, scalability is
capital to guarantee the system’s continual functioning even in the presence
of billions of connected objects. Fault-tolerance reflects the capacity of
lP
keeping communication stability of an IoT network, where intermittency is
quite common; whereas load-balanced ICN-IoT solutions guarantee a long
lifetime for the IoT network by sharing the traffic load between constrained
nodes.
Statistical analysis of contributions in this dimension are illustrated in
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Fig. 15. It is clear from these statistics that the identified network features
are weakly considered by the majority of solutions (around less than 6.8%).
The followings discuss the most important collected studies that consider a
set of these important features.
Authors of [91] design a scalable NDN-based smart home lighting solution
using an Interest filtering technique. Also, A hybrid naming scheme for
CCN-based IoT has been proposed in [66], which provides scalability thanks
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to the hierarchical components of the objects names. Besides, authors of

[62] provide an NDN-based protocol, that combines cooperative caching and
energy saving capabilities of IoT constrained nodes, in addition to an auto-
configuration mechanisms enabling effective deployments at a large scale. In
the same context, [60] proposes a secure onboarding and routing solution
supporting scalability via the hierarchical design of the IoT network, and
the lightweight computational and cryptographic requirements at the node

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Table 13: Contribution scope of surveyed ICN-IoT literature.

of
Contribution
References Main properties
scope
Collected research propose solution to cope with the

pro
underlying IoT MAC technologies, by the introduction of
MAC layer [80], [96], [101]
adaptive layers (between layer 2 and 3) or the adaptation
of the existing IoT MAC solutions.
[85], [88], [54], [57],
Hierarchical, flat, attribute-based and hybrid naming
[91], [92], [93], [66],
schemes are adopted by ICN-IoT solutions to insure
Naming [61], [96], [50], [99],
efficient resources naming, while fitting with IoT
[100], [79], [47],
requirements (unique, persistent, and lightweight names).
[64], [104]
Content placement and replacement schemes are proposed
[53], [89], [51], [94],
by surveyed ICN-IoT solutions, where caching strategies
Caching [98], [62], [56],
re-
[102], [105], [107]
are basically based on the content itself or on some internal
information related to the caching node.
Since consumer mobility is supported by design in ICN
architecture, the surveyed literature propose in this scope to
handle producer mobility in different ways, for instance by
Mobility [63], [97], [64], [106]
exploiting dedicated ICN examples such as MobilityFirst
[63], or via registration services to a specific nodes in a
clustered networks [64].
lP
Surveyed solutions in this contribution scope, propose
[73], [63], [65], [86], ICN-based IoT security schemes, including privacy, trust
Security [88], [54], [95], [66], management, authentication, and secured routing, which
[60], [47], [48] are based either on the content or on the device in the
network.
Thanks to ICN caching capacity, in-network processing
In-network
and aggregation of received data have been enabled and
processing/ [57], [93], [100],
addressed by surveyed literature in this scope. The goal
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Data [60], [58]

is to reduce traffic, improve transmission reliability, and
aggregation
preserve IoT nodes energy.
To insure efficient packet transmission in ICN-IoT
networks, proposed solutions, in this contribution scope,
[63], [87], [57], [90], conceive smart and adaptive routing and/or forwarding
[91], [92], [80], [75], operations, either by respecting the ICN native design,
Routing/
[44], [52], [99], [60], or by bringing some modifications to the original ICN
Forwarding
[49], [101], [103], structure, including the addition of extra fields to interest
[106], [108] and data packets, such as identifiers of nodes [87], or even
the use of new data structures, to keep information about
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network activity and make forwarding decisions.

plan. Finally, article [104] presents a unified hybrid ICN naming scheme that
combines hierarchical and attribute-value components in order to provide
build-in scalability for smart IoT applications.

39
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12

of
10.2
10
8.16
8

pro
6
%

4
2.04
2

0
Fault-tolerance Scalability Load balancing

re-
Figure 15: Supported features of ICN-based IoT solutions.

On the other hand, an NDN-based adaptation layer for LLNs has been
provided in [96], to enable coexistence with IPv6, while guaranteeing high
reliability in faulty networks. Also, authors in [97] carry out a study about
lP
the integration of NDN-based IoT network to the IP-based cloud, by mean
of translation gateways while handling deployment in the large scale.
With regards to load balancing, authors in [58] propose a mobile edge
cloud for Information-Centric IoT services, while taking into account load
balancing and intermittency parameters to cope with the constrained
resources and link instability of IoT networks. Besides, a keywords-based
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data retrieval technique and local processing solution for ICN-based IoT, is
provided by [57], which guarantees load balancing in number of function
executions in the network. Table 14 summarizes supported features
considered by ICN-IoT solutions and their key properties along with the
targeted architecture and features.

4.3.6. Guaranteed QoS

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This dimension concerns the supported QoS parameters in terms of :

memory/storage, CPU, and energy of IoT nodes, and
retrieval-time/latency, success ratio (PDR: Packet Delivery Ratio),
hop-count, and throughput/bandwidth related to the IoT network.
Fig. 16 presents statistics about the guaranteed QoS parameters of the
proposed ICN-based IoT architectures. It can be seen from this figure that
the most considered QoS parameters are transmission time and energy,

40
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Table 14: Supported features by surveyed ICN-IoT solutions.

of
Supported Archit-
Ref. Key properties/Summary Targeted Features
features ecture
NDN-based smart home lighting IoT solution, which
[91] Naming, Routing. NDN.
guarantees scalability based on Interest filtering technique.

pro
Hybrid naming scheme for CCN-based IoT, which provides
[66] scalability thanks to the hierarchical components of the used Naming, Security. CCN.
names.
Scalability Scalable framework for a lightweight authentication and Security, Routing,
[60] NDN.
hierarchical routing in NDN-based IoT. In-network processing.
NDN-based cooperative caching mechanism for IoT, which
[62] Caching. NDN.
provides energy efficiency in a large scale deployment scenario.
A unified hybrid ICN naming scheme, combining hierarchical
[104] and attribute-value components, for smart IoT applications, Naming. ICN.
while insuring build-in scalability.
A NDN-based adaptation layer for LLNs, to enable coexistence
[96] with IPv6, while guaranteeing high reliability in faulty MAC layer, Naming. NDN.

Fault
tolerance/
Intermittency
[97]

[44]
networks.
re-
Integrating NDN-based IoT network to the IP-based cloud, by
mean of translation gateways ICN-to-MQTT, while handling
large scale deployment of the proposed solution.
NDN-based reactive optimistic routing mechanism, that have
been evaluated experimentally, while supporting producer
Mobility.

Routing.
NDN.

NDN.
disconnection in the network (intermittency).
A service provisioning Framework, combining the ICN-based
global Cloud and the IP-based local mobile Cloud, while
[58] In-network processing. ICN.
tolerating disconnections due to nodes mobility in the IoT
lP
network.
An ICN keywords-based data retrieval and local processing
Load Naming, Routing,
[57] solution for IoT, which provides load distribution in number ICN.
balancing In-network processing.
of function executions in the network.

followed by packet success ratio and bandwidth. The remaining parameters

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are, however, less supported by the proposed solutions, notwithstanding

their direct implication in the quality of service of the network in the case
of heterogeneous data flows or real-time streaming applications for example.
Table 15 summarizes the guaranteed QoS parameters of the surveyed
literature with the targeted applications. The main characteristics common
to studies falling under each QoS parameter are also provided in this table.
The remainder of this section discusses some representative studies offering
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QoS support.
Paper [99] presents a novel NDN-based architecture at the edge network
to support IoT nodes, while considering service provisioning time and
number of data packets as QoS parameters. Besides, [105] proposes a cache
replacement policy for NDN-based IoT networks, where retrieval time,
bandwidth, and hop-count were considered as a QoS metrics. Furthermore,
authors in [93] present an efficient ICN-based data dissemination approach

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60 55.1

of
40
30.61 28.57 28.57

pro
%

20
10.2 12.24
2 4.08 2.04
0
gy

t
y

e
/O tio

hr P U

rv
un

pu
ag
nc

ea

Se
er

ra

or

co

gh
rh
te

C
En

iff
re- St
La

p-
ve
s

ou

D
es

y/

ho
e/

cc

or
tim

T
Su

th

em
id
l

M
va

nd
rie

Ba
et
R

Figure 16: Guaranteed QoS of proposed ICN-based IoT architectures.

lP
that supports the following QoS parameters: retrieval time, energy, success
ratio, and network throughput. Moreover, in [107], the authors introduce a
packet update caching scheme for ICN-based IoT, which leverages
clustering, circular buffer, and data purging techniques to insure efficient
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data delivery with respect to content popularity and retrieval time,

hop-count reduction, and access control in the network.

4.3.7. Performance evaluation

This last dimension of the proposed multidimensional taxonomy deals
with the means by which the proposed approaches have been validated.
Those include the simulation/emulation, real testbed, or theoretical
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analysis. Results depicted in Fig. 17 show that the validation of the

proposed ICN-based IoT mechanisms is carried out, mainly, by simulation
followed by real world testbed experimentation. For instance,
[53, 87, 88, 54] have used simulation methods to evaluate their proposals.
Besides, the experimental evaluation approach has been adopted by
[80, 97, 44, 62]. Finally, the analytical evaluation approach has been used in
[84, 65].

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Table 15: Guaranteed QoS parameters by surveyed ICN-IoT solutions.

of
Guaranteed
QoS References Targeted domains Main characteristics
parameter
[87], [88], [54], [57],

pro
Time constrained
[89], [51], [90], [91],
IoT scenarios, smart
[80], [93], [75], [94], Rapid content delivery of proposed mechanisms,
Retrieval healthcare , industrial
[66], [61], [96], [99], while relying on ICN-based network layer strengths,
time/Latency IoT, WSNs, smart
[60], [79], [58], [49], especially caching and adaptive forwarding features.
city, VANETs, smart
[48], [56], [102], [103],
lighting.
[105], [107], [108]
[65], [53], [54], [51], Less energy consumption to extend the longevity
Smart healthcare,
[92], [80], [93], [75], of the ICN-based IoT network, mainly composed of
Energy Smart Home, smart
[96], [50], [44], [98], power-constrained devices, while fitting in the green
city.
[60], [62], [107] networking perspective.
[54], [92], [93], [66],
Connected vehicles, Increase content delivery ratio, to cope with the
[96], [97], [50], [52],
Success ratio

Bandwidth/
Overhead
[99], [49], [101], [56],
[64], [106]
[65], [53], [87], [88],
[51], [44], [100], [49],
[64], [103], [105], [106],
[107], [108]
re-
safety
applications

Smart
Ambient
Critical

healthcare,
Assisted
Living application.
unreliable transmission medium and the nodes
mobility in challenging ICN-IoT scenarios.
Increase access medium availability, particularly in
wireless scenarios, by exploiting the ICN main
strengths, such as naming and statefull forwarding,
to alleviate packet traffic in the network.
Memory/ [65], [51], [50], [62],
Lightweight solutions and mechanisms that fit with
Storage [104]
Smart Home, Wireless constrained-resource devices in the IoT, which are
IoT. basically based on ICN native services, namely
lP
CPU [65], [104]
naming, caching, and in-network processing.
Reduce hop-count of exchanged packets, in order
to improve effectiveness and reliability, by soliciting
[90], [75], [98], [102], ICN and NDN-based
hop-count fewer resources in the IoT network, which is made
[105], [107] IoT
possible thanks to caching and naming mechanisms
of ICN.
Thanks to the inherent Anycast/Multicast ICN
IoT multimedia support, the collected solutions propose to enhance
Throughput [80], [93]
streaming scenarios. the quality of transmission in the network, while
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satisfying the high throughput QoS requirement.

Classify and prioritize heterogeneous data flows,
according to the required QoS of each type of traffic
in the IoT network (DiffServ). Naming and caching
DiffServ [108] NDN-based IoT.
features of ICN allow performing such operations, by
bringing traffic class type as an extra field into the
native packets (interest and data).

Concerning the used tools, Fig. 18 presents the main platforms used in
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evaluating the reviewed literature. It is clear from this figure that ndnSIM
is the de-facto evaluation tool used in around 55%, thanks to its full
support of ICN mechanisms. This is followed by IoT-specific platforms such
as RIOT, ccnSim, and Contiki OS, respectively, due to their ability to
capture IoT device and network constraints. Other simulation tools
including NS3, TheOne simulator, Icarus, PyNDN-Arduino, SocialCCNSim,

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80
70.83

of
60

pro
40
%

20.83
20
8.33
0
Simulation/Emulation Testbed Analytical evaluation

re-
Figure 17: Performances evaluation of ICN-based IoT proposed solutions.

MATLAB, were also used sporadically. Together, they count for more than
27%.
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Others

ccnSim 27.27% RIOT/CCN-Lite

6.06%
9.09%
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3.03% Contiki-OS/CCNx-Contiki

54.55%
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ndnSIM

Figure 18: OS and platforms used in the performance evaluation.

Finally, Table 16 summarizes and discusses the performance evaluation

approaches used in the surveyed literature. It also gives deep insights on the
used platforms and the network size along with the cost and main advantages

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of each evaluation method. One main finding form this table is that the

of
average number of deployed nodes is relatively low, which is in the order of
a hundreds for both simulations and testbeds.

4.3.8. Summary and discussion

pro
While the above section introduced and discussed each dimension alone,
the majority of reviewed papers fall under different categories, which
necessitates a new comparison approach based on the proposed
multidimensional framework, presented in Table 17. Indeed, the reviewed
articles are projected according to several dimensions, while considering the
same evaluation grid, in order to deliver a coherent and relevant vision of
the offered functionalities, proposed mechanisms, and scope of the
contribution of each paper.
re-
This innovative and rich multidimensional projection is not based only on
the core strengths of ICN caching, naming, mobility, and security mechanisms
as adopted in the existing ICN-IoT surveys, but also brings several axes of
comparison. Our objective is to give a refined and clear vision on the existing
literature in this field, and to subsequently be able to identify the research
directions, at a finer degree of granularity.
lP
For instance, it is clearly showed in Table 17 that clean slate deployment
mode predominates ICN-based IoT solutions. This can be due to the fact that
this mode does not require any connection to other non-ICN-based networks,
and is therefore relatively easy to design. Besides, the table also puts forward
the fact that most of the reviewed literature follows the pull communication
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model because of its native support within the ICN paradigm, while a few of
them are interested to the push mode and even less to the hybrid one. Finally,
and because of the distributed and infrastructure-less characteristics of the
majority of IoT applications, ad hoc architectures dominates the research in
this field.
On the other hand, Table 17 reveals that the contribution scope of
existing ICN-IoT literature is very limited. Indeed, it mainly targets
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routing, forwarding and naming. The table also highlights the fact that less
features are considered by existing work in the field. For instance, fault
tolerance is only considered by less than 10%, while load balancing count
for around 2% of the surveyed literature. Similar conclusions can be drawn
w.r.t QoS definition in ICN-IoT services that only counts for around 2%,
comparatively to that of latency, which is addressed by more than 55% of
the works.

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Table 16: Performance evaluation approaches of surveyed ICN-IoT literature.

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Evaluation Approach #References Ref. Targeted platform #Nodes Cost
[56] / 600
[64] ndnSIM 100
[102] / 100

pro
[103] ndnSIM 13
[104] ndnSIM 64
[105] ccnSim 260
[106] ccnSim 260
[107] ndnSIM 40
[108] MATLAB 1000
[79] / /
[58] TheOne simulator 30
[49] ndnSIM 80
[101] ndnSIM 4
[52] ndnSIM 2

Simulation 31
re- [98]
[99]
[100]
[60]
[93]
/
ndnSIM
ndnSIM
ndnSIM
NS3
70
50
21
100
10
Meduim

[75] ndnSIM 125

[94] ndnSIM 15
[95] / 4
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[66] CCNx-Contiki 63
[61] Linux /
[50] ndnSIM 19
[53] ndnSIM 23
[87] ndnSIM 118
[88] ndnSIM 35
[89] SocialCCNSim /
[51] ndnSIM 68
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[57] Icarus 1111

[96] / 12
[97] RIOT-CCN-Lite 5
[44] RIOT-CCN-Lite 60
Testbed 7 [47] / 4 High
[48] / 5
[80] PyNDN-Arduino 10
[91] / 5
[62] RIOT-CCN-Lite 1000
Simulation&Testbed 3 [92] / 100 High
[54] NDNSim/Java-Arduino 5/2
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[84] / 5
[73] / /
Theoretical Analysis 4 Low
[65] / 3
[90] / /

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Finally, the table also brings out that most of the existing literature is

of
evaluated through simulations, which might not capture the behavior of the
evaluated solutions under realistic real-world scenarios. Also, despite a few
value peaks, the average size of evaluated networks is considered low for many
real-world IoT applications.

pro
In summary, our analysis of this table, according to each comparative
dimension, has revealed several important aspects in the ICN-IoT domain.
In the next section, we will summarize the lessons learned from our
multidimensional analysis of ICN-IoT literature, and identify the open
research issues.

5. Lessons learned and identified open research issues

re-
Our multidimensional analysis allows us to highlight some shadowed
aspects, related to the ICN-IoT association, according to each identified
comparative dimension in the literature review (Table 17). Based on which,
we draw some recommendations about open research issues in the ICN-IoT
domain, that could help the research community to precisely target
under-explored directions, which are summarized in Table 18.
lP
Indeed, the predominance of clean slate deployment mode in ICN-based
IoT solutions, which is due to the fact that is relatively easy to design,
however, it is difficult to achieve in real world deployments. This is because
of the young age of the ICN technology in comparison to that of TCP/IP.
Therefore, overlay/IP, underlay/IP, and coexistence/IP modes, which are
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easier to implement with the existing IP infrastructure should be

investigated with novel contributions to address their limitations. For
instance, such hybrid architectures can inherit the same limitations of the
IP technology along with the overhead related to the ICN/IP duality on the
same infrastructure.
Besides, while the inherent pull communication model is widely used,
this study recommends a further exploration of Push and Publish-Subscribe
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communication models. This exploration can be of great importance, thanks

to the various interesting usage of such models in IoT applications, such as
real-time sensor monitoring for intrusion detection or healthcare usage, that
are based on the Push mode.
Additionally, and while ad hoc architectures are more adopted by
proposed works thanks to their adaptability to the majority of IoT
applications, we recommend that Hybrid infrastructure deployment should

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Table 17: Multidimensional comparison table of ICN-IoT approaches

of
Deployment Service Infrastructure Contribution scope Supported Guaranteed Performance
Dimension
Ref. Mode Model domain of interest Features QoS Evaluation
Network layer (layer 3)
Clean Slate
Underlay / IP

Overlay / IP

Coexistence / IP

Publish / Subscribe

Without (Ad hoc)

Constrained devices

MAC layer (Layer 2)

Memory / Storage

CPU

Throughput
Bandwidth / Overhead
hop-count

Testbed

Number of Nodes (Max)

Push

With

Scalability

DiffServ

Retrieval time / Latency

Energy

Simulation / Emulation
Load balancing
Pull

Intermittent Network

packet delivery ratio)

In-network processing /

Analytical evaluation
Success ratio (PDR:
Routing / Forwarding

Proof of Concept/
Fault-tolerance/
Data aggregation

pro
Mobility
Security
Caching
Naming
[84] X X X X X 5
[73] X X X X
[63] X X X X X X X
[67] X X X
[85] X X X X
[65] X X X X X X X X X X 3
[86] X X X X X X
[53] X X X X X X X X 23
[87] X X X X X X X 118
[88]
[54]
[57]
[89]
[51]
[90]
[91]
[92]
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X

X
X

X
X
X
X

X
re- X
X
X

X
X
X
X
X
X
X X

X
X
X
X
X

X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X

X
X

X
X

X
X
X
X
X
X
X

X
X

X
X
X
5/2
1111

100 / 9
35

68
/

[80] X X X X X X X X X X 10
[93] X X X X X X X X X X X X 10
[75] X X X X X X X X X X 125
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[94] X X X X X X 15
[95] X X X X X X /
[66] X X X X X X X X X X 63
[61] X X X X X X /
[96] X X X X X X X X X X 12
[97] X X X X X X X X 5
[50] X X X X X X X X X X 19
[44] X X X X X X X X 60
[52] X X X X X X 2
[98] X X X X X X X X 70
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[99] X X X X X X X X 50
[100] X X X X X X X X 21
[60] X X X X X X X X X X X 100
[62] X X X X X X X X X X 1000 / 300
[79] X X X X X X /
[58] X X X X X X X 30
[49] X X X X X X X X 80
[101] X X X X X X X 4
[47] X X X X X 4
[48] X X X X X X 5
[56] X X X X X X X 600
[64] X X X X X X X X X 100
[102] X X X X X X X 100
[103] X X X X X X X 13
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[104] X X X X X X X X 64
[105] X X X X X X X X 260
[106] X X X X X X X X 260
[107] X X X X X X X X X 40
[108] X X X X X X X X X 1000

be taking into account in future research works. This, however, should be

done while taking into consideration the fact that IoT networks are mainly

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composed of autonomous smart objects (sensors, actuators, etc.) with

of
constrained resources especially in terms of energy, calculation, and storage.
Regarding contribution scope, further studies should explore mobility,
caching, and in-network processing mechanisms. This is not only for their
major role in the preservation of the network’s resources, but also for the

pro
insurance of network operations in the context of communication links
instability, mobility and failures. Contributions on the MAC layer scope
should be also explored, particularly in terms of adaptation of ICN
communication stack to the link-layer constraints of IoT communication
technologies.
Regarding the QoS dimension, additional studies should be conducted to
take into account the following QoS parameters: memory, CPU, and storage
capacity, on the node plane, and bandwidth, throughput, DiffServ, and hop-
re-
count, on the network plane. In addition, special attention should be paid to
handle important network features, such as load balancing, fault tolerance,
and scalability, because of their capital role in improving both the reliability
and the lifetime of IoT networks.
Finally, the validation of the proposed ICN-based IoT mechanisms is
lP
done, mainly, by simulation, with a small portion on testbeds. In both
cases, however, only a reduced number of nodes, was considered. Thus, we
recommend that future research work should increase the number of nodes
used during performance evaluation, to prove efficiency and scalability of the
proposed mechanisms.
To sum up, we can say that research works in the ICN-IoT field are still
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at the beginning stage of maturation. Further studies should be devoted to

handling the under-explored axes that we highlighted in Table 18,
especially in terms of deployment mode, contribution scope, supported
features, and guaranteed QoS of the proposed solutions. Also, the number
of nodes used in the evaluation phase merits to be increased in order to
validates the proposals in real-world conditions and demonstrate
performance of the proposed mechanisms in large-scale scenarios.
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Besides, from a socio-economic perspective, ICN architectures have not

been widely deployed in the Internet. This is due to the fundamental
changes required in the core Internet network in order to support ICN.
Indeed, such fundamental architecture design shift requires to make big
world wide investments as to support ICN. Such support did not took over
because of the uncertain return on investment. One workaround (potential
solutions) is to deploy ICN within local networks, and exploits the current

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Table 18: Identified open research issues in the ICN-IoT domain.

of
Dimension
Main observations Open research issues / Recommendations
(see Table 17)
Exploring other hybrid ICN/IP deployment modes,
Deployment ICN clean slate is the most namely: overlay/IP, underlay/IP, and coexistence/IP,

pro
Mode used deployment mode. which are easier to deploy in the real world with the
existing IP infrastructure.
The push communication model should be more
Pull model is the most adopted explored because of its usefulness in several IoT
Service Model
communication service. scenarios, where the inherent ICN pull model is not
suited.
Ad hoc architecture is
more explored than the
Hybrid infrastructure deployment should be addressed
Infrastructure infrastructure one, while
by future research works.
constrained resources are
considered.

Contribution
Scope
Routing/Forwardingre-
Naming mechanisms are more
and

explored than the other third

layer intrinsic ICN properties.
The identified network features
Supported (scalability, fault tolerance,
Features and load balancing) are weakly
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considered by research studies.
Transmission time, energy,
and packet success rate are
Guaranteed QoS the most guaranteed QoS
parameters by existing ICN-
based IoT solutions.
Validation of the proposed
Performance ICN-based IoT mechanisms is
rna
More studies should be devoted to the exploration
of mobility, caching, and in-network processing ICN
features.
MAC layer should be also more explored, particularly
in terms of adaptation with the lower layers of the IoT
communication stack.
Special attention should be paid by the ICN-IoT
research community to these important features,
because of their key role in the reliability and longevity
of IoT networks.
Additional studies should handle the other QoS
parameters, especially: throughput, bandwidth,
DiffServ, and hop-count, on the network plane, and
CPU, memory, and storage capacity, on the node plane.
Future research works should increase the number of

nodes used during the performance evaluation, to prove

Evaluation done, mainly, by simulation
efficiency and scalability of the proposed solutions.
and testbeds.

IP-based Internet architecture, to deploy ICN-over IP architecture in the

wide area segment.
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6. Conclusion and Future Directions

This paper presented a holistic study of the ICN-based IoT literature.
Indeed, after having introduced IoT environments and its major
requirements, existing IP-based solutions were discussed as well as their
limits. Next, the ICN paradigm as a promising IoT alternative has been
discussed. This was followed by proposing a new taxonomy of the ICN-IoT

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literature based on a systematic mapping methodology. Additionally, a rich

of
multidimensional framework has been provided.
Based on the proposed framework, an in-depth comparative analysis of
existing ICN-IoT studies has been carried out. As an outcome, the paper
draws recommendations about open research issues that require the

pro
attention of the community. Such issues include the lack of standardization
efforts, hybrid ICN/IP deployments, push-based communications, efficient
caching schemes, and QoS traffic handling solutions. Besides,
socio-economical factors are hindering the wide adoption of ICN in IoT
environments and require extensive efforts and investigations. As a
consequence, and apart from the very active research in the field, there are
still important obstacles to be overcome in order to transform ICN-based
IoT research into reality.
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Highlights

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• This work contributes a comprehensive systematic mapping review of the

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ICN-based IoT solutions.
• A new taxonomy of existing ICN-based IoT research is devised based on
a multidimensional vision.
• A rich critical in-depth multidimensional analysis of the reviewed litera-
ture is provided.
• For each comparison dimension, potential open research issues are identi-
fied and recommendations for future direction are presented.
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Declaration of interests

☒ The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships
that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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☐The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered
as potential competing interests:

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