TRIFECTA: Security, Energy-Efficiency, and Communication Capacity Comparison for Wireless IoT Devices

The widespread proliferation of sensor nodes in the era of Internet of Things (IoT) coupled with increasing sensor fidelity and data acquisition modality is expected to generate 3+ Exabytes of data per day by 2018. Since most of these IoT devices will be wirelessly connected at the last few feet, wireless communication is an integral part of the future IoT scenario. The ever-shrinking size of unit computation (Moore's Law) and continued improvements in efficient communication (Shannon's Law) is expected to harness the true potential of the IoT revolution and produce dramatic societal impact. However, reducing size of IoT nodes and lack of significant improvement in energy-storage density leads to reducing energy-availability. Moreover, smaller size and energy means less resources available for securing IoT nodes, making the energy-sparse low-cost leaf nodes of the network as prime targets for attackers. In this paper, we survey six prominent wireless technologies with respect to the three dimensions - security, energy efficiency, and communication capacity. We point out the state-of-the-art, open issues, and the road ahead for promising research directions.