A Survey of Identity Modeling and Identity Addressing in Internet of Things

With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), the physical space we are living in is experiencing unprecedented digitalization and virtualization. It is an overwhelming trend to achieve the convergence between the physical space and cyberspace, where the fundamental problem is to realize the accurate mapping between the two spaces. Therefore, identity modeling and identity addressing, which serve as the main bridge between the physical space and cyberspace, are regarded as important research areas. This article summarizes the related works regarding identity modeling and identity addressing in IoT, and makes a general comparison and analysis based on their respective features. Following that a flexible and low coupling framework, with strong independence between different modules is proposed, where both identity modeling and identity addressing are integrated. Meanwhile, we discuss and analyze the future development and challenges of identity modeling and addressing. It is proved that identity modeling and identity addressing are extremely significant topics in the era of IoT.

I. Introduction

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a universal and adaptive network establishing ubiquitous connections between different sensors, devices, and other objects. It is one of the most important areas and plays a significant role in the development of society and technology. The IoT holds an important position in achieving interconnections between the physical space and cyberspace and contributes a lot in realizing the whole convergence. The fundamental problem during the convergence is to realize the accurate mapping between the two spaces and effectively handle and find massive cyber entities, thus achieving the bidirectional flow of data and information. This requires consistency in identity modeling, fast and accurate identification, as well as full addressing and recognization. Therefore, identity modeling and identity addressing become one of the most basic and key components of the IoT.