Title: PR-MQTT: a novel approach for traffic reduction and message prioritisation in IoT applications

Authors: Jiby J. Puthiyidam; Shelbi Joseph

Addresses: School of Engineering, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi, Kerala, India ' School of Engineering, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi, Kerala, India

Abstract: IoT applications often involve devices with limited processing power, memory capacity, and low resource consumption. The vast number of devices connected to IoT networks generates massive amounts of data, making effective data management crucial for IoT applications. IoT applications prefer lightweight messaging protocols over the standard internet protocol, hyper text transfer protocol (HTTP). Message queue telemetry transport (MQTT) has emerged as a popular communication protocol for IoT applications. In some instances, specific messages may hold greater importance than others. However, most standard IoT protocols lack inherent mechanisms to prioritise incoming messages. This paper presents a new approach to reducing network traffic in IoT applications by selectively transmitting messages while prioritising the processing of urgent messages. The proposed method is integrated with HBMQTT, an MQTT broker. The experimental evaluation indicates that with the proposed PR-MQTT broker, the latency of the priority messages remains nearly constant, irrespective of the message's index position. Priority messages are consistently delivered within 10-15 milliseconds, resulting in a speed improvement of over 90% compared to regular messages. Additionally, the proposed approach reduces CPU resource utilisation and network traffic by 25% and the transmission delay of normal messages by 50%.

Keywords: internet of things; IoT; MQTT protocol; message priority; IoT networks; network traffic.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWET.2024.138096

International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology, 2024 Vol.19 No.1, pp.44 - 66

Received: 13 Jun 2023
Accepted: 28 Oct 2023
Published online: 29 Apr 2024 *

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