Interoperability and Integration Testing Methods for IoT Systems: a Systematic Mapping Study

TL;DR

This systematic mapping study reviews 115 papers on interoperability and integration testing methods for IoT systems, highlighting current research trends, challenges, and gaps in developing IoT-specific testing approaches.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of existing testing techniques for IoT systems and identifies the need for specialized testing methods tailored to IoT-specific challenges.

Findings

Most studies focus on general testing methods applicable to IoT

Limited development of IoT-specific testing approaches

Identification of research gaps and future opportunities

Abstract

The recent active development of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions in various domains has led to an increased demand for security, safety, and reliability of these systems. Security and data privacy are currently the most frequently discussed topics; however, other reliability aspects also need to be focused on to maintain the smooth and safe operation of IoT systems. Until now, there has been no systematic mapping study dedicated to the topic of interoperability and integration testing of IoT systems specifically; therefore, we present such an overview in this study. We analyze 803 papers from four major primary databases and perform detailed assessment and quality check to find 115 relevant papers. In addition, recently published testing techniques and approaches are analyzed and classified; the challenges and limitations in the field is also identified and discussed. Research trends related to publication time, active researchers, and publication media are presented in this study. The results suggest that studies mainly focus only on general testing methods, which can be applied to integration and interoperability testing of IoT systems; thus, there are research opportunities to develop additional testing methods focused specifically on IoT systems, so that they are more effective in the IoT context.