A Survey on Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) Testbeds for Connectivity Research

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive review of existing IIoT testbeds, analyzing their design, performance benchmarks, and emerging trends to guide future connectivity research in industrial IoT systems.

Contribution

It offers a detailed categorization of IIoT testbeds based on communication protocols and provides best practices for designing future testbeds.

Findings

Identified key communication protocols used in IIoT testbeds.

Highlighted research gaps and emerging trends in IIoT connectivity.

Provided guidelines for developing effective IIoT testbeds.

Abstract

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies have revolutionized industrial processes, enabling smart automation, real-time data analytics, and improved operational efficiency across diverse industry sectors. IIoT testbeds play a critical role in advancing IIoT research and development (R&D) to provide controlled environments for technology evaluation before their real-world deployment. In this article, we conduct a comprehensive literature review on existing IIoT testbeds, aiming to identify benchmark performance, research gaps and explore emerging trends in IIoT systems. We first review the state-of-the-art resource management solutions proposed for IIoT applications. We then categorize the reviewed testbeds according to their deployed communication protocols (including TSN, IEEE 802.15.4, IEEE 802.11 and 5G) and discuss the design and usage of each testbed. Driven by the knowledge gained during this study, we present suggestions and good practices for researchers and practitioners who are planning to design and develop IIoT testbeds for connectivity research.