CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol) implementation in M2M Environmental Monitoring System

In order to enable M2M devices to communicate over the existing Internet, Constrained RESTful Environments (CoRE) working group at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) proposed Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) as application layer protocol for IP based solutions. This paper presents a survey of the CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol), along with its implementation and evaluation in a real M2M system. The CoAP protocol was deployed in a mobile Environmental Monitoring System for transmission of a resource description and sensor environmental data from IoT nodes and vehicle tracking devices. The evaluation of the CoAP protocol was done by comparing the existing HTTP implementation with CoAP protocol in the same M2M communication scenario. Results shows that the performance of the CoAP compared to the HTTP based resource retrievals performs better in constrained environments and give possible direction for further development utilizing the latest advancements and the vision of the Internet of Things. Keywords; M2M; CoAP; Wireless Sensor Networks; Internet Of Things, Implementation