Review of Internet of Things Applications in Airport Infrastructure and Operations

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is being used in a vast number of fields, from consumer IoT and smart houses to health, smart cities, smart grids, smart agriculture, smart vehicles, and airport services [1]- [3].IoT can be defined as a network of interconnected devices that share information about the environment and people to offer intelligent computing services to improve quality of life. In 2022, there was an estimated 13 billion IoT devices connected to the internet, and this number is expected to grow to 30 billion by 2030 [4].Currently, IoT systems are envisioned in various airport applications, from airport passengers and staff services to luggage management, and security infrastructure. However, these recent technologies have created big challenges, especially in cybersecurity. Most of the commodity IoT devices are inexpensive, resource-constrained, and built by many suppliers, hence not developed using a secure-by-design approach. This makes them vulnerable to the growing spectrum of cyberattacks and warrants that security considerations are made for their applications.This survey paper presents an overview of the current state of the art of IoT applications in airport services and operations. The analysis includes a comparison of the technological specifications of the implementations and some considerations from the perspective of cybersecurity. It was found that 83% of the implementations analyzed do not have a security mechanism to protect the users and system data.