Over-the-Air Programming System for IoT Devices with a Non-native Wireless Update Service

Abstract In the last years, many solutions have been developed based on the Internet of Things (IoT) applied to several fields such as agriculture, road safety or electric lighting, among others. These devices are usually located in places that are not easy to access, which makes their software difficult to update. These updates should be carried out to improve the software of the devices to include new functionalities and/or solve security problems. This paper presents an Over-the-Air (OTA) programming system for devices that do not natively integrate a wireless update service. A description of the hardware used is included, as well as the update management application developed to carry out this task. The approach proposed has been validated by updating a microcontroller-based system applied to the area of road safety. The validation consisted in measuring the additional consumption required by the auxiliary update system compared to the base consumption, as well as determining the time required to update an IoT node in both wireless and wired mode. The results obtained show a reduction in consumption of 577% and a reduction in the updating time of 66%.