# ScienceIoT: Evolution of the Wireless Infrastructure of KREONET
## 1 Introduction  
The Internet of Things (IoT) is an innovative networking paradigm suitable for enabling new types of smart applications by interconnecting smart things in various areas, including industrial and public areas as well as academic and scientific fields. With advances in technologies such as wireless communication, smart sensors, and miniaturization, as well as the integration of electronic devices, the IoT infrastructure enables the collection of data from distributed sensors, control over remote actuators, and the interconnection of smart devices. Moreover, the availability of open hardware platforms makes it easier for developers and researchers to create new types of IoT devices for experimenting, testing, demonstrating, and finally deploying new applications. Owing to the proliferation of the IoT, the number of IoT devices has increased significantly. According to the Cisco Annual Internet Report [1], the number of connected devices increases constantly. In particular, machine-to-machine (M2M) applications such as smart metering and healthcare monitoring contribute considerably toward this increase in the number of devices and connections, with an approximately 2.4-fold increase between 2018 and 2023, as shown in Figure 1.  
National research and education networks (NRENs) are attempting to build IoT infrastructures in order to improve scientific research methodologies and to enhance the efficiency of public education. Particularly, the transition of the research paradigm from theoretical and experimental research to data-oriented research is associated with the massive data collection ability afforded by the IoT, which requires the deployment of IoT infrastructure for bridging distributed research data and data analysis platforms. Therefore, globalNRENs have already recognized the importance of IoT research and are implementing plans to establish IoT infrastructure and services. The Energy Sciences Network (ESNet), a research network of the United States Department of Energy, held a 5G-enabled Energy Innovation workshop for analyzing potential opportunities and technical challenges in adopting wireless technologies in research fields. SURFnet, a research network of the Netherlands, has managed the Unwired Campus Working Group for integrating wired infrastructure and wireless technologies, such as private 5G and wireless sensor networks. The Science Information Network (SINET), a Japanese academic backbone network, has built a wireless infrastructure based on mobile networks in order to collect research data for application in areas such as agriculture, forestry, medical science, and social science. This article presents the concept, current status, applications, and development plans of the wireless infrastructure for science and education in the Korea Research Environment Open NETwork (KREONET). In addition to the worldwide efforts for building wireless infrastructure for research, KREONET has launched ScienceLoRa, a wireless IoT infrastructure based on a low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) technology [2]. KREONET has a powerful wired backbone network, the appropriate software stack for ensuring high-performance data transmission, and interactions with supercomputing infrastructure. Based on its wired capacity, the main challenge faced by ScienceLoRa is the integration of wired and wireless network environments to transmit, process, and analyze research data obtained from wireless IoT devices. Currently, ScienceLoRa provides various scientific applications such as environmental monitoring, research facility management, and research data collection. Since 2018, 25 ScienceLoRa sites have been deployed across Korea, and over 50 research devices have been placed in operation to generate scientific data through the ScienceLoRa network. Currently, ScienceLoRa is evolving toward ScienceloT to expand its service coverage and improve service quality.