The IOTA Foundation is working with the Institute for Information Systems Engineering at TU Wien on blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) research.
The Christian Doppler Laboratory Blockchain Technologies for the Internet of Things (CDL-BOT), named after the famous Austrian mathematician, is a project expected to run for seven years in total.
For IOTA, whose modus operandi is in the sweet spot between distributed ledger technology (DLT) and IoT technology, this makes for an ideal project.
The setup ‘is uniquely geared not only to expand research on the IOTA Tangle [architecture] and its applications in the Internet of Things itself, but also to look beyond the IOTA protocol in order to further the European DLT ecosystem’, the company noted.
“This requires novel mechanisms to enable DLT interoperability ranging from cross-blockchain token transfers or atomic swaps to cross-blockchain smart contract invocation and interaction, as well as providing client-side blockchain interoperability through developer support,” IOTA added.
An article from TU Wien, citing Prof. Stefan Schulte, who will lead the new lab, explains in more detail the remit and inflection point between blockchain and IoT technologies.
“In the Internet of Things, we think of small, simple components; maybe a temperature sensor that sticks somewhere, is powered by a battery and sends data wirelessly,” said Schulte. The article added: “It is with such components that the use of resource-intensive blockchains is problematic. The new lab will therefore investigate how blockchains can be designed in a more resource-efficient and straightforward way.”
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