Internet Connection Sharing Through NFC for Connection Loss Problem in Internet-of-Things Devices

Abstract

Contactless devices and smart cards have been widely in use in daily life transactions for a long time. At first, those systems were designed to work fully offline for both the reader and the card side. With technological improvements, Internet connection can be available even in very small embedded devices (IoT devices). As a result, current systems have connected devices as a part of the transaction design and so keeping the system operational all the time relies on the availability of continuous Internet connectivity of such devices. After the invention of NFC technology, contactless cards in our wallets are being replaced with virtual cards in mobile handsets. Regular contactless cards never had the capability to connect the Internet, whereas almost all of the modern mobile handsets routinely access the Internet. This has resulted in a trend shift in contactless transaction designs. Offline verification operations are being replaced with online operation where the system uses the connection capabilities of the mobile handset. However, the connection capability either in the mobile handset or in the transaction acceptance reader is not completely stable yet to rely on. Therefore, in this paper, we examine such connection loss problems in IoT devices and we offer a connection sharing mechanism through NFC so that the transaction can be completed if either one of these two entities has the Internet connection. Our proposed mechanism covers both reader-card communication and also peer-to-peer communication of NFC.