Broadly speaking, the term ‘Internet of Things’ is about connecting everything to the internet, i.e., your regular day-to-day things being connected to the internet and providing access for sharing the information. The devices are connected to the internet through the hardware like sensors and actuators, and making them from simple regular things to be internet accessible, gather information, analyse it, and take action on the basis of that information. 

With the Internet of Things being a hot topic for the scholars to study and research, most of the researchers are conducting the research on this topic for their doctoral degree. While IoT is all about network, device, and data, to make the devices able to communicate to each other. 

Well aware of the fact that, before researching for your PhD, every scholar has to submit the research proposal; depicting the research question, statement, literature review, data collection methodology, analysis & interpretations, results & findings, and conclusion of the whole research. However, to begin with, your proposal in the domain of Internet of Things, start with narrowing down the topic to a specific area of Internet of Things.

Narrowing down to a specific area related to the Internet of Things means to get to a niche of the topic. The researcher will either research on the module of a smart city, smart homes, smart hospital, smart schools, or any other area pertaining to the need of data transmission. When you narrow down the specific field of the research, you are dividing your work and lessening your pressure of working in the domain of IoT. 

After you narrow down the specific area, perform a background study on the concerned topic. The background study will help you find the research gap in the subject and know its literature. When you go through a background study on your topic, you review variously related writings to identify the scope of your research. Examining a number of existing researches will give you the drawbacks of the topic to know where your topic lacks, and where you have to work on. 

Formulate the objectives based on your review. The objective will make your mind clear on the reason behind your research. Thence, you will be more confident with your research and to why is it needed. The need for the study will help you examine how it will benefit on the larger scale. 

Once you are clear about your topic and the objective of your research, decide on a methodology to conduct the research. The methodology will bring advancement in the concerned area with an enhancement to the existing results of the field. The security algorithm and techniques should be identified to conclude the research. While you provide a conclusion to your research with the techniques and algorithms in your mind, jot down the possible drawbacks of your research as well. Since everything has some pros and cons, your research will too, have a few issues and drawbacks. 

Note down the drawbacks of your research as to make sure that it will not hinder your research and hypothesis. Therefore, after identifying all the aspects of your research, you should write it down and present it to your supervisor for further consideration.