Internet of Things (IoT): Principles, Paradigms and Applications of IoT

By Dr Kamlesh Lakhwani

In this book, Principles, Paradigm frameworks, and Applications of IoT (Internet of Things) in the modern era are presented. It also provides a sound understanding of the IoT concepts, architecture, and applications, and improves the awareness of readers about IoT technologies and application areas. A key objective of this book is to provide a systematic source of reference for all aspects of IoT. This book comprises nine chapters with close co-operation and contributions from four different authors, spanning across four countries and providing a global, broad perspective on major topics on the Internet of Things.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BPB Online LLP
• Release date: Mar 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9789389423396

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Fundamentals of the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a hot topic in both technical and non-technical conversation. Somewhere between 2008 and 2009 the I.T. Company Cisco Systems assessed the things/individuals ratio, and found that it’s increasing; in 2003 it was 0.08, and in 2010 it was 1.84. The analyst firm Gartner has forecasted that over 26 billion things (devices and people) will be connected to a giant network (IoT) by the year 2020. But the question is: What exactly isIoT? And how it impacts and will impact on our daily life if any?

To know the answer, let’s start reading this chapter.

Structure

Introduction

Characteristics of IoT

The physical design of IoT

Logical design of IoT

IoT ecosystem (components)

Functional blocks of IoT

Communication models

Application programming interfaces

Evaluating business impact and economics for IoT

Future of IoT

Objective

On studying this chapter, the student becomes aware of the IoT components, their connectivity to form the IoT altogether, and the future possibilities with IoT.

Introduction

The IoT can be defined as, A huge network of interconnected things; things may be small devices, big machines and also includes people. Via this interconnected network communication can occur between things-things, things-people, and people-people.

Just imagine, while your alarm rings in the morning, the lights of the room lit up, and the coffee maker is notified to start making a coffee for you. The geyser has to automatically set on, warming the water for your shower. While you leave home for the office, the calendar on your smartphone may set the best route for the office and thus instructing your car to drive in the best route. Depending upon the traffic on the route, your office could be informed that you would be late for the meeting.

Moreover, while driving back home; the air conditioners would become operational while you are a few miles to reach home. This scenario is a basic example that can be implemented in practical by connecting the devices around us to form an interconnected network. Such scenarios of interconnected devices are termed as the Internet of Things or the Internet of Everything.

How does it work?

IoT devices collect, assemble, and share the data by utilizing the environment in which they are working and implant. Collection and transmissionof data in IoT devices is done by using various sensors. Nowadays, almost all physical devices have some sensor/s embedded into it. The devices could be mobile phone; home and office electronic appliances, electronic traffic signals, barcode sensors; just about everything that we come across in our daily life. Sensors constantly sense and transmit the data of the surrounding environment and the working condition of connected devices, but the significant query is that how would like these share this much amount of emitted data. What’s more, how would we put this data to our advantages?

Moreover, the connected devices use a common language for communication, or perhaps may include an intermediate translator. This emitted data and the data produced by the IoT platform is collectively analyzed and processed to form information which is in turn utilized to implement automation and improve efficiencies of the system. Such a network requires a typically common platform for various electronic sensors to operate on, which thus provide several challenges for the IoT.

An example of IoT working wonders is an approach implemented by an air conditioner manufacturing company, in which, a company designed a belt and machine; both the belt and machine having sensors attached in it. They consistently send data in regards to the health of the machine, and the production details to the manufacturer to recognize issues in advance.

Each product, while on the belt, is attached a bar code containing special instructions, product information, manufacturer and retailer details, and so on. This barcode can be used by manufacturers to check the distribution of products and the quantity available with the retailers to make the product available if it runs out of stock.

The retailers, in turn, have a barcode reader to keep track of inventory, products coming from manufacturers, and more. The air-conditioner’s compressor has a sensor that radiates data regarding the product’s temperature and health. This data is consistently monitored by customer care to resolve the issues if any.

There are many other examples are exist like smart cars, smart machines, smart cities, smart homes, where IoT is rethinking our way of life, and changing how we interact with technologies.

Consumer IoT

The products which are directly used by an individual (consumer) are a part of the consumer IoT. Some consumer products are already widely used, such as fitness tracking devices, smartwatches, and home products (like Nest thermostat or the Apple Home Kit). It’s predicted that in 2025, 50% of the grown person will include IoT devices in their life styled.

Rachio lawn-watering system is an example of consumer IoT device and it is explained in below.

Rachio lawn-watering system

With the help of sensors and an active internet connection, Rachio (IoT device) gathers the data like weather prediction data, soil, and plant types, and exposure to the sun, to form a customized watering schedule. An application connected to the physical device (smartphone) assists users to manage the system remotely and check whenever required.

Industrial IoT

The industrial IoT incorporates the products used by a company to deliver a good or service, for example, manufacturing plant machinery or industrial vehicles. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) opens doors for better product designing, improved customer satisfaction, expanded uptime, and increased streams of income.

Premier deicers

Premier implemented an IoT solution on airplane deicers intending to increase the efficiency, gathering the data on system component performance, fluid pressure, flow, temperature, volumes, and overall usage. With this information, downtime can be minimized by predicting component failure, and ensuring fluid usage does not exceed supply level.

IoT emergence

The term IoT is not very old, but the actual idea supporting it began to emerge about more than 40 years ago. Kevin Ashton coined the term in 1999 while he was working on exciting RFID technology. The researcher, no doubt, got an attraction for his research, but IoT was not common even for the next ten years. The following Table 1.1 summarizes the emergence of IoT:

Table 1.1: Emergence of IoT

Characteristics of IoT

The IoT provides an abundance of features enabling heterogeneous devices to dynamically connect for instance via a secure connection, while not being visibly feasible at the other time. Some such features have been elaborated in the following figure:

Figure 1.1: Characteristics of IoT

Interconnectivity

Each connected device in an IoT network has been termed as a thing. The IoT enables the connectivity among the devices which are distinct in terms of architecture and operations just by programming the sensors embedded over the devices. The compatibility and accessibility are considered in such connectivity. Compatibility refers to enabling the coherence between the communicating devices such that the data produced or consumed by a device is compatible with the other device.

Intelligence

The things make themselves recognizable, and they gain intelligence by the context related decisions enabled by the fact that they can convey information about themselves. They can obtain information that has been accumulated by other things.

Dynamic

The things can since change their state from rest to motion and vice versa, so the system (for example, location and speed) cannot be considered static. Moreover, the change in states like sleeping and waking up, connected and disconnected produce the dynamic data. The example of air conditioner manufacturing company depicted in How does it work? The section also illustrates the change in the count of the things connected to a network. Thus, dealing with dynamic atmosphere becomes an important property for a network to be called as an IoT network.

Sensing

The things are required to be regularly monitored for any changes in its state or physical environment such as the changes in temperature, humidity, motion, air quality, speed, and pressure, and so on. The sensors can sense such changes and assist in the interconnection of physical devices. For example, the sensor embedded with a bin to make them a part of a smart city. This sensor will consistently generate data about the amount of waste in the bin so that the municipal workers are aware of the requirement of clearance of trash. The workers in this case too have sensors since the nearest ones are only provided notification for the job.

Expressing

Working on the command lines is sometimes required by the developer. He even writes code in a high-level language. But the IoT system expresses the output to the end-user either in the form of a Graphical User Interface (GUI) or in terms of actions performed on things. For example, in the case of the example discussed in How does it work? Section, after the sensor, senses the data about the ill health of the air conditioner, a message on the customer’s registered mobile number is dropped saying that he can get his product serviced at the nearest service center. This means that in the case of IoT systems, not only the interaction of end user with GUIs, but the real interaction is made as output.

Extensive scale

An IoT system is required to manage more devices than those directly connected to the IoT system. These too keep on increasing with several factors, for example, an increase in the number of users of the system. Thus, the data generated is also enormous. Moreover, the IoT networks are spread over huge geographic locations which cover almost all the land on the earth in several systems. It is estimation that around 75 Billion devices will be connected to each other by 2025.

Heterogeneity

The things, since belongs to different hardware platform and networks, the compatibility and accessibility are assured, and the connection is made as if each thing on the network possesses homogeneous properties. Any real-world object can be assigned a unique identifier and an embedded system to enable it to share the information over the internet and be a part of the network. IoT has something to offer to everybody. It has reformed the manner we used to socialize, have fun, and do business.

Endpoint management

It becomes mandatory to include endpoint management in an IoT system as it can otherwise lead to the failure of the entire system. For example, in a smart IoT based coffee machine which orders the coffee beans from the nearest retailer when it is finished, the failure can be faced in case of unavailability of recipient to receive the order at the time of delivery.

Security

IoT gadgets are normally vulnerable to security dangers. While enjoying the advantages of an IoT system, the safety of endpoints, data, and physical wellbeing of the things cannot be ignored. There is a wide assortment of advances that are related to the Internet of Things that make it secure, however transparent simultaneously. The mechanism of encryption and decryption of generated data, programming sensors to self-monitor the changes, managing security among connections, and many more mechanisms are for example implemented for security.

The physical design of IoT

The IoT can be seen as a huge network comprising further networks of gadgets and computers connected via a progression of intermediate technologies where enormous technologies like RFIDs and wireless connections may act as allowing of this connectivity. Design of any IoT application must encompass the following