Fundamentals of IoT: Get familiar with the building blocks of IoT (English Edition)

By Rajan Gupta and Supriya Madan

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of physical objects embedded with sensors, software, and connectivity, enabling them to collect and exchange data. It revolutionizes the way we interact with our surroundings by connecting devices and allowing them to communicate over the Internet. If you want to dive deeper into the fascinating world of IoT, then this book is for you.

This book is a comprehensive book that introduces you to the world of IoT. It covers the definition and vision of IoT, provides an overview of the conceptual framework and technologies behind it, and presents various examples of IoT applications. The book also delves into the hardware components used in IoT, such as sensors and actuators, and explores embedded platforms like Arduino and Raspberry Pi. Furthermore, it discusses programming with Arduino and highlights design principles and network communication aspects of IoT. The book concludes by addressing the challenges and real-life applications of IoT, including smart cities, healthcare, and home automation.

By the end of the book, you will possess the knowledge necessary to navigate the complex and ever-evolving IoT landscape.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BPB Online LLP
• Release date: Jul 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9789355518637

Book preview

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1

Introduction to Internet of Things

Introduction

Experts in the business coined the term Internet of Things (IoT) over a decade ago. However, it has only recently gained widespread acceptance and popularity. The term IoT refers to the overarching concept of smart gadgets' ability to detect and collect data about their immediate environments and then share that data with others over the Internet, where it may be analyzed and used in a variety of intriguing ways.

As a result, the concept of the IoT improves connection anytime, anywhere for everyone. In most cases, IoT is expected to provide a fast-moving network of high-tech gadgets, services, and protocols that goes well beyond simple peer-to-peer data exchange. The pervasive nature of IoT connections necessitates the Internet connection of a surprisingly large number of devices. Connected devices are projected to be 30.9 billion by 2025.¹

Figure 1.1 shows a comparative chart of increase in IoT and non IoT devices:

Figure 1.1: IoT and non IoT devices worldwide from 2010 to 2015

When these devices are connected to the web, they will each be given a distinct number known as an IP address. To handle a wide variety of network devices, however, IPv6 needs to be used instead of IPv4, which has a finite number of available addresses. As a result, IPv6 will be crucial for the future growth of IoT.

IoT may be defined in several ways and encompasses many facets of modern life, from smart homes and cities to linked vehicles and infrastructure to personal tracking technology. It can help you count the number of windows, doors, electrical outlets, lights, machines, and air conditioners in your own home.

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn about the following topics:

Internet of Things

Conceptual Framework

Architectural View of IoT

Technologies behind IoT

Sources of IoT

Objectives

This chapter provides a quick introduction to the basics of IoT. A reader who desires to learn about the ability and scope of IoT can study the vision and expansion of IoT. After reading this chapter, the reader will be able to understand the conceptual framework and architecture of IoT. The reader can realize technologies that support IoT and different sources of IoT after reading this chapter.

Internet of Things

IoT has evolved from an abstract concept to a tangible reality since the term's inception in 1999. The proliferation of IP networks, the growth of always-on digital environments, and the maturation of data analytics are just some of the factors responsible for this. Forecasts predict that IoT devices will be almost 29 billion by 2030 just triple from 9.7 billion in 2020.² Despite its growth, IoT is still something of a mystery, a notion that is discussed in generalities despite its clear advantages. Figure 1.2 illustrates the forecasted number of IoT connected devices worldwide from 2022 to 2030:

Figure 1.2: Number of IoT connected devices from 2019 to 2030

IoT may be defined as the expansion of the internet and other network connections to various sensors and devices (or things), granting even seemingly insignificant items like lightbulbs, locks, and vents having enhanced computational and analytical capabilities.

The Internet of Things is the network of physical objects—devices, vehicles, buildings, and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity—that enables these objects to collect and exchange data. One of the main factors in IoT's rising popularity is its interoperability. In IoT, the things are commonly referred to almost every physical object equipped with embedded hardware / software and connectivity features capable of collecting and exchanging data from their surroundings with other devices and networks. Devices may carry out their duties with little or no intervention by humans because of the data analysis and processing they undergo.

The exponential growth in the number of connected devices is driving the development of more complex algorithms that enables greater degrees of automation and the addition of new levels of insight into the data currently being shared and analyzed. As a result of the wide range of devices that may be linked to it, IoT has opened new possibilities for both individuals and whole businesses.

Two distinct Internet-centric and thing-centric approaches may be taken to understand IoT's ultimate goals and potential. The approach that focuses on Internet services are termed as Internet centric and the things create data, which is the primary emphasis of the things -centric design. Embedded electronics have a starring role in the thing-centric design. Following are few of the several forces that are driving the expansion of the IoT inside the digital economy:

Innovative and highly effective mobile, wearable, or linked gadgets.

Applications (apps) that push the limitations of mobile networks due to high data use.

New Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), mobile point-of-sale, and independent software vendor platforms will spur an uptick in the creation of cloud-based applications and those that rely on material stored in the cloud.

Mobile video is an example of a new kind of application that will have a major impact on the need for costly capacity increases in existing network infrastructure.

The exponential development in demand for mobile-connected devices is guaranteed by device evolution, cloud-based application innovation, and the spread of communication technologies across all sectors. This means that over the next decade, both throughout and performance expectations for individual devices will rise.

Since everyone gives IoT their own meaning based on their own viewpoint, there are many different interpretations of the term coexisting together. The definition combines the concepts of the Internet and Things. The first makes it network-centric, while the second drives it toward items that are fused together and eventually settle into a single design.

IoT refers to a "global network of linked items" that may be specifically addressed using established means of digital communication. The basic problem with IoT is, coming up with a system to reliably identify individual item while also representing and storing the data that is sent around between them.

IoT’s vision is to design and develop an online and interacting platform where physical objects will interact with objects or persons remotely. IoT can also be defined as the intersection of the following three areas as shown in Figure 1.3:

Figure 1.3: Visions of IoT³

IoT is an intersection of the following three areas:

Internet oriented vision

Things oriented vision

Semantic oriented vision

Internet oriented vision

This concept is based on the idea that physical objects would communicate and collaborate with one another through the internet. Sensors allow for the unique identification of things and the continuous tracking of their movements. Microcomputers with computational capacity are essentially what these smart embedded things are.

Things oriented vision

The Things-oriented vision of IoT is a perspective that focuses on the individual devices, or things, that are connected to the internet. This vision emphasizes the importance of each individual device in the IoT ecosystem and the unique capabilities it brings to the network. In the Things-oriented vision, each device in the IoT network is viewed as a discrete entity with its own set of characteristics, such as sensors, processing power, and connectivity options. These devices are designed to operate autonomously, collecting and transmitting data to other devices or to a central hub for processing and analysis. The Things-oriented vision of IoT recognizes the importance of individual devices in the network and emphasizes the need for interoperability and security. By focusing on the unique capabilities of each device, this vision enables the creation of more intelligent and efficient IoT ecosystems that can deliver significant benefits to individuals, businesses, and society as a whole.

Semantic oriented vision

According to this scenario, the amount of information gathered by sensors would be enormous. As a result, the information gathered is processed efficiently. Processing the raw data makes it uniform and reduces redundancy; this improves representation and understanding.

IoT is a network-oriented concept that, from the thing’s viewpoint, emphasizes the integration of smart devices or objects into a single architecture (with things being RFID tags). The Internet Protocol (IP) is the de facto standard for connecting devices that exchange data over the internet; hence it holds the key to implementing the IoT.

In conclusion, IoT will link a vast array of things, raising serious challenges in data representation, storage, connectivity, search, and administration. IoT's massive data problem will be solved by the emergence of semantic technologies.

Conceptual framework

IoT is a network of devices and physical items that allows several devices to collect data from dispersed places and then relay that information to central processing units for use in data management, acquisition, organisation, and analysis. IoT may be conceptualized with a single equation, as shown below:

Physical object + Controller, Sensor and Actuators + Internet = Internet of Things.

Conceptually, IoT, which consists of interconnected devices and things, may be represented by the following equation:

Gather + Enrich + Stream + Manage + Acquire + Organise and Analyse = Internet of Things with connectivity to data centre, enterprise or cloud server.

The conceptual framework is illustrated in the following figure:

Figure 1.4: Conceptual framework of IoT⁴

The above formula is an IoT conceptual framework for business services and operations. On the basis of this conceptual framework an IoT architecture provided by Oracle is shown in Figure 1.4. These are the procedures to follow:

At the first level, information is gathered from the devices (things) themselves through sensors or by preliminary data gathered by the things themselves via the internet. A smart sensor is a sensor that communicates with a gateway (with computing and communication capacity).

At level 2, the information is improved by processes like transcoding at the gateway. Before information can be sent from one party to another, it must first be encoded or decoded, a process known as transcoding.

Level 3 operations include the transmission and reception of data streams managed by a communication subsystem.

Level 4 is the point at which the device's data is received by the device management, identity management, and access management subsystems.

At level 5, the information is collected in a data repository or database.

Level 6 is responsible for the organization and analysis of data sent by devices and objects. For instance, in business operations, data analysis is used to acquire business insight.

The following formula illustrates the overarching structure of IoT when cloud-based services are used:

Gather + Consolidate + Connect + Collect + Assemble + Manage and Analyse = Internet of Things with connectivity to cloud services.

The steps for that are as follows:

Levels 1 and 2 consists of a sensor network to gather and consolidate the data. First level gathers the data of the things (devices) using sensors, and circuits. The sensor connects to a gateway. The data then consolidates at the second level, for example, transformation at gateway on level 2.

The gateway on level 2 communicates the data streams between levels 2 and 3. The system uses a communication management subsystem at level 3.

An information service consists of connecting, collecting, assembling, and managing subsystems at levels 3 and 4. The services render from level 4.

Real time series analysis, data analytics and intelligence subsystems are also at levels 4 and 5. A cloud infrastructure, a data store or database acquires the data at level 5.

Architectural view of IoT

The architecture of IoT consists of layers, enabling technologies supporting the Internet of Things. IoT installations' scalability, modularity, and setup are all communicated, and the interconnectedness of diverse technologies is shown in Figure 1.5:

Figure 1.5: Layered architecture of IoT⁵

Now, let us break down the roles played by each layer:

Sensing layer

Sensor-equipped smart objects make up the foundation layer. The sensors allow data to be gathered and analysed in real time, bridging the gap between the digital and physical realms. Distinct kind of sensors serve many distinct functions. Temperature, air quality, speed, humidity, pressure, flow, motion, electricity, and so on, may all be measured by the sensors. It is possible that some of them include memory, allowing you to save the results of many measurements. A physical attribute may be measured by a sensor, which then transmits a signal interpretable by an instrument. Environmental sensors, human body sensors, household appliance sensors, telemetric sensor arrays in vehicles, and so on are just few of the many types of sensors available now-a-days.

Gateways and network layer

The massive amounts of data generated by these small sensors need a reliable and high-performance wired or wireless network architecture. The Machine-To-Machine (M2M) networks and applications that rely on them have been supported by existing networks, even though these networks are often bound by completely different protocols. To meet the growing demand for IoT services and applications including high-speed transactional services and context-aware apps, a heterogeneous setup of several networks using different technologies and access protocols is required. Private, public, and hybrid forms of such networks exist, each tailored to meet certain needs in terms of latency, capacity, or security in data transmission, different gateways (microcontrollers, microprocessors), and gateway networks (WI-FI, GSM, GPRS).

Management service layer

Data processing is made feasible by the management service's analytics, security measures, process modelling, and device administration. Management service layers often include components like business and process rule engines to help automate and standardise common tasks. IoT facilitates the networking and interplay of diverse items and systems to provide insights in the form of events or contextual data, such as the temperature of commodities, the present position, and traffic information.

While some, like the periodic collection of sensory data may be sent to a post-processing system, others, like medical crises, demand urgent action. The rule engines aid in the creation of decision logics and set off interactive and automated processes, making the IoT system more adaptable.

Application layer

Application layer being the topmost layer of the IoT architecture, directly interacts with the end user. This layer acts as an interface between the user and IoT devices. It consists of software and applications such as mobile apps designed for interacting with IoT infrastructure at lower layers. Transportation, buildings, cities, lifestyles, retail, agriculture, factories, supply chains, emergencies, healthcare, user engagement, cultural tourism, the environment, and energy are few of the application areas of the Internet of Things. Analytical and processing capabilities of this layer transform the data into meaningful insights.

Technologies behind IoT

As more and more devices connect to the internet, we may look forward to a more advanced civilization. A state in which all objects in a given system are both perceptive to and able to aid the next one in the chain, as well as offer feedback in any desired direction. For example, a shaky bridge notifies the relevant transportation authorities that it requires fixing or an approaching smart vehicles is warned to be ready to travel over a frozen surface or an intelligent factory that can place its own maintenance and supply orders.

To realise the potential of an informative and intuitive everything, two components, the application layer and the connection layer, are essential. Physical goods and services, such as autonomous vehicles, intelligent roadways, and internet-enabled thermostats make up the application layer. The items come to life via connectivity, producing an integrated experience that benefits both the system and its end users.

Finally, the IoT is not simply about physical objects. It is the hope that we can build interconnected systems that are wiser than the sum of their parts, generating actionable insights and value through real-time data analytics and predictive modelling. A number of different technologies such as Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning, in addition to the physical items that compose an IoT network, give it life. The combination of AI and ML with IoT is creating new opportunities for businesses and organizations to gather valuable insights from connected devices and make data-driven decisions. AI and ML algorithms can help IoT devices to become more intelligent, efficient, and capable of making better decisions based on the data they collect. As the amount of data generated by IoT devices continues to increase, AI/ML will become even more critical for extracting insights and improving the performance of these devices.

Now, we will go through the technologies that make up the IoT:

ZigBee

ZigBee is an open specification for wireless mesh networking designed for power-efficient wireless control and monitoring applications. Using low-power radios to set up a local area network is a quick and cheap option. ZigBee Alliance, a non-profit group consisting of approximately 450 firms worldwide is responsible for maintaining and publishing the standards.

ZigBee devices are popular among development teams working on IoT applications because they meet the ZigBee Alliance's specifications for low latency and simple, brief message style. A product owner's investment in this protocol is less risky because of the stringent requirements placed on all participating producers. ZigBee virtually eliminates the risk of a dead IoT product because a minimum of 2-year radio battery life is the most important specification for the vast majority of end users. For example, A fire alarm that should be switched on constantly but only responds once, if required.

ZigBee reduces the loudness and range of the signal so that a radio may operate for 2 years on a single battery. However, because its major function is to link physically adjacent devices we do not need rapid data transmission. Most consumer electronics, traffic control systems, and several industrial uses fall under this category.

Thread

Thread is a wireless communication protocol that was developed specifically for IoT. It is designed to provide a low-power, secure, and scalable way for devices to communicate with each other and with the internet. Thread is an open standard which means that it is not owned by a single company or organization. It is backed by the Thread Group, which is a consortium of industry leaders in the IoT space, including Google, Apple, and Nest.

Thread operates on the 2.4 GHz frequency band, which is the same as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but it uses a different radio technology called 6LoWPAN (IPv6 over Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks). This technology allows Thread devices to have low power consumption, while still providing reliable and secure connectivity. Thread also uses a mesh networking architecture, which allows devices to communicate with each other directly or through other devices on the network, extending the range of the network and improving its reliability. One of the advantages of Thread is that it has strong security features built-in, including end-to-end encryption and secure device authentication. This helps prevent unauthorized access to the network and ensure the privacy and security of the data being transmitted.

Thread's very existence is criticised, as the number of radio platforms for wireless devices grows, it is inevitable that some of them will become incompatible with one another. Thread is a promising wireless protocol for the IoT, with a strong focus on low power consumption, security, and scalability. It is compatible with a wide range of devices, including sensors, thermostats, lighting systems, and other smart home devices.

Z-wave

Z-Wave is a wireless communication protocol used for home automation and IoT devices. It is designed for low-power devices and has become popular for smart home applications. Z-Wave is a proprietary technology developed by Silicon Labs, which means that it is not an open standard like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

Z-Wave radios are technically suitable since they operate on the 900 MHz band, far from Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and are therefore, essentially immune to interference (Can penetrate walls and obstacles). The very scalable Z-Wave complete mesh network that can connect up to 232 devices is sure to be a hit with product managers. Z-Wave has already been widely adopted, and consumers are enjoying numerous goods that employ it even if they do not realise it. Z-Wave is often used for devices such as smart locks, thermostats, lighting systems, and security systems. It can be integrated with other smart home platforms such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home for voice control and automation.

One of the advantages of Z-Wave is that it has a wide range of compatible devices, with over 2,400 certified products on the market. It also has strong security features, including AES 128-bit encryption and the ability to add new devices securely to the network. Sigma Designs is the only company authorized to license the Z-Wave wireless technology for usage in consumer products. While this is useful for preserving consistency and dependability, it poses a serious threat to particular applications.

Wi-Fi

When it comes to wireless networking protocols, Wi-Fi is by far the most well-known. It is based on the IEEE 802.11 standard, which was published in 1997. To manage and maintain the Wi-Fi trademark under which goods using this technology are marketed, the Wi-Fi Alliance was established in 1999.

Given the widespread adoption of WLANs for usage in residential settings, this protocol usually makes use of a pre-existing network with the users are already aware about. High-quality network encryption is a need, and Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) and Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPS) owners that are thinking about using this protocol as the radio standard for their IoT platform should also be pleased by its strong penetration and current security.

For a Wi-Fi network to reliably link a user's computer, laptop, smartphone, and tablet to the rest of their home network, powerful radios are required. When compared to other more conventional IoT protocols, this level of power consumption is by far the highest. High signal strength is wonderful for connection and dependability, but it also means that your Wi-Fi device, whether it is your home router or your phone, will need to be plugged into an outlet or charged every day to maintain its battery life.

RFID

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is one of the first IoT applications that provides positioning solutions for IoT applications, particularly those in supply chain management and logistics that need to know where objects are inside buildings. Clearly, the future of RFID technology lies in areas much beyond basic localization services, such as patient monitoring, healthcare efficiency, and real-time goods location data to reduce out-of-stock situations in retail outlets.

NFC

Near Field Communication (NFC) paves the way for close-range interaction between gadgets that are compatible with one another. There must be at