A formal definition of Internet of Things is as below:
“”The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects that contain embedded technology to communicate and sense or interact with their internal states or the external environment.””
Now let’s understand Internet of Things in very simple way.
Till now when we say internet based services we understand connections of different computers and computing devices.
Now the Internet of Things says that the scope of internet is expanded or going to be expanded beyond computers and computing devices.
Now whatever “things” we can see, we can touch can be a part of the internet of world.
They will communicate in between, with humans and so on.
So in simple terms anything can be connected to the internet world and this is called Internet of Things (IoT).
IoT is no more in research state and by 2020 it is expected that 50 billion devices will be part of IoT.
This count will increase gradually as the use of devices, equipment, home appliances are increasing day by day and they are always more than human beings.
Application of Internet of Things (IoT):
Some applications of Internet of Things in different domains are as below but not limited to:
- Home: Smart Lighting, Smart Appliances
- Cities: Smart Parking, Smart Roads
- Environment: Weather Monitoring, Noise Pollution Monitoring
- Energy: Smart Grids, Renewable Energy System
- Retail: Inventory Management, Smart Payments
- Logistics: Shipment Monitoring, Route Generation
- Agriculture: Smart Irrigation, Green House Control
- Industry: Indoor Air Quality Monitoring, Machine Diagnosis
- Health & Lifestyle: Fitness Monitoring, Wearable Electronics
Market Drivers of Internet of Things (IoT):
IoT is a new game changer for businesses and individuals and is considered to be the fourth industrial revolution by experts and scientists.
The drivers and trends that contribute to the massive growth and development of IoT are as below, but not limited to:
- 3GPP standards
- Expanded and low cost internet connectivity
- Expanded mobile communication
- Emerging of new mobile technology like LTE and 5G.
- Low cost sensors
- Large IoT investments
- Growing importance of Automation
- Big data knowledge
- Artificial Intelligence
- Machine learning
- Deep learning
- Edge computing and cloud
- Security assistance
- IPV6 addressing system
Characteristics:
Different characteristics of IoT are:
- Efficient, scalable and associated architecture
- Unambiguous naming and addressing
- Abundance of sleeping nodes, mobile nodes.
- Intermittent connectivity
- As we already came to know that in IoT billions of, trillions of devices are going to be interconnected so, it must be scalable and as well as efficient too.
- Identification of each nodes must be unique. Currently IPV4 system is usually used for IP addressing which is having 32 bit addressing scheme.
For IoT we need to think beyond IPV4 and necessity to go for IPV6. IPV6 is having 128 bit addressing scheme.
- There should be large number of sleeping nodes in the system.
Whenever they are not being used they should be in sleeping mode and as per requirement make them active.
As there are large no of nodes connected in the network it is not possible to check and change battery or power supply to the nodes very frequently.
So the battery life of the nodes should be very large like many years. To make the battery life long, we should make some arrangement so that all nodes are continuously not active and go to sleep mode when they are not required to be active.
By this way we can make long battery life of the nodes and thus make them long live.
- Mobility of the nodes is also a part of IoT network.
e.g. if a person is wearing a smart watch, along with the person that nodes must also be mobile and should work properly during mobility.
- Intermittent Connectivity means one device currently connected to a particular device may not be connected to it at a later instance of time and gets connected to some other new device or devices.
IoT Market Share:
IoT is attractive in different application domains.
A study found that currently the IoT market share in different domains are like (Source: Intel)
Manufacturing/ Business: 40.2%
Healthcare: 30.3%
Retail: 8.3%
Security: 7.7%.
So we have seen that currently Manufacturing /Business is on the top of the IoT market share.
It improves overall supply chain management, different sensors, actuators, different robotic machinery can be used to improve the business process.
In healthcare remote areas can be connected to the different health care facilities of doctors, nurses, and other services whether they are present in front of them or not.
They will be remotely connected and treated.
Recordkeeping and access remotely to those reports is also an added advantages to healthcare industry.
In case of Retail sectors tasks such as inventory tracking, smartphone purchasing, anonymous analytics of consumer choices, these are the different things that can be done efficiently through use of IoT.
Fingerprint, biometric and facial recognition these technologies can be connected and used with the help of IoT for Security purpose.
Machine to Machine (M2M) Communications:
Machine to Machine (M2M) communications was first introduced by Telecommunications service providers (TSP).
Earlier IoT was referred to as Machine to Machine (M2M) communications only.
M2M means devices connected to internet can communicate to one another through wired and mostly wireless network.
From this concept of M2M with evolved communication technology like 4G-LTE or 5G, concept of MASSIVE IoT deployment comes in to picture.
Along with Massive another part of IoT is CRITICAL IoT.
Massive IoT:
Requirements of Massive IoT:
- Low cost
- Low energy
- Small data volumes
- and Massive numbers of devices.
Examples are like smart buildings, smart agriculture, logistic tracking and management etc.
Critical IoT:
Requirements of CriticalIoT:
- Ultra-Reliable
- Very low latency
- Very high reliability
Examples are like remote health care, traffic safety and control, industrial applications and control etc.
M2M expansion is growing in very high speed and Cisco predicting that by 2022 there will be 14.6 billion machine-to machine (M2M) IoT connections.
IoT Vs M2M:
M2M refers to the communications between machines and devices.
Internet of Things (IoT) is a wider concept and M2M is a part of IoT, reverse is not.
Expectation of IoT:
Applications of IoT can be expected in almost every sphere of society and any sphere of life.
It is expected to have trillions of sensors (nodes), billions of smart systems and millions of applications are going to be internetworked.
Summary:
This is just a beginning of the Internet of Things (IoT) chapter.
In upcoming blogs we will go deep in to the concepts, theory, devices and applications of IoT in details.
Thanks for reading this blog.
Your feedback, comments, suggestions or like are highly appreciated.
Ref: Internet of Things, A Hands-on approach by Arshdeep Bahga& Vijay Madiset
5G the future of IoT, 5G Americas
Internet of Things : Dr. Sudip Misra
Suggested post for YOU:
Pranab Hazarika
BE | MBA | PMP | IoT-Certified
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