Internet of Things (IoT)

Systems and Applications

Jamil Y. Khan, Mehmet R. Yuce, Jamil Y. Khan, Mehmet R. Yuce

• Publisher: Jenny Stanford Publishing
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429678042
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Computer Networking
• Index: Computer Science

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the core technologies of current and future information and communications technology (ICT) sectors. IoT technologies will be deployed in numerous industries, including health, transport, smart cities, utility sectors, environment, security, and many other areas. In a manner suitable to a broad range of readers, this book introduces various key IoT technologies focusing on algorithms, process algebra, network architecture, energy harvesting, wireless communications, and network security. It presents IoT system design techniques, international IoT standards, and recent research outcomes relevant to the IoT system developments and provides existing and emerging solutions to the design and development of IoT platforms for multi-sector industries, particularly for Industry 4.0. The book also addresses some of the regulatory issues and design challenges related to IoT system deployments and proposes guidelines for possible future applications.

Chapter 1

Introduction to IoT Systems

Jamil Y. Khan

School of Electrical Engineering & Computing, The University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan, NSW, 2308, Australia

[email protected]

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a distributed ICT (Information and Communication Technology) system that integrates sensors, computing devices, algorithms and physical objects known as the Things which are uniquely identifiable.¹ The Things have the abilities to collect and transfer data over connected systems without any human intervention, thus offering autonomous data processing abilities. A communication network is one of the key elements of an IoT (Internet of Things) system that allows information flow among a large number of sensors, actuators, devices, controllers and data storages. Many IoT devices require mostly one way data transfer ability, whereas some applications operating in sensor actuator modes require bi-directional data transfer. IoT systems could be deployed to support numerous applications; ranging from simple home automation tasks to life saving tasks where implanted sensors within a human body could be used to monitor critical human organs. All IoT systems rely heavily on efficient and reliable communication networks to exchange data among its component entities. The efficiency and reliability requirements of communication networks are determined by the application profiles. IoT systems enable the collection of massive amounts of data, generating a Big Data repository.² The growth of IoT systems have been fueled by the availability of low cost and low power computing, sensors and communication devices as well as the development of intelligent software techniques which enables implementation of complex algorithms in a cost effective manner. The IoT system is seen as a natural growth of machine to machine (M2M) communication systems into a full autonomous system. This chapter briefly introduces various IoT application domains and standards, as well as introduces a generic IoT system architecture.

Section 1.1 introduces IoT systems and their deployment areas. Section 1.2 discusses several major IoT application domains. Section 1.3 introduces the basic IoT system design architecture, briefly discussing functional models. Section 1.4 focuses on different industry standards proposed by major organizations such as the ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institution), IEEE (Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers), 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project), IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), International Telecommunications Union (ITU), OneM2M and others. Section 1.5 presents a summary of the chapter.

1.1 Introduction

The concept of the IoT was first introduced by Kevin Ashton of Auto-ID Labs in 1999. The initial idea was to develop a networked systems using RFID (radio frequency identification) devices.^{3, 4} Since then the concept has evolved, encompassing many new ideas, architecture and application scenarios. IoT systems are seen as distributed systems where things or devices are distributed over different geographical areas which can exchange information in autonomous and reliable ways to accomplish many tasks without any human interventions. Distributed devices generally will have very low computing power. Consequently, data from these devices need to be aggregated and transmitted to cyberspace for processing. The development of IoT systems have largely been driven by the ubiquitous communication systems, embedded computing devices, cloud/fog computing architecture and advanced software techniques. IoT systems can be considered as a cyber physical system which is different from the conventional internet based systems where things could generate data in real time which could control other things or objects. With the growing demand and deployment of IoT systems, the core system architecture is evolving. Some of the IoT systems are referred to as WoT (Web of Things), Consumer IoT (cIoT), and Industrial IoT (iIoT). Deployment of IoT systems has already begun supporting new and conventional applications in different areas. According to Gartner’s, 6.4 billion IoT devices are in use in 2016.⁵ Various organizations are predicting the rapid increase of the deployed number of IoT systems. According to Ericsson, 29 billion devices will be in use by 2022.⁶ The total market value generated by IoT is also significant. McKinsey Institute estimates that the IoT market size will grow, offering a total potential impact of $3.9 trillion to $11.1 trillion a year by 2025.⁷

Currently the IoT market and stakeholders are expanding rapidly, encompassing existing and many new areas where traditionally ICT solutions had very limited deployments. Figure 1.1 shows the major IoT applications areas and their stake holders. The IoT application areas shown on the figure are increasing rapidly, new ideas and applications are being developed which influence most aspects of modern societies and industries. Each of the application areas have their unique requirements, hence system designers have to focus on application requirements. First, we can focus on health application areas. Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) could be considered as one of the first IoT applications where engineering/IT and medical professionals are working on healthcare monitoring applications.⁸ The main idea of the WBAN is that all the body sensors used to monitor human biological functions will be connected with a low cost communication network to transmit those data to a remote system for collection and medical diagnostic purposes. Over the years the idea of WBAN application areas has expanded and evolved towards wearable computers which can be used for many other purposes, including sports and fitness training, building facilities and access management, shopping and entertainment, and other relevant purposes.^{9, 10}

Figure 1.1 IoT application domains and key stake holders.

Current technology trends show that IoT applications will grow in many areas, and then evolve and migrate to other areas as discussed above. The medical IoT market is a growth sector and according to Grand View Research consulting the global healthcare sector invested US$98.4 billion in the telehealth area in 2016 which will grow at an annual rate of 27%.¹¹ According to BI Intelligence, 161 million healthcare IoT devices will be installed in 2020 compared to 73 million in 2016.¹²

Figure 1.1 shows the industrial sectors and their stake holders of current and future IoT applications. The figure shows the diversity of IoT applications where system requirements could vary significantly. For example, applications such as health care, manufacturing, utility and transport sectors will have many applications that may require time critical information delivery mechanisms. Similarly, there will be other applications where bidirectional data transfer will require supporting sensor actuator applications. Many of these application areas shown in Fig. 1.1 could share the IoT infrastructure to provide services such as provided by the Smart City and the Smart Grid infrastructure. The IoT applications deployment processes will be largely influenced by user demands and ICT solutions, vendors, researchers and regulators. Regulators will have some key roles in deciding on communication network features such as the use of the radio spectrum, equipment design, marketing issues, etc. The communication spectrum will be a key issue in wireless networks design which could vary from country to country or region to region. Major IoT application scenarios are briefly discussed in the following section.

1.2 Overview of IoT Applications

This section introduces several major IoT application areas. IoT systems will be introduced in many domains including social, civic, health, education, industrial, transport, defense, etc. The requirements and benefits of IoT systems in different domains will vary according to specific needs. In this section we limit the discourse to areas of health, utility, smart city, smart agriculture and transportation sectors.

1.2.1 Healthcare

Tele-health will be a major user of IoT applications where a range of medical devices both implanted and on body devices could be used to gather statistics and/or control different medical processes. The market share of medical IoT will be quite significant. According to the grand view, the research market will expand from US$98.4 billion in 2016 to over US$500 billion in 2022. This estimate includes medical devices, software and systems, and services. Medical IoT devices will include both wearable as well as implantable devices. One of the growth sectors within the medical IoT is elderly patient monitoring and real-time assistance system which could significantly improve the quality of life as well reduce the cost of aged care systems. Cloud computing systems coupled with medical wearable devices and home/work place networks not only monitor the health of a person but also offer timely advise in real time. In future many implantable connected medical devices will provide significant real-time diagnostic data to cloud based diagnostic and advisory services to improve human health. Successful deployment of medical IoT devices, services and software will offer enormous social and economic benefits to its stakeholders such as individuals, society, health professionals, social services and governments. In many cases such systems can reduce the health care cost for individuals as well as for governments.

A web-centric children diabetic management system is presented in reference.¹³ In the proposed system a robot was used as an aid in treating children, collecting medical data from sensors on children’s bodies and communicating with web-based services to obtain instructions and advise on further required actions. The robot also collects verbal information on the child’s diet, physical activities and insulin intake details, and then transmits these information to the web server. This is an example of a future advanced IoT based medical service which will play an increasingly important role in the areas of patient and aged care services.

An integrated IoT and cloud technology-based online voice pathology monitoring system is presented.¹⁴ An IoT cloud technology-based system can significantly improve applications in tele-medicine and emergency medicine services. The voice pathology monitoring system can be used to detect abnormal growths such as cysts, nodules and polyps in vocal tracts. The system has been developed to serve professional speakers and musicians. It is use...