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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:
| Year | Description of invention |
| 1949 | Norman Joseph Woodland, while drawing four lines in the sand on Miami Beach, invented the barcode. He received a patent for the idea in 1952. |
| 1950 | Morton Heiling invented a head-mounted display named Sensorama to provide the user with the experience of riding a motorbike in the streets of Brooklyn. The researcher received the patent on October 4, 1960. |
| 1955 | Edward O. Thorp invented a cigarette-pack the sized first wearable computer worn inside the shoe. This computer could be used to predict roulette wheels.
Claude Shannon worked on the project further in the year 1961, but it finally appeared to be used in the year 1966. |
| 1967 | Hurbort Upton launched an analog wearable efficient computer to assist in lip reading. The device had an eyeglass-mounted display. |
| 1969 | A major invention was made t... |
