IoT: An Introduction

During my winter breaks of 2018-19 I have decided to take up a winter internship from an organization named Internity (you may read more about them here) on IoT or The Internet of Things so I think of sharing what I learn, my experience and innovations on this blog with everyone. So here I go with the first post.

What is IoT?

Definition: The Internet of Things (IoT) is a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals or people that are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. (Source)

Now when I read the above definition, it was quite too typical for me to grasp and it seems particularly unnecessarily complicated. So below is my understanding of IoT in simple (as I may think 😅) terms.

It simply means taking all the things in the world and connecting them to the internet. It’s about enabling connectivity and embedded intelligence in devices. Not strictly machine-to-machine but also machine-to-people, people-to-machine, machine-to-objects, people-to-objects. IoT gives us the ability to collect data from a broad range of devices. Data then can be accessed via the cloud and analyzed using big data techniques.

The following figure will explain the IoT hierarchy:

How does an IoT system work?

A complete IoT system has 4 components: Sensors, Connectivity, Data Processing & User Interface.

1. Data is firstly collected from the environment by something, that something may be a standalone sensor or many sensors bundled up to make a device. Ex. Phone has multiple sensors like gps, accelerometer etc.
2. Next this collected data is sent to the cloud. But how is it sent? The sensors/devices can be connected to the cloud through a variety of methods including: cellular, satellite, WiFi, Bluetooth, low-power wide-area networks (LPWAN), or connecting directly to the internet via Ethernet. The connectivity method is chosen according to the application, power consumption, range and bandwidth but all of them get data to the cloud.
3. Once the data gets on the cloud some kind of processing is performed on it. For example this could be as simple as taking the moisture reading and checking whether it is below an acceptable value or not or it may be as complex as identifying the garbage heat map from the scan of an area. But what do we do of this interpretation?
4. Now this interpretation is made available to the end user in some manner. For example may be by a text alert to the godown owner about the moisture level, so that he could take proper measures for his grains or by forwarding the garbage heat map to the concerned authority. However, depending upon the IoT application, the user can also perform an action and affect the system. As a simple example, the user might remotely adjust the moisture in the godown via an app on their phone.

So this is the basic working of an IoT system. The point to be noted here is that it is not always a one way street, an iot system can always take input from the end user.

Important Technologies & Protocols for IoT Communication

• Bluetooth: It is a short range IoT communication protocol. It is particularly used for wearable products (connected via a smart phone many a times). The new BLE (or Bluetooth Low Energy) or Bluetooth Smart is becoming a very important protocol now a days. It offers significantly less power consumption.
• Zigbee: Zigbee is a lot similar to Bluetooth and is majorly used for industrial purposes. It has advantages like High Security, Robustness, Low Power Consumption. The recent Zigbee 3.0  is the combination of the various Zigbee wireless standards into a single standard.
• Z-Wave: It is low power RF communication technology. A Z-Wave uses a simpler protocol than some others, which can enable faster and simpler development.
• Wi-Fi: It is the most popular IoT communication protocol. It is especially used within the home environment i.e. within LANs. Its advantages include fast data transfer, ability to handle high quantities of data but it may be too power consuming for many IoT applications. Recent Wi-Fi standard is 802.11n.
• Cellular: The applications requiring long distance operations may take use of GSM, 3G, 4G cellular capabilities. Ideal for sensor based low band width projects but technology like 4G may turn out to be costly for sending high quantities of data.
• NFC: NFC (Near Field Communication) is a same communication protocol which does not require the end user to be physically present while performing transactions. It enable the devices to share information at a distance less than 1.6 inches.
• LoRaWAN: Used in WAN Applications. Has advantages of Low Power Consumption, Large network support with millions of devices. Baud rate ranges from 0.3kbps to 50 kbps. (Source of this Data)

IoT Application Sectors

• Automotive
• Communications
• Information Technology
• Medical
• Industrial
• Consumer
• Aerospace