IoT Introduction and Characterstics

IOT (Internet of things)

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical devices, vehicles, home appliances, and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and connectivity which enables these things to connect and exchange data creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computer-based systems, resulting in efficiency improvements, economic benefits, and reduced human exertions. The number of IoT devices increased 31% year-over-year to 8.4 billion in the year 2017^[9] and it is estimated that there will be 30 billion devices by 2020.^[10] The global market value of IoT is projected to reach $7.1 trillion by 2020

IoT involves extending Internet connectivity beyond standard devices, such as desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets, to any range of traditionally dumb or non-internet-enabled physical devices and everyday objects. Embedded with technology, these devices can communicate and interact over the Internet, and they can be remotely monitored and controlled. With the arrival of driverless vehicles, a branch of IoT, i.e. the Internet of Vehicle starts to gain more attention.

Internet of things (IOT) is a network of physical objects. The internet is not only a network of computers, but it has evolved into a network of device of all type and sizes , vehicles, smart phones, home appliances, toys, cameras, medical instruments and industrial systems, animals, people, buildings, all connected ,all communicating & sharing information based on stipulated protocols in order to achieve smart reorganizations, positioning, tracing, safe & control & even personal real time online monitoring , online upgrade, process control & administration. We define IoT into three categories as below: Internet of things is an internet of three things:

IoT

(1). People to people,

(2) People to machine /things,

(3) Things /machine to things /machine, Interacting through internet.

Internet of Things Vision: Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept and a paradigm that considers pervasive presence in the environment of a variety of things/objects that through wireless and wired connections and unique addressing schemes are able to interact with each other and cooperate with other things/objects to create new applications/services and reach common goals. In this context the research and development challenges to create a smart world are enormous. A world where the real, digital and the virtual are converging to create smart environments that make energy, transport, cities and many other areas more intelligent.

Internet of Things is refer to the general idea of things, especially everyday objects, that are readable, recognisable, locatable, addressable through information sensing device and/or controllable via the Internet, irrespective of the communication means (whether via RFID, wireless LAN, wide area networks, or other means). Everyday objects include not only the electronic devices we encounter or the products of higher technological development such as vehicles and equipment but things that we do not ordinarily think of as electronic at all - such as food , clothing ,chair, animal, tree, water etc. [1,2] Internet of Things is a new revolution of the Internet. Objects make themselves recognizable and they obtain intelligence by making or enabling context related decisions thanks to the fact that they can communicate information about themselves. They can access information that has been aggregated by other things, or they can be components of complex services. This transformation is concomitant with the emergence of cloud computing capabilities and the transition of the Internet towards IPv6 with an almost unlimited addressing capacity. [1, 2] The goal of the Internet of Things is to enable things to be connected anytime, anyplace, with anything and anyone ideally using any path/network and any service.

There is a heterogeneous mix of communication technologies, which need to be adapted in order to address the needs of IoT applications such as energy efficiency, speed, security, and reliability. In this context, it is possible that the level of diversity will be scaled to a number a manageable connectivity technologies that address the needs of the IoT applications, are adopted by the market, they have already proved to be serviceable, supported by a strong technology alliance. Examples of standards in these categories include wired and wireless technologies like Ethernet, WI-FI, Bluetooth, ZigBee, GSM, and GPRS. [1, 2] The key enabling technologies for the Internet of Things is shown in figure.

Internet of Things (IoT) Characteristics

1. Intelligence – Knowledge extraction from the generated data

2. Architecture – A hybrid architecture supporting many others

3. Complex system – A diverse set of dynamically changing objects

4. Size considerations – Scalability

5. Time considerations – Billions of parallel and simultaneous events

 6. Space considerations – Localization

7. Everything-as-a-service – Consuming resources as a service

Some of the general and key characteristics identified during the research study are as follows:

1.     Intelligence: IoT comes with the combination of algorithms and computation, software & hardware that makes it smart. Ambient intelligence in IoT enhances its capabilities which facilitate the things to respond in an intelligent way to a particular situation and supports them in carrying out specific tasks. In spite of all the popularity of smart technologies, intelligence in IoT is only concerned as means of interaction between devices, while user and device interaction is achieved by standard input methods and graphical user interface.

2.    Connectivity: Connectivity empowers Internet of Things by bringing together everyday objects. Connectivity of these objects is pivotal because simple object level interactions contribute towards collective intelligence in IoT network. It enables network accessibility and compatibility in the things. With this connectivity, new market opportunities for Internet of things can be created by the networking of smart things and applications.

3.    Dynamic Nature: The primary activity of Internet of Things is to collect data from its environment, this is achieved with the dynamic changes that take place around the devices. The state of these devices change dynamically, example sleeping and waking up, connected and/or disconnected as well as the context of devices including temperature, location and speed. In addition to the state of the device, the number of devices also changes dynamically with a person, place and time.

4.    Enormous scale: The number of devices that need to be managed and that communicate with each other will be much larger than the devices connected to the current Internet. The management of data generated from these devices and their interpretation for application purposes becomes more critical. Gartner (2015) confirms the enormous scale of IoT in the estimated report where it stated that 5.5 million new things will get connected every day and 6.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2016, which is up by 30 percent from 2015. The report also forecasts that the number of connected devices will reach 20.8 billion by 2020.

5.    Sensing: IoT wouldn’t be possible without sensors which will detect or measure any changes in the environment to generate data that can report on their status or even interact with the environment. Sensing technologies provide the means to create capabilities that reflect a true awareness of the physical world and the people in it. The sensing information is simply the analogue input from the physical world, but it can provide the rich understanding of our complex world.

6.    Heterogeneity: Heterogeneity in Internet of Things as one of the key characteristics. Devices in IoT are based on different hardware platforms and networks and can interact with other devices or service platforms through different networks. IoT architecture should support direct network connectivity between heterogeneous networks. The key design requirements for heterogeneous things and their environments in IoT are scalabilities, modularity, extensibility and interoperability.

7.     Security: IoT devices are naturally vulnerable to security threats. As we gain efficiencies, novel experiences, and other benefits from the IoT, it would be a mistake to forget about security concerns associated with it. There is a high level of transparency and privacy issues with IoT. It is important to secure the endpoints, the networks, and the data that is transferred across all of it means creating a security paradigm.

There are a wide variety of technologies that are associated with Internet of Things that facilitate in its successful functioning. IoT technologies possess the above-mentioned characteristics which create value and support human activities; they further enhance the capabilities of the IoT network by mutual cooperation and becoming the part of the total system.