IoT and its data

Shouryadipta Birabar, 4th-year B.Tech Integrated, Computer engineering, NMIMS MPSTME.

Introduction to IoT

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.

The Internet of Things is a pretty simple concept, it means taking all the physical places and things in the world and connecting them to the internet.

The Internet of Things is making the fabric of the world around us smarter and more responsive, merging the digital and physical universes.

History of IoT

The birth of IoT

?Kevin Ashton, Inventor of the Internet of Things

The term Internet of Things is 16 years old. But the actual idea of connected devices had been around longer, at least since the 70s. Back then, the idea was often called “embedded internet” or “pervasive computing”. But the actual term “Internet of Things” was coined by Kevin Ashton in 1999 during his work at Procter & Gamble. Ashton who was working in supply chain optimization wanted to attract senior management’s attention to a new exciting technology called RFID. Because the internet was the hottest new trend in 1999 and because it somehow made sense, he called his presentation “Internet of Things”.

Even though Kevin grabbed the interest of some P&G executives, the term Internet of Things did not get widespread attention for the next 10 years.

IoT takes off

The concept of IoT started to gain some popularity in the summer of 2010. Information leaked that Google’s Street-View service had not only made 360-degree pictures but had also stored tons of data of people’s Wi-Fi networks. People were debating whether this was the start of a new Google strategy to not only index the internet but also index the physical world.

The same year, the Chinese government announced it would make the Internet of Things a strategic priority in their Five-Year-Plan.

In 2011, Gartner, the market research company that invented the famous “hype-cycle for emerging technologies” included a newly emerging phenomenon on their list: “The Internet of Things”.

The next year the theme of Europe’s biggest Internet conference Le Web was the “Internet of Things”. At the same time popular tech-focused magazines like Forbes, Fast Company, and Wired starting using IoT as their vocabulary to describe the phenomenon.

In October of 2013, IDC published a report stating that the Internet of Things would be an $8.9 trillion market in 2020.

The term Internet of Things reached mass-market awareness when in January 2014 Google announced to buy Nest for $3.2bn. At the same time, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas was held under the theme of IoT.

Size of the IoT industry

The global market for the Internet of things (IoT) end-user solutions is expected to grow to 212 billion U.S. dollars in size by the end of 2019. The technology reached 100 billion dollars in market revenue for the first time in 2017, and forecasts suggest that this figure will grow to around 1.1 trillion by 2025.

Application of IoT

· Helping with tasks â€” the IoT can help enable better-targeted working processes. The oil and gas industry has been able to build models based on seismic images to improve the precision of exploration for new reserves. Data about the conditions that products are kept in can be used to help predict with precision the life of individual products within a larger batch. This is particularly important in the food industry, where shelf life can vary according to harvesting, holding, processing, and distribution arrangements.

· Generating efficiencies â€” the information smart devices make available within manufacturing operations can help prevent bottlenecks. Efficiencies also include a reduction in the use of resources, by, for example, using smart devices for better energy management in buildings. In agriculture, sensors on farms enable farmers to monitor soil conditions and irrigation levels, optimizing their water and fertilizer use.

· Monitoring for potential problems â€” devices can give warnings to remote locations of security problems, such as open windows. The data devices provide can also enhance the effectiveness of procedures designed to prevent problems occurring. Predictive maintenance involves the use of data relating to the condition of equipment to estimate when maintenance should be performed. The timing of maintenance will be partly determined by when it is cost-effective, but also trying to ensure that it happens before there is likely to be a loss in performance.

· Underpinning strategic development â€” in the automotive industry 3D printers can be used to shape pressing tools by printing the shape directly onto the steel granulate. This helps enable car designs to be tailored to customer requirements.

IoT’s connection with 5G

· IoT devices use a variety of methods to connect and share data, although most will use some form of wireless connectivity: homes and offices will use standard Wi-Fi, Zig-bee or Bluetooth Low Energy, other devices will use LTE (existing technologies include Narrowband IOT and LTE-M, largely aimed at small devices sending limited amounts of data) or even satellite connections to communicate.

· One area of growth in the next few years will undoubtedly be the use of 5G networks to support IoT projects.

· 5G offers the ability to fit as many as one million 5G devices in a square kilometer, which means that it will be possible to use a vast number of sensors in a very small area, making large-scale industrial IoT deployments more possible.

· Outdoor surveillance cameras will be the largest market for 5G IoT devices in the near term, according to Gartner, accounting for the majority (70%) of the 5G IoT devices this year, before dropping to around 30% by the end of 2023, at which point they will be overtaken by connected cars.

· The analyst firm predicts that there will be 3.5 million 5G IoT devices in use this year, and nearly 50 million by 2023. Longer-term the automotive industry will be the largest sector for 5G IoT use cases, it predicted.

Benefits of IoT

· Productivity improvement: IoT allows the monitoring, monitoring, and control of the different processes, which optimizes the different operations that increase productivity and efficiency

· Predictive analysis: Thanks to the collection of a large amount of data, IoT’s new technologies make it possible to examine recurring patterns and contribute to predictive analysis, which can be used mainly in maintenance. This precise information will be used to improve existing processes and services

· Rapid response: the data makes it possible to monitor the systems in place in real-time and even remotely. They facilitate the optimization of maintenance interventions, but also give the company a strategic advantage in monitoring market developments.

· Reduction of human errors: thanks to the complementarity of technologies such as artificial intelligence, IoT makes it possible to reduce human errors due to mundane or repetitive tasks.

The IoT is therefore an asset in helping the company to make decisions and improve its performance. It represents a strategic advantage in a competitive market. This trend will continue to grow, with an estimated 20 billion connected objects worldwide by 2020. Faced with their promising future, it is time to take advantage of it and transform your business.

Industrial IoT

The IoT has three inherent qualities:

1. Things â€” Any connected device that is capable of generating data, whether it is a sensor, video camera, smartphone, medical device or any other device.
2. Connectivity â€” The physical medium — wireless or wired networks, Bluetooth, software-defined networks — connecting devices to each other and to an IoT platform.
3. Platforms â€” The cloud or on-premise software applications that help you manage, configure, and capture data from connected devices.
4. Examples of IoT abound and are increasingly becoming familiar conveniences in our daily lives: wearables, home automation, and security systems, and other smart devices. But the Internet of Things has proven to be more than consumer-driven applications.

The new Industrial Age: IIOT

Manufacturing is a perfect example. Some say we’re on the cusp of the next Industrial Revolution — others refer to it as Industry 4.0 — which is driven by the industrial Internet of things (IIOT). The IIOT can be defined as a collection of things and platforms connecting manufacturing environments, smart cities, and agribusinesses.

The data collected can be used to automate operations and improve decision-making enabling improved safety and security, operational efficiency, asset management, and predictive maintenance. A World Economic Forum report suggests the IIOT could add $14.2 trillion to the global economy by 2030, making it one of the biggest drivers of productivity and growth in the next decade.

The advantages could be so significant, in fact, that companies rejecting industry 4.0 technology will be at a distinct disadvantage as they compete with businesses that use technology to disrupt their industries.

Bringing IT and OT together for secure IIOT

The problem is that a successful IIOT implementation requires information technology (IT) and operations technology (OT) to work together — an often-difficult challenge, both technologically and culturally. IT is often driven by rapid change, while OT is typically driven by established tradition.

But as manufacturers increasingly require access to more and more data, once isolated, manufacturing machines and systems are progressively becoming connected to networks. While the efficiency results are beneficial, those same operational systems are now more susceptible to cyberattacks (DDoS attacks, cyberespionage, employee sabotage — or just plain naivety — and other security risks) that previously affected only IT systems.

Furthermore, the legacy systems and software used on the OT side and connected to the Internet have opened a potential Pandora’s box. Companies using these legacy tools might as well put out a welcome mat.

The silos of IT and OT have begun to converge necessitating the need for tighter collaboration.

The question is…how do you prevent cyber threats that can shut down machines (and the plant itself) and pose potential safety hazards to employees, while still providing appropriate access to data?

The answer lies in ensuring you employ trusted partners with the expertise and skills to help you access valuable operational data while ensuring the security of your plant from the inside out.

Flipside of IoT

As always, security is an important concern. A significant criticism of the IoT is that the development of applications has not been accompanied by sufficient development of security. In some cases, the consequences of hacking could be life-threatening.

Privacy and breaching data protection regulations are also serious concerns. The more information that devices provide, the more is known about what individuals are doing, leading perhaps to a greater ability to predict behavior. Individuals may fear being watched and be afraid of whether the inferences drawn from data collected about them can be used to ‘control’ their behavior. Compliance with data protection regulations is complicated by regulations continuing to develop and differences in regulations between countries.

Other technical issues include platform fragmentation, the problem of providing applications that can work with IoT devices that use a variety of hardware and software. One device becoming obsolescent can disrupt the whole network of which that device forms a part. Data storage and processing costs may be large. Problems with connection, gathering, and understanding data may hinder the IoT application, emphasizing the need for expert staff to be involved.

In addition, many IoT applications do not get beyond the pilot or development stage. Developments can concentrate too much on the technology, and not establish early on whether there is a convincing business case. The time horizons for successful implementation may be felt to be too long-term. Barriers to implementation may also include the limitations of the hardware being used by businesses or the insufficiency of their information systems’ infrastructure. Old legacy systems may be an issue, as businesses may not want to replace all their computer equipment for new devices that can accommodate the IoT.

Future of IoT

The future of IoT has the potential to be limitless. Advances to the industrial internet will be accelerated through increased network agility, integrated artificial intelligence (AI), and the capacity to deploy, automate, orchestrate, and secure diverse use cases at hyper-scale. The potential is not just in enabling billions of devices simultaneously but leveraging the huge volumes of actionable data that can automate diverse business processes. As networks and IoT platforms evolve to overcome these challenges, through increased capacity and AI, service providers will edge furthermore into IT and web-scale markets — opening entire new streams of revenue.

An exciting wave of future IoT applications will emerge, brought to life through intuitive human to machine interactivity. Human 4.0 will allow humans to interact in real-time over great distances — both with each other and with machines — and have similar sensory experiences to those that they experience locally. This will enable new opportunities within remote learning, surgery, and repair. Immersive mixed reality applications have the potential to become the next platform after mobile — realized through 3D audio and haptic sensations and becoming our main interface to the real world. Bringing future IoT to life will require close synergy between the IoT- and network platforms.

Closure

Hence, the Internet of Things is the concept in which the virtual world of information technology connected to the real world of things. The technologies of the Internet of things such as RFID and Sensor make our life become better and more comfortable.

References

https://cxounplugged.com/2018/09/iiot-industrial-internet-of-things/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-the-internet-of-things-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-iot-right-now/

https://www.accaglobal.com/ca/en/student/exam-support-resources/professional-exams-study-resources/strategic-business-leader/technical-articles/iot.html