Introduction to IOT (IOT FUNDAMENTALS)

INTRODUCTION TO IOT

What is IoT?

The Internet of Things is the network of physical things (objects) sending, receiving or
communicating information using the internet or other communication technologies and
networks such as computers, tablets and mobiles.
Over 10 billion ‘Things’ are connected to the Internet, as of now.
The Internet of things refers to billions of physical devices around the world that are
connected to the internet collecting and sharing data.
Until recently the internet of things is limited to devices like laptops, tablets or smartphones.
But now with IoT, practically all appliances can be connected to the internet and monitored
remotely. It has become possible to turn anything into a part of IoT. It is like adding a level of
digital intelligence to the devices that would allow them to communicate with a human being
or other machine.
Internet technology connects devices, machines and tools to the internet by means of wireless
technologies.
‘Things’ connected to the Internet are projected to cross 20 billion in the near future.
Unification of technologies such as low-power embedded systems, cloud computing, big
data, machine learning, and networking.
IoT provides a platform that creates opportunities for people to connect these devices and
control them with big data technology, which in turn will promote efficiency in performance,
and economic benefits and minimize the need for human involvement.

Origin of Terminology

In the 2000s, we are heading into a new era of ubiquity, where the “users” of the Internet will be
counted in billions and where humans may become the minority as generators and receivers of
traffic. Instead, most of the traffic will flow between devices and all kinds of “things”, thereby
creating a much wider and more complex Internet of Things.

(“The Internet of Things”, ITU Internet Report 2005)

Characteristics of IoT

 Efficient: IoT sensors will provide the data needed for decision-making on how and where to
optimise activity-based working areas, such as their size, amount, purpose and achieved
results. These initiatives will generate savings in rent and energy bills as well as reduce
maintenance costs and absenteeism.
 scalability: Scalability will be key to handling the explosive growth in the Internet of Things
(IoT). This means that IoT applications must have the ability to support an increasing number
of connected devices, users, application features, and analytics capabilities, without any
degradation in the quality of service.
  Interoperable communication protocols: IoT Devices may support a number of
interoperable communication protocols and can communicate with other devices and also
with the infrastructure.

 Abundance of sleeping nodes, mobile and non-IP devices: An abundance of physical objects
is present that do not use IP, so IoT is made possible. Devices typically consume less power.
When not in use, they should be automatically programmed to sleep.

 Intermittent connectivity: IoT devices aren’t always connected. In order to save bandwidth
and battery consumption, devices will be powered off periodically when not in use.
Otherwise, connections might turn unreliable and thus prove to be inefficient.

IoT Market Share

Evolution of connected devices:

The IoT, as we see it today, is a result of a series of technological paradigm shifts over a few decades.
The technologies that laid the foundation of connected systems by achieving easy integration to
daily lives, popular public acceptance, and massive benefits by using connected solutions can be
considered as the founding solutions for the development of IoT. Figure 4.6 shows the sequence of
technological advancements for shaping the IoT as it is today.
• ATM:

ATMs or automated teller machines are cash distribution machines, which are linked to a user’s bank
account. ATMs dispense cash upon verification of the identity of a user and their account through a
specially coded card. The central concept behind ATMs was the availability of financial transactions
even when banks were closed beyond their regular work hours. These ATMs were ubiquitous money
dispensers. The first ATM became operational and connected online for the first time in 1974.

• Web: World Wide Web is a global information sharing and communication platform. The Web
became operational for the first time in 1991. Since then, it has been massively responsible for the
many revolutions in the field of computing and communication.

• Smart Meters: The earliest smart meter was a power meter, which became operational in early
2000. These power meters were capable of communicating remotely with the power grid. They
enabled remote monitoring of subscribers’ power usage and eased the process of billing and power
allocation from grids.

• DigitBV al Locks: Digital locks can be considered as one of the earlier attempts at connected home-
automation systems. Present-day digital locks are so robust that smartphones can be used to control
them. Operations such as locking and unlocking doors, changing key codes, including new members
in the access lists, can be easily performed, and that too remotely using smartphones.

• Connected Healthcare: Here, healthcare devices connect to hospitals, doctors, and relatives to
alert them of medical emergencies and take preventive measures. The devices may be simple
wearable appliances, monitoring just the heart rate and pulse of the wearer, as well as regular
medical devices and monitors in hospitals. The connected nature of these systems makes the
availability of medical records and test results much faster, cheaper, and convenient for both
patients as well as hospital authorities.

• Connected Vehicles: Connected vehicles may communicate to the Internet or with other vehicles,
or even with sensors and actuators contained within it. These vehicles self-diagnose themselves and
alert owners about system failures.

• Smart Cities: This is a city-wide implementation of smart sensing, monitoring, and actuation
systems. The city-wide infrastructure communicating amongst themselves enables unified and
synchronized operations and information dissemination. Some of the facilities which may benefit are
parking, transportation, and others.

• Smart Dust: These are microscopic computers. Smaller than a grain of sand each, they can be used
in numerous beneficial ways, where regular computers cannot operate. For example, smart dust can
be sprayed to measure chemicals in the soil or even to diagnose problems in the human body.
• Smart Factories: These factories can monitor plant processes, assembly lines, distribution lines,
and manage factory floors all on their own. The reduction in mishaps due to human errors in
judgment or unoptimized processes is drastically reduced.

• UAVs: UAVs or unmanned aerial vehicles have emerged as robust public domain solutions tasked
with applications ranging from agriculture, surveys, surveillance, deliveries, stock maintenance, asset
management, and other tasks.

Modern-day IoT Applications:

 Smart Parking
 Structural health
 Noise Urban Maps
 Smartphone Detection
 Traffic Congestion
 Smart Lighting
 Waste Management
 Smart Roads
 River Floods
 Smart Grid
 Photovoltaic Installations
 Silos Stock Calculation
 Liquid Presence
 Forest Fire Detection
 Air Pollution
 Snow Level Monitoring
 Earthquake Early Detection
 Water Leakages
 Radiation Levels
 Explosive and Hazardous Gases
 Supply Chain Control
 NFC Payment
 Intelligent Shopping Applications
 Smart Product Management

Connectivity Terminologies/ Network component:

(i) IoT Node: These are the networking devices within an IoT LAN. Each of these devices is
typically made up of a sensor, a processor, and a radio, which communicates with the
network infrastructure (either within the LAN or outside it). The nodes may be connected to
other nodes inside a LAN directly or by means of a common gateway for that LAN.
Connections outside the LAN are through gateways and proxies

(ii) IoT Router: An IoT router is a piece of networking equipment that is primarily tasked with
the routing of packets between various entities in the IoT network; it keeps the traffic
flowing correctly within the network. A router can be repurposed as a gateway by enhancing
its functionalities.
(iii) IoT LAN: The local area network (LAN) enables local connectivity within the purview of a
single gateway. Typically, they consist of short-range connectivity technologies. IoT LANs
may or may not be connected to the Internet. Generally, they are localized within a building
or an organization.

(iv) IoT WAN: The wide area network (WAN) connects various network segments such as
LANs. They are typically organizationally and geographically wide, with their operational
range lying between a few kilometers to hundreds of kilometers. IoT WANs connect to the
Internet and enable Internet access to the segments they are connecting.
(v) IoT Gateway: An IoT gateway is simply a router connecting the IoT LAN to a WAN or the
Internet. Gateways can implement several LANs and WANs. Their primary task is to forward
packets between LANs and WANs, and the IP layer using only layer 3.

(vi) IoT Proxy: Proxies actively lie on the application layer and performs application layer
functions between IoT nodes and other entities. Typically, application layer proxies are a
means of providing security to the network entities under it ; it helps to extend the
addressing range of its network.

IoT Components:

Device(thing): The “Things” in IoT usually refer to IoT devices which have unique identities and can
perform remote sensing, Actuating and monitoring capabilities. IoT devices can exchange data with
other connected devices and applications (directly or indirectly), collect data from other devices and
process the data locally or send the data to Centralized servers or cloud-based applications back
ends for processing the data or from some tasks locally and other tasks within the IoT infrastructure,
based on temporal and space constraints (ie: Memory, processing calibrators, communication
latencies and speed and deadlines).

Local Network: A wired LAN uses switches and Ethernet cabling to connect endpoints, servers and
internet of things (IoT) devices to the corporate network. For small businesses with only a handful of
devices, a wired LAN can consist of a single unmanaged LAN switch with enough Ethernet ports to
interconnect all devices. Home WiFi networks and small business networks are common examples of
LANs.

Internet: The Internet, sometimes called simply "the Net," is a worldwide system of computer
networks -- a network of networks in which users at any one computer can, if they have permission,
get information from any other computer (and sometimes talk directly to users at other computers)

Backend service: back-end developers build the infrastructure that supports it. It is a necessary
component for a high-functioning application or website.
An IoT system uses various types of IoT services such as services for device monitoring, device
control services, data publishing services and services for device Discovery.

Applications: the application provides and interfaces that the user can used to control and
monitor various aspects of the IoT system. The application also allow users to view the system
status and view or analyze the processed to data.
Connectivity layer:

The local connectivity is responsible for distributing Internet access to multiple local IoT
deployments. This distribution may be on the basis of the physical placement of the things, on the
basis of the application domains, or even on the basis of providers of services. Services such as
address management, device management, security, sleep scheduling, and others fall within the
scope of this plane
global connectivity plays a significant role in enabling IoT in the real sense by allowing for worldwide
implementations and connectivity between things, users, controllers, and applications. This plane
also falls under the purview of IoT management as it decides how and when to store data, when to
process it, when to forward it, and in which form to forward it. The Web, data-centers, remote
servers, Cloud, and others make up this plane.

Baseline technologies:
(i) M2M: The M2M or the machine-to-machine paradigm signifies a system of connected
machines and devices, which can talk amongst themselves without human intervention.
The communication between the machines can be for updates on machine status
(stocks, health, power status, and others), collaborative task completion, overall
knowledge of the systems and the environment, and others.
(ii) CPS: The CPS or the cyber physical system paradigm insinuates a closed control loop—
from sensing, processing, and finally to actuation—using a feedback mechanism. CPS
helps in maintaining the state of an environment through the feedback control loop,
which ensures that until the desired state is attained, the system keeps on actuating and
sensing. Humans have a simple supervisory role in CPS-based systems; most of the
ground-level operations are automated.
(iii) IoE: The IoE paradigm is mainly concerned with minimizing and even reversing
the ill-effects of Internet-based technologies on the environment [3]. The major focus
areas of this paradigm include smart and sustainable farming, sustainable and energy-
efficient habitats, enhancing the energy efficiency of systems and processes, and others.
In brief, we can safely assume that any aspect of IoT that concerns and affects the
environment, falls under the purview of IoE.
(iv) Industry 4.0: Industry 4.0 is commonly referred to as the fourth industrial
revolution pertaining to digitization in the manufacturing industry. The previous
revolutions chronologically dealt with mechanization, mass production, and the
 industrial revolution, respectively. This paradigm strongly puts forward the concept of
smart factories, where machines talk to one another without much human involvement
based on a framework of CPS and IoT.
(v) IoP: IoP is a new technological movement on the Internet which aims to decentralize
online social interactions, payments, transactions, and other tasks while maintaining
confidentiality and privacy of its user’s data.

Functional Components of IoT

IoT is a transformation process of connecting our smart devices and objects to

network to perform efficiently and access remotely.

1. Smart devices and sensors

Devices and sensors are the components of the device connectivity layer. These smart sensors
are continuously collecting data from the environment and transmit the information to the
next layer.

Common sensors are:

 Temperature sensors and thermostats

 Pressure sensors
 Humidity / Moisture level
 Light intensity detectors
Most of the modern smart devices and sensors can be connected to low power wireless
networks like Wi-Fi, ZigBee, Bluetooth, etc… Each of these wireless technologies has its
own pros and cons in terms of power, data transfer rate and overall efficiency.

2. Gateway

IoT Gateway manages the bidirectional data traffic between different networks and protocols.
Another function of gateway is to translate different network protocols and make sure
interoperability of the connected devices and sensors.

IoT gateway offers certain level of security for the network and transmitted data with higher
order encryption techniques. It acts as a middle layer between devices and cloud to protect
the system from malicious attacks and unauthorized access.

3. Cloud

Internet of things creates massive data from devices, applications and users which has to be
managed in an efficient way. IoT cloud offers tools to collect, process, manage and store
huge amount of data in real time.
Cloud system integrates billions of devices, sensors, gateways, protocols, data storage and
provides predictive analytics.

4. Analytics

Analytics is the process of converting analog data from billions of smart devices and sensors
into useful insights which can be interpreted and used for detailed analysis.

5. User interface

User interfaces are the visible, tangible part of the IoT system which can be accessible by
users. Designers will have to make sure a well-designed user interface for minimum effort for
users and encourage more interactions.

Modern technology offers much interactive design to ease complex tasks into simple touch
panels controls.

IoT Categories

Industrial IoT
IoT device connects to an IP network and the global Internet. Communication between the nodes is done using regular as
well as industry-specific technologies.

Consumer IoT
IoT device communicates within locally networked devices. Local communication is done mainly via Bluetooth, Zigbee or
WIFI. Generally limited to local communication by a Gateway
IoT Gateways

Gateway provides bridge between different communication technologies which means we

can say that a Gateway acts as a medium to open up connection between cloud and
controller(sensors / devices) in Internet of Things (IoT) . By the help of gateways it is
possible to establish device to device or device to cloud communication. A gateway can be
a typical hardware device or software program.
It enables a connection between sensor network and Internet along with enabling IoT
communication, it also performs many other tasks such as this IoT gateway performs
protocol translation, aggregating all data, local processing and filtering of data before
sending it to cloud, locally storing data and autonomously controlling devices based on
some inputted data, providing additional device security.
Key functionalities of IoT Gateway :
 Establishing communication bridge
 Provides additional security.
 Performs data aggregation.
 Pre processing and filtering of data.
 Provides local storage as a cache/ buffer.
 Data computing at edge level.
 Ability to manage entire device.
 Device diagnostics.
 Adding more functional capability.
 Verifying protocols.
Working of IoT Gateway :
1. Receives data from sensor network.
2. Performs Pre processing, filtering and cleaning on unfiltered data.
3. Transports into standard protocols for communication.
4. Sends data to cloud.

Key Technologies for IoT

IoT Challenges:

Mobility:
IoT supports unconditional M2M communication. The devices in the system, given their
heterogeneity concerning configurations and usage, that is, pedestrians, vehicles, cycles, drones,
robots, and others, have diverse mobility patterns. These patterns cannot be precisely predicted and
need to be stochastically analyzed, which makes efforts toward seamless connectivity and quality of
service tricky. Developers need to devise ways to make dynamic decisions on the handoff,
synchronization, and others such issues efficiently

Addressing:
With the advent of IoT and its advantages, its adoption by the people as well as, industries are
growing at an uncontrollable rate. Such an exponential increase in the number of devices exhausts
the number of available IP addresses, leading to IP conflicts. In addition to that, there are very few
standards or industry-recommended schemes toward addressing IoT administrators.

Power:
IoT devices are usually resource-constrained concerning power and computational capability. These
devices need to last for a long time irrespective of their limited battery power. Such limitations call
for green computing schemes for smart harvesting and consumption of power. Alternatively, it also
calls for new hardware designs that consume minimum power for operation.

Heterogeneous connectivity:
IoT is a vast collection of heterogeneous networks made up of long-range, as well as, short-range
connectivity technologies. Some of the integrated sectors in IoT also rely on their own proprietary
connectivity solutions. The proprietary nature of connectivity is commonly encountered in
applications such as military, heavy industries, and others. Heterogeneity in connectivity can be
significantly challenging to manage as often connectivity devices may be vendor-specific, industry-
specific, or even task-specific.

Communication range:
The wide expanse and reach of IoT have led to some of its major challenges, addressing which have
given IoT some powerful new solutions. The usefulness of IoT has led to its solutions being deployed
in areas with proper connectivity as well as areas, especially remote ones, where there is barely any
connectivity. Both of these scenarios have their own unique set of challenges, which need to be
addressed separately. For example, the deployment of low-power wireless IoT solutions in urban
areas tend to frequently encounter interference and noise due to the presence of other powerful
wireless solutions operating at the same frequency spectrum.

Security:
Due to the lack of powerful and unified security standards in IoT and an increasing number of
devices, IoT is vulnerable to threats from malicious attackers and bots. Although encryption seems to
be a logical answer in this scenario, a significant chunk of these devices lack the storage and
computational capabilities required for supporting complex mathematical operations, which come
with encryption. Some manufacturers put a built-in password for security, which is temporarily
helpful in a few limited scenarios.

Device size:
Manufacturers usually design IoT devices for enhancing user experience at low cost. Further, such
devices are usually small in size, equipped with unique IDs and wireless communication antennae.
The low cost and size make it difficult to incorporate processing power and storage in the device. It
also causes space concerns to introduce a battery.
Interoperability:
IoT devices serve a myriad of applications with numerous manufacturers deploying multiple units.
These devices with different purposes and different manufacturers need to interact with one
another to work in harmony. With the increasing number of devices and no universal standards,
researchers are working actively to enable the devices to achieve common goals automatically.

 Interfacing
 Interoperability
 Data storage
 Data Analytics
 Complexity management (e.g., SDN)
 Security
 Scalability
 Energy efficiency
 Bandwidth management
 Modeling and Analysis