Basic Electronics for IOT

Basic electronics for IoT (Internet of Things) typically involve understanding the
following key components and concepts:

Microcontrollers: Start with microcontrollers like Arduino, Raspberry Pi, or

ESP8266/ESP32. These are the brains of IoT devices.

Sensors: Learn about various sensors like temperature, humidity, motion, light,
and sound sensors. They collect data from the physical world.

Actuators: These are components that perform actions based on data received.
Examples include motors, servos, and relays.

Power Supply: Understand power sources and management. IoT devices often run
on batteries, solar panels, or power adapters.

Communication: Learn about communication protocols like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth,

Zigbee, or LoRa for connecting IoT devices to the internet or other devices.

Programming: Develop skills in programming microcontrollers. Common

languages are C/C++ for Arduino and Python for Raspberry Pi.

Data Processing: Learn how to process and analyze data collected from sensors
using your chosen microcontroller.

IoT Platforms: Explore IoT platforms like AWS IoT, Google Cloud IoT, or
Microsoft Azure IoT for data storage, analysis, and device management.

Security: Understand IoT security considerations, including encryption,

authentication, and access control, to protect your devices and data .

Prototyping: Practice building simple IoT projects to gain hands-on experience

and gradually work your way up to more complex applications."
Binary Calculations

Binary calculations are fundamental in IoT (Internet of Things) because many IoT
devices operate with limited resources, and binary representation is efficient for
processing and transmitting data. Here are some key binary calculations and
concepts relevant to IoT:

Binary Conversion: IoT devices often use binary to represent data because it's a
base-2 system, making it efficient for digital circuits. You may need to convert
data between binary and other numeral systems like decimal or hexadecimal

Bitwise Operations: Bitwise operations (AND, OR, XOR, etc.) are crucial in IoT
for manipulating individual bits within data. For example, you might use bitwise
operations to set or clear specific flags or control device states.

Data Encoding: IoT protocols often use binary encoding schemes like Binary
Coded Decimal (BCD) or UTF-8 for efficiently transmitting data over networks.

Error Detection and Correction: IoT communication may involve binary

calculations for error detection and correction using methods like CRC (Cyclic
Redundancy Check) or Hamming codes to ensure data integrity.

Sensor Data Processing: Many IoT devices collect data from sensors (e.g.,
temperature, humidity) in analog form. Binary calculations are used to digitize,
process, and represent this data for further analysis or transmission.

Network Addressing: Binary calculations are used to manage IP addresses and

subnetting in IoT networks, which are essential for device communication and
routing.

Power Optimization: IoT devices often have limited power sources, so binary
calculations are used for optimizing power-efficient algorithms and sleep modes.

Security and Encryption: Binary operations play a crucial role in cryptographic

algorithms used for securing IoT communications. Encryption and decryption
processes involve binary arithmetic.
Data Compression: Binary-based compression algorithms are used to reduce the
size of data packets in IoT transmissions, saving bandwidth and energy.

Protocol Parsing: In IoT, binary calculations are necessary for parsing and
interpreting binary data received from various communication protocols like
MQTT, CoAP, or Zigbee.

Understanding binary calculations and their applications is vital for designing,

developing, and maintaining IoT devices and systems. It enables efficient data
handling, reduces resource consumption, and ensures data accuracy and security in
IoT environments.

Logical Chips
The primary goal of IoT devices is to communicate with each other. This process
entails sending and receiving data with each other over a network. Communication
between devices is possible thanks to the IC chips. They have sensors and receptor
nodes that control every aspect of data communication.
Semiconductor chips are designed to meet various communication protocols of
data communication, whether it is over a Wi-Fi network, cellular network, or even
Bluetooth.
A chip in an IoT device will have special features that allow it to send data to a
particular device. Similarly, there are chips on a receiving device that will take the
incoming data and transfer it to the processor for analysis and interpretation.

To process data
 The chips receive the data and analyze the perform arithmetic and logical
processes. The primary function of the processing is to transform data into
more useful forms.
 The chips are programmed and are also embedded with complex
applications that can do data analysis, calculations and processing.
Take an example of a smart watch or any other wearable device that you are using
to monitor your exercises and health. Most of these devices are capable of telling
you whether you are doing good in terms of health. A device will use the input
data such as weight and height to tell you your BMI.
The complexity that comes with data processing requires that IoT manufacturers
install high-end IC chips. Not only do they have fast data processing capabilities
but they are also high accuracy levels.
Data storage

 Storage of data is another important function of the IC chips in relation to

the IoT devices such as wearable’s and smart homes.
 After data has been received and processed, two things will happen; the
device may execute the instructions in the data immediately or may store the
data for future use. There are specialized ICs designed to store data that has
been collected by IoT devices. They will then release this data when needed.
 The data storage property of the IC semiconductor chips can either be for
long-term or short-term. In other words, we have Read-only memory
(ROM) chips and Random-access memory IC chips.
 Each of these memory types has a role to play in the overall functionality of
the chip.
 In most IoT devices, the ROM chip stores the instructions that define the
overall operation of the device or appliance. For instance, it will determine
the speed at which the device responds.
 On the other hand, the RAM chip stores data that is needed for short-term
use. For instance, your smart wearable device will record how many miles
you walked in a particular day.
Integrated circuits are used for energy management in IoT

 On the other hand, other appliances are lauded for their energy efficiency.
 At the root of power and energy management of IoT devices is the IC chip.
 The chips manage and control how different components of a device
consume power.
 There are various mechanisms that ICs deploy to manage power and
enhance the energy efficiency of IoT devices.
For example, IC manufacturers use clock gating to cut down power dissipation on
the integrated circuit. If this is applied on multiple circuits, there will be a
significant drop in a device’s energy consumption.
Frequency and data optimization also contribute to power management of the ICs
in IoT devices. For example, the chip will determine how data will be
synchronized so as to cut down on its energy consumption rate.
Microcontrollers

 A microprocessor mainly consists of a Control Unit, an Arithmetic and Logic

Unit (ALU) and some registers.
 Modern microprocessors are also equipped with cache memory to smooth
data transfer between CPU and memory.
 But microcontrollers are beyond microprocessors.
 Microcontrollers can be defined as a collection of one or more
microprocessors, main memory, program memory, input/output peripherals
etc.
 We can define a microcontroller as a System-On-Chip (SoC). As all of these
components are contained collectively in a single chip, it is easier to handle
in IoT development processes.

Following are the widely used microcontrollers in the field of IoT. Each of them is
different in its architecture, supported technologies, form factor etc.

1. Atmel AVR

Atmel is the manufacturer of the Atmel AVR microcontroller family (In 2016,
Atmel was acquired by Microchip Technology). These were introduced in 1996,
and mainly there are three series of microcontrollers as follows.

1. ATmega32 series

2. ATmega16 series

3. AVR128 series
These ATmega and AVR microcontrollers are known for their presence in popular
development boards Arduino. Arduino Uno boards consist of ATmega 328p
microcontrollers, while Arduino Mega 2560 boards consist of ATmega 2560
microcontrollers.

2. Microchip PIC

 PIC (pronounced as “pick”; stands for Programmable Intelligent Computer)

is a family of microcontrollers manufactured by Microchip Technology.
 PIC MCUs were firstly introduced in the 1970s. PIC MCUs were popular
among developers before the rise of Arduino development boards.
 PIC MCUs are heavily used in the large-scale production of IoT devices.

1. PIC18 series (including PIC12 and PIC16)

2. PIC32 series
These PIC microcontrollers were most popular with Microchip Curiosity
Development Board and Ready-for Development boards.

3. Espressif ESP

ESP series microcontrollers are known for their Wi-Fi-enabled feature among IoT
developers. ESPs are relatively new to the MCU market compared with the other
MCUs. Below are the popular microcontroller series of ESP.

1. ESP8266 series

2. ESP32 series
Microcontroller Development Boards
 Microcontroller Development Boards, aka Single-board Microcontrollers, are
Printed Circuit Boards that come with inbuilt microcontrollers.

 Other than the microcontroller, a power supply circuit, signal converters

(Analog to Digital and Digital to Analog), system bus, serial ports and I/O
ports.
The most popular microcontroller boards are as follows.

Raspberry Pi and Arduino are considered IoT platforms, a standard

where many IoT peripherals and their libraries are developed compatibly.

Raspberry Pi — More suitable for heavy computational-oriented

applications such as image processing. Built-in support for communication
standards such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It is Available in various models
according to requirements.

Raspberry Pi Models
 Arduino — More suitable for lightweight compute applications such
as sensor readings and minor actuators. No built-in support for
communication standards. Available in various models according to
requirements.

Arduino Models

 Espressif — More suitable for lightweight compute applications that require

Wi-Fi. Much energy efficient and small in size and supports the Arduino
platform. Available in various models according to requirements.

Espressif Models
Multipurpose Computers

Multipurpose computers can play a role in the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem,
although IoT typically involves a wide range of devices, including sensors,
microcontrollers, and specialized hardware. Here's how multipurpose computers
can be used in IoT:

Gateway Devices: Multipurpose computers can serve as IoT gateway devices.

These gateways connect IoT devices, often using various communication
protocols, to the cloud or a central server. They may process data locally before
sending it to the cloud, providing real-time analytics and reducing latency.

Edge Computing: In IoT, edge computing involves processing data closer to the
source (the IoT devices) rather than in a centralized cloud. Multipurpose computers
at the edge can perform data preprocessing, filtering, and analysis, reducing the
amount of data sent to the cloud and enabling faster responses.

Data Aggregation and Visualization: Multipurpose computers can collect data

from various IoT devices, aggregate it, and present it in a user-friendly way
through dashboards or applications. This is valuable for monitoring and decision-
making.

Security and Device Management: IoT security is crucial. Multipurpose

computers can handle security tasks like authentication, encryption, and access
control for IoT devices. They can also manage device provisioning, updates, and
maintenance.

Custom IoT Applications: Developers can use multipurpose computers to create

custom applications that interact with IoT devices. These applications can range
from home automation systems to industrial control software.

Machine Learning and AI: Multipurpose computers can run machine learning
models and artificial intelligence algorithms to analyze IoT data for predictive
maintenance, anomaly detection, and other intelligent applications .

Scalability: Multipurpose computers can scale to accommodate the growing

number of IoT devices and data. Cloud-based solutions can also be integrated with
multipurpose computers to provide additional scalability.
Prototyping and Development: During IoT project development, multipurpose
computers are often used for prototyping and testing before custom hardware is
designed and deployed.

While multipurpose computers have a role in IoT, it's essential to choose the right
hardware and software components based on the specific requirements of your IoT
project. Sometimes, specialized IoT devices are more efficient for certain tasks,
especially when power consumption and size constraints are critical.

Electronic Signals

 A signal is an electromagnetic or electrical current that carries data from one

system or network to another.
 In electronics, a signal is often a time-varying voltage that is also an
electromagnetic wave carrying information, though it can take on other
forms, such as current.

There are two main types of signals used in electronics: analog and digital
signals.

Analog Signal

 An analog signal is time-varying and generally bound to a range (e.g. +12V to -

12V), but there is an infinite number of values within that continuous range.

 An analog signal uses a given property of the medium to convey the signal’s
information, such as electricity moving through a wire.

 In an electrical signal, the voltage, current, or frequency of the signal may be

varied to represent the information.

 Analog signals are often calculated responses to changes in light, sound,

temperature, position, pressure, or other physical phenomena.
 When plotted on a voltage vs. time graph, an analog signal should produce a
smooth and continuous curve. There should not be any discrete value changes

Digital Signal

 A digital signal is a signal that represents data as a sequence of discrete values.

 A digital signal can only take on one value from a finite set of possible values at
a given time. With digital signals, the physical quantity representing the
information can be many things:

 Variable electric current or voltage

 Phase or polarization of an electromagnetic field

 Acoustic pressure

 The magnetization of a magnetic storage media

Digital signals are used in all digital electronics, including computing equipment
and data transmission devices. When plotted on a voltage vs. time graph, digital
signals are one of two values, and are usually between 0V and VCC (usually 1.8V,
3.3V, or 5V)

Conversion of Analog signals to Digital signals

 Most of the image sensors are in the analog signal, and digital processing
cannot be applied on it, as it requires infinite memory to store because signals
have an infinite value that is why we cannot store it.

 To create a digital image we can convert data into digital form.

 For the conversion there are two steps:

1. Sampling

2. Quantization

To convert an analog signal into a digital signal, both its axis(x,y) are converted
into digital format.
 As we can see that image is continuous in its coordinates(x-y). So sampling
deals with digitizing of co-ordinates and quantization deals with digitizing the
amplitude.

Sampling

 In analog signals, there are continuous electrical signals that vary with time.
With the help of subsystem, a sampler extracts continuous signals for the
sampling of signals.

 Sampling is done along the x-axis of signals that continuously differs with time.
It is divided into two category one is sampling and other is downsampling.

 In downsampling, the range of values on the x-axis is always less.

Quantization

 It is a process of image processing, in which continuous and time-varying

values of analog signals are divided into non-overlapping discrete and unique
values assigned to each subrange.

 Sampling and quantization are opposite to each other. Sampling is done along
the x-axis but quantization is done along the y-axis.

 In the image processing, the sampled image is considered as a digital value.

When there is a transition of states between time-varying values of image
function and its digital equivalent signifies quantization.

 The main problem in the image is the continuous occurrence of false contours
which can be quantized later with inadequate brightness levels. The fine
shading of the image depends on the level of quantization.
Digital to analog conversions

 Digital to analog conversions can be performed using resistor networks and the
conversion to an analog signal is usually in the order of nanoseconds.

 Since the digital information is a step approximation of the input signal, the
resulting output from a D to A converter reflects this step nature of the signal.
 Digital to analog conversions may be made using a ladder network of resistors
or a weighted input to a summing amplifier. The voltage on the output depends
upon the voltages applied to the inputs.

 These voltages may be either 0 (for logic 0) or some supply voltage Vcc (for
logic 1). The TTL input connected to the lowest value resistor carries more
weight than the others, thus, a larger binary or digital input results in a larger
analog output voltage.

Modulation

 Modulation is a process of mixing a signal with a sinusoid to produce a new

signal. This new signal, conceivably, will have certain benefits over an un-
modulated signal. Mixing of low frequency signal with high frequency carrier
signal is called modulation.

 we can see that this sinusoid has 3 parameters that can be altered, to affect the
shape of the graph. The first term, A, is called the magnitude, or amplitude of
the sinusoid. The next term, is known as the frequency, and the last term, is
known as the phase angle. All 3 parameters can be altered to transmit data.
 The sinusoidal signal that is used in the modulation is known as the carrier
signal, or simply “the carrier”. The signal that is used in modulating the carrier
signal(or sinusoidal signal) is known as the “data signal” or the “message
signal”. It is important to notice that a simple sinusoidal carrier contains no
information of its own.

In other words we can say that modulation is used because some data signals are
not always suitable for direct transmission, but the modulated signal may be more
suitable.

Types of Modulation

There are 3 basic types of modulation: Amplitude modulation, Frequency

modulation, and Phase modulation.

Amplitude modulation

 a type of modulation where the amplitude of the carrier signal is modulated

(changed) in proportion to the message signal while the frequency and phase
are kept constant.

Frequency modulation

 a type of modulation where the frequency of the carrier signal is modulated

(changed) in proportion to the message signal while the amplitude and phase
are kept constant.
Phase modulation

 a type of modulation where the phase of the carrier signal is varied accordance
to the low frequency of the message signal is known as phase modulation.

Modulation Signals

 Frequency of an RF channel is best understood as the frequency of a carrier

wave.

 A carrier wave is a pure wave of constant frequency, a bit like a sine wave. By
itself it doesn’t carry much information that we can relate to (such as speech or
data).

 To include speech information or data information, another wave needs to be

imposed, called an input signal, on top of the carrier wave. This process of
imposing an input signal onto a carrier wave is called modulation.
 In other words, modulation changes the shape of a carrier wave to somehow
encode the speech or data information that we were interested in carrying.
Modulation is like hiding a code inside the carrier wave.

 Recall that any wave has three basic properties:

1) Amplitude — the height of the wave

2) Frequency — a number of waves passing through in a given second
3) Phase — where the phase is at any given moment.

 There are different strategies for modulating the carrier wave. First, a user can
tweak the height of the carrier. If an input signal’s height varies with the
loudness of a user’s voice and then adds this to the carrier, then the carrier’s
amplitude will change corresponding to the input signal that’s been fed into it.
This is called amplitude modulation or AM.

 Frequency of an input signal can also be changed. If this input signal is added to
the pure carrier wave, it will thereby change the frequency of the carrier wave.
In that way, users can use changes of frequency to carry speech information.
This is called frequency modulation or FM.
 These two strategies can be combined to create a third scheme. In fact, any
strategy that combines an input signal with a carrier wave to encode speech or
other useful information is called a modulation scheme.

 Modulation schemes can be analog or digital. An analog modulation scheme

has an input wave that varies continuously like a sine wave. In digital
modulation scheme, it’s a little more complicated. Voice is sampled at some
rate and then compressed and turned into a bit stream — a stream of zeros and
ones — and this in turn is created into a particular kind of wave which is then
superimposed on the carrier.

 The big question is, why have carrier waves in modulation at all? Why not
simply use the input signal directly? After all, it is carrying all the information
that we’re interested in and it only occupies a few kilohertz and bandwidth.

 Interestingly, the input signals could be carried (without a carrier wave) by very
low frequency electromagnetic waves. The problem, however, is that this will
need quite a bit of amplification in order to transmit those very low frequencies.
The input signals themselves do not have much power and need a fairly large
antenna in order to transmit the information.
 In order to keep communication cheap and convenient and require less power to
carry as much information as possible, carrier systems with modulated carriers
are used.

Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)

Definition: A modulation technique where the width of the pulses of the pulsed
carrier wave is changed according to the modulating signal is known as Pulse
Width Modulation (PWM). It is also known as Pulse duration modulation
(PDM).

Basics of Pulse Width Modulation

It is a type of Pulse Time Modulation (PTM) technique where the timing of the
carrier pulse is varied according to the modulating signal.

In pulse duration modulation (PDM), the amplitude of the pulse is kept constant
and only the variation in width is noticed. As the information component is present
in width of the pulses. Thus, during signal transmission, the signal undergoes pulse
width modulation. Due to constant amplitude property, it gets less affected by
noise. However, during transmission channel noise introduces some variation in
amplitude as it is additive in nature. But that is totally easy removable at the
receiver by making use of limiter circuit.

As the width of the pulses contains information. Thus the noise factor does not
cause much signal distortion. Hence the immunity to the noise of a PWM system is
better than the PAM system.
Generation of PWM signal Waveform representation
The figure below shows the process of pulse width modulation. It is commonly
known as an indirect method of PWM generation.

 The message signal and the carrier waveform is fed to a modulator which
generates PAM signal. This pulse amplitude modulated signal is fed to the
non-inverting terminal of the comparator.

 A ramp signal generated by the sawtooth generator is fed to the inverting

terminal of the comparator.

 These two signals are added and compared with the reference voltage of the
comparator circuit. The level of the comparator is so adjusted to have the
intersection of the reference with the slope of the waveform.

 The PWM pulse begins with the leading edge of the ramp signal and the
width of the pulse is determined by the comparator circuit.

 The width of the PWM signal is proportional to the omitted portion of the
ramp signal by the comparator level.

The figure below will help you to understand in a better way how PWM signal is
generated by the comparator:
Here, the first image i.e., (a) shows the waveform of the sinusoidal modulating
signal and the second one (b) shows the pulsed carrier. After modulation, a PAM
signal is generated that is shown in (c). This PAM signal, when added with ramp
signal shown in (d), is compared with the reference voltage of the comparator
shown in figure (e).Lastly, figure (f) shows the PWM signal.

We have already mentioned that the width of the pulse is directly dependent on
the portion of the waveform that lies above the comparator level.

This is how a pulse width modulated signal is generated.

Advantages of Pulse Width Modulation

1. It is more immune to channel induced noise than PAM.

2. As noise adds to the amplitude thus the reconstruction of PWM signal from
distorted PWM signal is somewhat easy.
3. The transmission and reception do not need to be synchronized.
Disadvantages of Pulse Width Modulation

1. Due to changing width of the pulses, variation in transmission power is also

noticed.
2. Bandwidth requirement in case of PWM is somewhat larger than PAM.

Applications of Pulse Width Modulation

It is used in telecommunications, brightness controlling of light or speed
controlling of fans etc.