INTRODUCTION

Anyone who says that the Internet has fundamentally changed society
may be right, but at the same time, the greatest transformation actually
still lies ahead of us. Several new technologies are now converging in
a way that means the Internet is on the brink of a substantial
expansion as objects large and small get connected and assume their
own web identity (Yinghui H. & Guanyu L., 2017).

Following on from the Internet of computers, when our servers and

personal computers were connected to a global network, and the
Internet of mobile telephones, when it was the turn of telephones and
other mobile units, the next phase of development is the Internet of
things, when more or less anything will be connected and managed in
the virtual world. This revolution will be the Net’s largest
enlargement ever and will have sweeping effects on every industry —
and all of our everyday lives.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Smart connectivity with existing networks and context-aware

computation using network resources is an indispensable part of IoT.
With the growing presence of Wi-Fi and 4G-LTE wireless Internet
access, the evolution towards ubiquitous information and
communication networks is already evident. However, for the Internet

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of Things vision to successfully emerge, the computing paradigm will
need to go beyond traditional mobile computing scenarios that use
smart phones and portables, and evolve into connecting everyday
existing objects and embedding intelligence into our environment. For
technology to disappear from the consciousness of the user, the
Internet of Things demands: a shared understanding of the situation
of its users and their appliances, software architectures and pervasive
communication networks to process and convey the contextual
information to where it is relevant, and the analytics tools in the
Internet of Things that aim for autonomous and smart behavior. With
these three fundamental grounds in place, smart connectivity and
context-aware computation can be accomplished.

A radical evolution of the current Internet into a Network of

interconnected objects that not only harvests information from the
environment (sensing) and interacts with the physical world
(actuation/ command/control), but also uses existing Internet
standards to provide services for information transfer, analytics,
applications, and communications. Fueled by the prevalence of
devices enabled by open wireless technology such as Bluetooth, radio
frequency identification (RFID), Wi-Fi, and telephonic data services
as well as embedded sensor and actuator nodes, IoT has stepped out of
its infancy and is on the verge of transforming the current static
Internet into a fully integrated Future Internet (Daqiang Z. &
Laurence T., 2018).

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AN OVERVIEW OF INTERNET OF THINGS (IoT)s

“Today computers and the Internet are almost wholly dependent on

human beings for information. Nearly all of the roughly 50 petabyte
(1 petabyte=1015 bytes) of data available on the Internet were first
captured and created by human beings by typing, pressing a record
button, taking a digital picture, or scanning a bar code (Louis C. &
Johan E., 2016). Conventional diagrams of the Internet leave out the
most numerous and important routers of all - people. The problem is,
people have limited time, attention and accuracy all of which means
they are not very good at capturing data about things in the real world.
And that's a big deal. We're physical, and so is our environment …
You can't eat bits, burn them to stay warm or put them in your gas
tank. Ideas and information are important, but things matter much
more. Yet today's information technology is so dependent on data
originated by people that our computers know more about ideas than
things. If we had computers that knew everything there was to know
about things using data they gathered without any help from us we
would be able to track and count everything, and greatly reduce waste,
loss and cost (Guicheng S. & Bingwu L., 2018). We would know
when things needed replacing, repairing or recalling, and whether they
were fresh or past their best. The Internet of Things has the potential
to change the world, just as the Internet did or even more.

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The Internet of Things is considered as the third wave of information
technology right after Internet and mobile communication network,
which is characterized by more comprehensive interoperability and
intelligence. It was introduced by Electronic product code (EPC)
Technology and research work of International Telecommunication
Union (ITU) (Guicheng S. & Bingwu L., 2018). Initially there was
only information online i.e. data content on the internet, then people
were connected by means of e-mail, social networking but now the
time has come for objects to be connected and thats what IOT
achieves. It is new type of internet application and “Thing” in Internet
of things refers to the product’s information (Guicheng S. & Bingwu
L., 2018). Hence every object be it a television or a plant, can be
connected to the internet. The object’s information is shared across
the globe using internet and hence the objects can be accessed from a
remote place (Yinghui H & Guanyu L.,2015). The product’s
information is embedded in an electronic tag (RFID tag) using some
standard words.

EVOLUTION OF INTERNET OF THING (IoT)s

Internet has been part and parcel of the social animal’s life. It’s a huge
space of information and people. The internet first evolved as
“internet of computers” (Lu T. & Neng W., 2016). It is a global
platform where many services like the World Wide Web could be
implemented on top of it. It was an era of information exchange. As
the days passed by, people started emerging into the internet-
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“Internet of people” (Lu T. & Neng W., 2016). Many social websites
came into picture which kept people connected all the time. This has
led to internet being filled with people rather than information.

On the other hand, technology has been advancing day by day and
simultaneously an era of “MobiComp” (mobile computing) had
begun. Mobile helped man to be always connected to the internet on
the move. Nowadays 3G and 4G mobile internet connections have led
to faster internet access and deliver better quality in video calls.
Wireless technologies and mobile computing have become cheap and
have gained more popularity (Lu T. & Neng W.,2016). Hence a new
computing had emerged- Ubiquitous computing. This computing
focuses on smart, intelligent space and minimal user involvement
(Guicheng S. & Bingwu L., 2018). Advancement in technology led to
mobile and other hand-held devices to diminish in size. Smart phones,
Ipads, tablets and notebooks replaced ordinary mobiles and PCs.
Hence there was a change in the device with which people access the
internet. This in turn resulted in sophisticated features being
configured in devices such as sensors, Global Positioning system
(GPS) and actuators. In such a scenario devices were not only
connected to the internet but also sense, compute and perform
intelligent tasks (Lu T. & Neng W.,2016).

Later physical objects were configured with identification tags such as

bar code and RFID so that they could be scanned by devices like
smart phones and upload their information into the internet. This way
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of connecting the physical world with cyberspace with the help of a
smart device led to internet being called as “Internet of Things”.
Hence IOT has its roots from Mobile computing, ubiquitous
computing and information technology (Louis C. & Johan E., 2016).
IOT connects the objects in an intelligent way.

The “thing” here refers to the physical object’s information read

through sensors and RFID reader and uploaded into the internet. The
physical object can be anything from smart phones to objects at home.
The International telecommunications Union (ITU) has pointed out
four dimensions of IOT: object identification (“ tagging things”) ,
sensors and wireless sensor networks(“ feeling things”), embedded
systems (“thinking things”) and nanotechnology (“shrinking things’).
Hence from the above , IOT changes the connectivity view from “any-
time , anyplace” for “any-one” into “any-time , any-place” for “any-
thing”.

These things once connected to the internet provide smart services

beneficial to the environment and society. They play a major role in
supply chain, energy, defence, health care and other useful
applications.

APPLICATION AREAS OF INTERNET OF THING (IOT)s

IOT applications are used widely in many domains. Homes,

Healthcare, agriculture, smart buildings (school, hospital, home),
supply chain management, Transportation and Defense.

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Smart Home: The Smart Home has become a scale of revolutionary
success in residential areas, in the modern world and predicts smart
homes will be very common as smart phones in the near future. This
gives us control over our homes by automating the lighting system,
dimming, electrical equipment, audio systems and security. It
connects all devices and equipment in our homes so that they can
communicate with each other. Everything that uses electricity in our
house can be placed on the home network and based on our order. We
give orders with voice, remote control or computer, the house reacts.
Smart Homes works with a fairly simple system; receiver and
transmitter. The receiver detects a certain signal from the transmitter
issuing the order (Yinghui H & Guanyu L, 2015). Simply put, the
history of the Smart Home begins with the installation of telephone
and electrical cables in our homes.

Agriculture: Internet of Things can be of great use in the field of

agriculture. It can be helpful in monitoring growth of medicinal
plants. These plants are fitted with RFID tags and sensors. When there
is a drastic or unexpected change in the growth of plant due to
temperature / humidity, the sensors sense this and the RFID tags send
the EPC (information) to the reader and are shared across the internet.
The farmer or scientist can access this information from a remote
place and take necessary actions.

Smart Buildings – School: A school has many buildings in its

campus like Administration block, library, Refreshment building,
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teaching block, etc. All these buildings have their own ventilation
mechanism, AC supply and elevator systems. These facilities have to
be individually managed and maintained which becomes a tedious
process. This scenario can be easily handled using Internet of Things
for better management of the facilities. Each of the above blocks is
fixed with RFID tag that keeps monitoring the ventilation, AC supply
behaviour. The RFID system keeps sensing the change in environment
and collects the data and sends it to the Information Gathering
manager present in the respective block (Louis C. & Johan E., 2016).
Since the school campus will be equipped with Wi-Fi, the data from
here is sent to the Central Control system. The control system on
receiving the data will take necessary actions such as reducing the AC
supply or stopping the elevator service. A communication mediator is
required to mediate between the physical world and information
world. Hence using IOT, steps are taken without human intervention.

Healthcare – Telemedicine: IOT plays a crucial role in healthcare. It

can be used in many ways such as tracking the number of patients in a
hospital, identifying the right patient for the right medicine and
monitoring a patient’s health conditions from a remote place which is
known as Telemedicine (Yinghui H. & Guanyu L., 2017). This
includes providing treatment, diagnosis and treatment. Ambient
assisted living provides technical systems for elderly people who are
alone at home and need to be monitored. The patient’s health status is
periodically sensed using RFID and sensors. The doctor from a

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remote location provides medical assistance based on the information
received.

BENEFITS OF INTERNET OF THINGS

 Improved citizen's quality of life: Healthcare from anywhere,

better safety, security and productivity

 New business opportunities: Creates new businesses, and new

and better jobs

 Better environment: Saves natural resources and trees, helps in

creating a smart, greener and sustainable planet

 Improved competitiveness: Competitive in providing cutting

edge products/services

ISSUES IN INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT)s

Though IOT has been a boon in many ways, it also poses certain
challenges. The main challenges are privacy, reliability, data
confidentiality and security. A vehicle attached with RFID tag leads to
lack of privacy for the passenger in the vehicle. IOT in healthcare can
also lead to dangerous consequences such as the data present in the
health status can be changed by an intruder , hence giving the doctor

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wrong information. Wireless sensors in war fields, if found by the
enemies can be mishandled to generate false information. An
individual’s right to privacy should be protected. Strong security and
sound privacy solutions will lead to better acceptance by public (Lu T.
& Neng W.,2016).There should be laws and policies to curb the
misuse of IOT technology. Global Standards need to be developed for
the spread of this new technology.

FINDING FROM THE SEMINAR

Finding reveals that architecture of internet Of Things contains
basically 4 layers:

 Application Layer
 Gateway and the network layer
 Management Service layer
 Sensor layer

DISCUSSIONS ON THE FINDING

Application layer: This layer is made up of Lowest Abstraction

Layer with sensors which create digital nervous system that
Incorporated to measure physical quantities and interconnects the
physical and digital world to collects and process the real time
information

Gateway and the Network Layer: This is a robust and high

performance network infrastructure that supports the communication

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requirements for latency, bandwidth or security and allows multiple
organizations to share and use the same network independently

Management Layer: This layer has to do with capturing of periodic

sensory data, data Analytics (Extracts relevant information from
massive amount of raw data), streaming analytics (Process real time
data) and ensuring security and privacy of data.

Sensor Layer: This layer provides a user interface for using IoT and
different applications for various sectors like Transportation,
Healthcare, Agriculture, Supply chains, Government, Retail etc.

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CONCLUSION

Internet of things is a new internet application which leads to an era of

smart technology where there exists thing-thing communication rather
than human-human communication. Through IOT, each and every
object in this world can be identified, connected and take decisions
independently. It has taken its birth from mobile computing and
ubiquitous computing. Technologies such as RFID, wireless sensor
networks and embedded systems play a vital role in forming an IOT
application. It is used in many applications in healthcare, agriculture,
smart buildings, transportations etc. Though IOT is used in many
domains, its path to success is not smooth. There are many privacy
and security issues that need to be addressed. If these issues are
addressed, then Internet of Things will definitely be the global mantra.

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RECOMMENDATION

The researcher has recommended that government bodies and

companies should in Nigeria should invest in the Internet of Things
technology

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REFERENCES

Yinghui H. & Guanyu L. (2017), “Descriptive Models for Internet of

Things”, International Conference on Intelligent Control and
Information Processing, August, 2017 - Dalian, China.

Daqiang Z. & Laurence T. (2018)“Searching in Internet of Things:

Vision and Challenges”, Ninth IEEE International Symposium on
Parallel and Distributed Processing with Applications, 2018.

Yinghui H & Guanyu L (2015) “A Semantic Analysis for Internet of

Things”, International Conference on Intelligent Computation
Technology and Automation, 2015.

Lu T. & Neng W., (2016) “Future Internet: The Internet of Things”,

3rd International Conference on Advanced Computer Theory and
Engineering (ICACTE), 2016.

Louis C. & Johan E. (2016), “The Internet of Things – Promise for

the Future? An Introduction”, IST-Africa 2016 Conference
Proceedings Paul Cunningham and Miriam Cunningham (Eds)

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 IIMC International Information Management Corporation, ISBN:
978-1- 905824-24-3, 2016.

Guicheng S. & Bingwu L. (2018), The visions, technologies,

applications and security issues of Inte

rnet of Things”, IEEE, 2018.

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