Internet of Things: An

Overview
INTERNET OF THINGS
• Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept which enables communication
between internetworking devices and applications, whereby physical
objects or ‘things’ communicate through the Internet.
• The concept of IoT began with things classified as identity communication
devices. Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) is an example
of an identity communication device. Things are tagged to these devices
for their identification in future and can be tracked, controlled and
monitored using remote computers connected through the Internet.
• Example: GPS-based tracking, controlling and monitoring of devices;
machine-to-machine (M2M) communication; connected cars;
communication between wearable and personal devices and Industry 4.0
IoT Definition

 Internet of Things means a network of physical things (objects) sending,

receiving, or communicating information using the Internet or other
communication technologies and network just as the computers, tablets
and mobiles do, and thus enabling the monitoring, coordinating or
controlling process across the Internet or another data network.
 Internet of Things is the network of physical objects or ‘things’
embedded with electronics, software, sensors and connectivity to enable
it to achieve greater value and service by exchanging data with the
manufacturer, operator and/or other connected devices. Each thing is
uniquely identifiable through its embedded computing system but is
able to interoperate within the existing Internet infrastructure.
IoT Vision

 Internet of Things is a vision where things (wearable watches, alarm

clocks, home devices, surrounding objects) become ‘smart’ and function
like living entities by sensing, computing and communicating through
embedded devices which interact with remote objects (servers, clouds,
applications, services and processes) or persons through the Internet or
Near-Field Communication (NFC) etc. The vision of IoT can be
understood through Examples .Smart umbrella and street lights
 Vision of IoT—things becoming intelligent, smart and behaving
alive
Smart and Hyperconnected Devices

 Hyperconnectivity means ‘constant connectivity between

devices, network, server and multiple systems’.
 hyperconnectivity means use of multiple systems and devices to remain
constantly connected to social networks and streams of information.
Smart devices are devices with computing and communication
capabilities that can constantly connect to networks. For example, a city
network of streetlights which constantly connects to the controlling
station as shown in Figure 1.1 for its services.
 Another example is hyperconnected RFIDs. An RFID or a smart label is
tagged to all consignments. This way many consignments sent from a
place can be constantly tracked. Their movement through remote
places, inventories at remote locations, sales and supply chain are
controlled using a hyper-connected framework for Internet of RFIDs.
 Figure 1.2 shows a general framework for IoT using smart and
hyperconnected devices, edge computing and applications. A device is
considered at the edge of Internet infrastructure. Edge computing
implies computations at the device level before the computed data
communicates over the internet. Several new terms have been used in
the figure.
IoT CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

 The following equation describes a simple conceptual framework of IoT 2

:

 Equation , conceptually describes the Internet of umbrellas as consisting

of an umbrella, a controller, sensor and actuators, and the Internet for
connectivity to a web service and a mobile service provider.

IoT ARCHITECTURAL VIEW
 An IoT system has multiple levels (Equations 1.1 to 1.3). These levels
are also known as tiers. A model enables conceptualisation of a
framework. A reference model can be used to depict building blocks,
successive interactions and integration. An example is CISCO’s
presentation of a reference model comprising seven levels (Figure 1.4).
 TECHNOLOGY BEHIND IoT
 Hardware (Arduino Raspberry Pi, Intel Galileo, Intel Edison, ARM mBed, Bosch XDK110, Beagle Bone
Black and Wireless SoC)
 Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for developing device software, firmware and APIs
 Protocols [RPL, CoAP, RESTful HTTP, MQTT, XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol)]
 Communication (Powerline Ethernet, RFID, NFC, 6LowPAN, UWB, ZigBee, Bluetooth, WiFi, WiMax,
2G/3G/4G)
 Network backbone (IPv4, IPv6, UDP and 6LowPAN)
 Software (RIOT OS, Contiki OS, Thingsquare Mist firmware, Eclipse IoT)
 Internetwork Cloud Platforms/Data Centre (Sense, ThingWorx, Nimbits, Xively, openHAB, AWS
IoT, IBM BlueMix, CISCO IoT, IOx and Fog, EvryThng, Azure, TCS CUP)
 Machine learning algorithms and software. An example of machine-learning software is GROK
from Numenta Inc. that uses machine intelligence to analyse the streaming data from clouds and
uncover anomalies, has the ability to learn continuously from data and ability to drive action from the
output of GROK’s data models and perform high level of automation for analysing streaming data.
 The following five entities can be considered for the five levels
behind an IoT system
 1. Device platform consisting of device hardware and software using a
microcontroller (or SoC or custom chip), and software for the device APIs
and web applications
 2. Connecting and networking (connectivity protocols and circuits)
enabling internetworking of devices and physical objects called things
and enabling the internet connectivity to remote servers
 3. Server and web programming enabling web applications and web
services
 4. Cloud platform enabling storage, computing prototype and product
development platforms
 5. Online transactions processing, online analytics processing, data
analytics, predictive analytics and knowledge discovery enabling wider
applications of an IoT system
 Server-end Technology
 IoT servers are application servers, enterprise servers, cloud servers,
data centres and databases. Servers offer the following software
components:
 Online platforms
 Devices identification, identity management and their access
management
 Data accruing, aggregation, integration, organising and analysing
 Use of web applications, services and business processes
 Major Components of IoTSystem
 1. Physical object with embedded software into a hardware.
 2. consisting of a microcontroller, firmware, sensors, control unit,
actuators and communication module.
 3. Communication module: Software consisting of device APIs and
device interface for communication over the network and
communication circuit/port(s), and middleware for creating
communication stacks using 6LowPAN, CoAP, LWM2M, IPv4, IPv6 and
other protocols.
 4. for actions on messages, information and commands which the
devices receive and then output to the actuators, which enable actions
such as glowing LEDs, robotic hand movement etc.
 Sensors and Control Units
Sensors are electronic devices that sense the physical environ ments. An
industrial automation system or robotic system has multiple smart sensors
embedded in it. Sensor-actuator pairs are used in control systems. A smart
sensor includes computing and communication circuits.
 Control Units
Most commonly used control unit in IoT consists of a Microcontroller Unit
(MCU) or a custom chip. A microcontroller is an integrated chip or core in a
VLSI or SoC. Popular microcontrollers are ATmega 328, ATMega 32u4, ARM
Cortex and ARM LPC.
 Most commonly used control unit in IoT consists of a Microcontroller Unit
(MCU) or a custom chip. A microcontroller is an integrated chip or core in
a VLSI or SoC. Popular microcontrollers are ATmega 328, ATMega 32u4,
ARM Cortex and ARM LPC.