Vehicular IoT

Introduction

 The use of connected vehicles is increasing rapidly across the globe. Consequently, the
number of on-road accidents and mismanagement of traffic is also increasing.
 The increasing number of vehicles gives rise to the problem of parking. However, the
evolution of IoT helps to form a connected vehicular environment to manage the
transportation systems efficiently.
 Vehicular IoT systems have penetrated different aspects of the transportation ecosystem,
including on-road to off-road traffic management, driver safety for heavy to small
vehicles, and security in public transportation.
 In a connected vehicular environment, vehicles are capable of communicating and
sharing their information. Moreover, IoT enables a vehicle to sense its internal and
external environments to make certain autonomous decisions.
 With the help of modern-day IoT infrastructure, a vehicle owner residing in Earth’s
northern hemisphere can very easily track his vehicular asset remotely, even if it is in the
southern hemisphere. In this chapter, we discuss the importance and applications of IoT
in the vehicular systems.
 The architecture of the vehicular IoT is divided into three sublayers: device, fog, and
cloud.

• Device:

 The device layer is the bottom-most layer, which consists of the basic infrastructure of
the scenario of the connected vehicle. This layer includes the vehicles and road side units
(RSU).
  These vehicles contain certain sensors which gather the internal information of the
vehicles. On the other hand, the RSU works as a local centralized unit that manages the
data from the vehicles.

• Fog:

In vehicular IoT systems, fast decision making is pertinent to avoid accidents and traffic
mismanagement. In such situations, fog computing plays a crucial role by providing decisions in
real-time, much near to the devices. Consequently, the fog layer helps to minimize data
transmission time in a vehicular IoT system.

• Cloud:

Fog computing handles the data processing near the devices to take decisions instantaneously.
However, for the processing of huge data, fog computing is not enough. Therefore, in such a
situation, cloud computing is used. In a vehicular IoT system, cloud computing helps to handle
processes that involve a huge amount of data. Further, for long-term storage, cloud computing is
used as a scalable resource in vehicular IoT systems.

 Components of vehicular IoT

 Modern cars come equipped with different types of sensors and electronic components.
These sensors sense the internal environment of the car and transmit the sensed data to a
processor.
 The on-road deployed sensors sense the external environment and transmit the sensed
data to the centralized processor. Thereafter, based on requirements, the processor
delivers these sensed data to fog or cloud to perform necessary functions.
 These processes seem to be simple, but practically, several components, along with their
challenges, are involved in a vehicular IoT system.

 Sensors:
Similarly, in vehicular IoT, sensors monitor different environmental conditions and help
to make the system more economical, efficient, and robust. Traditionally, two types of
sensors, internal and external, are used in vehicular IoT systems.
 (i) Internal: These types of sensors are placed within the vehicle. The sensors are
typically used to sense parameters that are directly associated with the vehicle. Along
with the sensors, the vehicles are equipped with different electronic components such
as processing boards and actuators.
The internal sensors in a vehicle are connected with the processor board, to which
they transmit the sensed data. Further, the sensed data are processed by the board to
take certain predefined actions. A few examples of internal sensors are GPS, fuel
gauge, ultrasonic sensors, proximity sensors, accelerometer, pressure sensors, and
temperature sensors.
(ii) External: External sensors quantify information of the environment outside the
vehicle. For example, there are sensors used in the smart traffic system that are
capable of sensing vacant parking lots in a designated parking area. The still images
and videos from cameras are important inputs to generate decisions in a vehicular IoT
system. Therefore, on-road cameras are widely used as external sensors to capture
still images and videos.
The captured images and videos are processed further, either in the fog or in the cloud
layer, to take certain pre-programmed actions. As an example, camera sensor can
capture the image of the license plate of an overspeeding vehicle at a traffic signal;
the image can be processed to identify the owner of the vehicle to charge a certain
amount of fine. Similarly, temperature, rainfall, and light sensors are also used in the
vehicular IoT infrastructure.

• Satellites:

In vehicular IoT systems, automatic vehicle tracking and crash detection are among the
important available features. Satellites help the system to track vehicles and detect on-road
crashes. The satellite image is also useful for detecting on-road congestions and road blocks.

• Wireless connectivity:

 As vehicular IoT deals with connected vehicles, communication is an important enabling

component. For taking any action or making decisions, the collective data from internal
and external sensors need processing.
  For transmitting the sensed data from multiple sensors to RSU (roadside unit) and from
RSUs to the cloud, connectivity plays an indispensable role. Moreover, in the vehicular
IoT scenario, the high mobility of the vehicles necessitates the connectivity type to be
wireless for practical and real-time data transmission.
 Different communication technologies, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GSM, are common
in the vehicular IoT systems.

• Road Side Unit (RSU):

 The RSU is a static entity that works collaboratively with internal and external sensors.
Typically, the RSUs are equipped with sensors, communication units, and fog devices.
 Vehicular IoT systems deal with timecritical applications, which need to take decisions in
real time. In such a situation, the fog devices attached to the RSUs process the sensed
data and take necessary action promptly.
 If a vehicular system involves heavy computation, the RSU transmits the sensed data to
the cloud end. Sometimes, these RSUs also work as an intermediate communication
agent between two vehicles.

Cloud and fog computing:

In vehicular IoT systems, fog computing handles the light-weight processes geographically
closer to the vehicles than the cloud. Consequently, for faster decision making, fog
computing is used in vehicular IoT systems. However, for a heavy-weight process, fog
computing may not be a suitable option. In such a situation, cloud computing is more adept
for vehicular IoT systems.

Cloud computing provides more scalability of resources as compared to fog computing.

Therefore, the choice of the application of fog and cloud computing depends on the situation.
For example, the location and extent of short on-road congestion from a certain location can
be determined by fog computing with the help of sensed data.

Further, the congestion information can be shared by the RSU among other onroad vehicles,
thereby suggesting that they avoid the congested road. On the other hand, for determining
regular on-road congestion, predictions are typically handled with the help of cloud
computing. For the regular congestion prediction, the cloud end needs to process a huge
amount of instantaneous data, as well as, historical data for that stretch of road spanning back
a few months to years.

• Analytics:

Similar to different IoT application domains, in vehicular IoT, analytics is a crucial

component. Vehicular IoT systems can be made to predict different dynamic and static
conditions using analytics. For example, strong data analytics is required to predict on-road
traffic conditions that may occur at a location after an hour.

Advantages of vehicular IoT

The evolution of IoT resulted in the development of a connected vehicular environment.

Moreover, the typical advantages of IoT architectures directly impact the domain of
connected vehicular systems. Therefore, the advantages of IoT are inherently included in
vehicular IoT environments.

(i) Easy tracking: The tracking of vehicles is an essential part of vehicular IoT. Moreover,
the system must know from which location and which vehicle the system is receiving the
information. In a vehicular IoT system, the tracking If vehicles is straightforward; the system
can collect information at a remote location.

(ii) Fast decision making: Most of the decisions in the connected vehicle environment are
time critical. Therefore, for such an application, fast and active decision making are pertinent
for avoiding accidents. In the vehicular IoT environment, cloud and fog computing help to
make fast decisions with the data received from the sensor-based devices.

(iii) Connected vehicles: A vehicular IoT system provides an opportunity to remain

connected and share information among different vehicles.
(iv) Easy management: Since vehicular IoT systems consist of different types of sensors,
a communication unit, processing devices, and GPS, the management of the vehicle
becomes easy. The connectivity among different components in a vehicular IoT
enables systems to track every activity in and around the vehicle. Further, the IoT
 infrastructure helps in managing the huge number of users located at different
geographical coordinates.
(v) Safety: Safety is one of the most important advantages of a vehicular IoT system.
With easy management of the system, both the internal and external sensors placed at
different locations play an important role in providing safety to the vehicle, its
occupants, as well as the people around it.
(vi) Record: Storing different data related to the transportation system is an essential
component of a vehicular IoT. The record may be of any form, such as video footage,
still images, and documentation. By taking advantage of cloud and fog computing
architecture, the vehicular IoT systems keep all the required records in its database.

Crime assistance in a smart IoT transportation system

The system highlights a fog framework for intelligent public safety in vehicular
environments. The primary aim of this system is to ensure smart transportation safety (STS)
in public bus services.

The system works through the following three steps:

(i) The vehicle is equipped with a smart surveillance system, which is capable of
executing video processing and detecting criminal activity in real time.
(ii) A fog computing architecture works as the mediator between a vehicle and a police
vehicle.
(iii) A mobile application is used to report the crime to a nearby police agent. Architecture
The architecture of the fog-FISVER consists of different IoT components. Moreover,
 the developers utilized the advantages of the low-latency fog computing architecture
for designing their system.

Fog-FISVER is based on a three-tiered architecture, as shown in Figure 13.4. We will discuss

each of the tiers as follows:

Tier1—In-vehicle FISVER STS

Fog: In this system component, a fog node is placed for detecting criminal activities. This
tier accumulates the real sensed data from within the vehicle and processes it to detect
possible criminal activities inside the vehicle. Further, this tier is responsible for creating
crime-level metadata and transferring the required information to the next tier. For
performing all the activities, Tier 1 consists of two subsystems: Image processor and event
dispatcher

• Image Processor: The image processor inside Tier 1 is a potent component, which has a
capability similar to the human eye for detecting criminal activities. Developers of the system
used a deep-learning-based approach for enabling image processing techniques in the
processor. To implement the fog computing architecture in the vehicle, a Raspberry-Pi-3
processor. A board is used, which is equipped with a high-quality camera. Further, this
architecture uses template matching and correlation to detect the presence of dangerous
articles (such as a pistol or a knife) in the sub-image of a video frame. Typically, the image
processor stores a set of crime object templates in the fog-FISVER STS fog infrastructure,
which is present in Tier 2 of the system.

The image processor is divided into the following three parts:

(a) Crime definition downloader: This component periodically checks for the presence of
new crime object template definitions in fog-FISVER STS fog infrastructure. If a new crime
object template is available, it is stored locally.

(b) Crime definition storage: In order to use template matching, the crime object template
definition is required to be stored in the system. The crime definition storage is used to store
all the possible crime object template definitions.

(c) Algorithm launcher: This component initiates the instances of the registered algorithm
in order to match the template with the video captured by the camera attached in the vehicles.
If a crime object is matched with the video, criminal activity is confirmed.

• Event dispatcher: This is another key component of Tier 1. The event dispatcher is
responsible for accumulating the data sensed from vehicles and the image processor. After
the successful detection of criminal activity, the information is sent to the fog-FISVER STS
fog infrastructure. The components of the event dispatcher are as follows:

(a) Event notifier: It transfers the data to the fog-FISVER STS fog infrastructure, after
receiving it from the attached sensor nodes in the vehicle.

(b) Data gatherer: This is an intermediate component between the event notifier and the
physical sensor; it helps to gather sensed data. (c) Virtual sensor interface: Multiple sensors
that sense data from different locations of the vehicle are present in the system. The virtual
sensor interface helps to maintain a particular procedure to gather data. This component also
cooperates to register the sensors in the system.

(ii) Tier 2—FISVER STS Fog Infrastructure: Tier 2 works on top of the fog architecture.
Primarily, this tier has three responsibilities—keeps updating the new object template
definitions, classifying events, and finding the most suitable police vehicle to notify the
event. FISVER STS fog infrastructure is divided into two sub-components:

• Target Object Training: Practically, there are different types of crime objects. The system
needs to be up-to-dated regarding all crime objects. This subcomponent of Tier 2 is
responsible for creating, updating, and storing the crime object definition. The algorithm
launcher uses these definitions in Tier 1 for the template matching process. The template
definition includes different features of the crime object such as color gradient and shape
format. A new object definition is stored in the definition database. The database requires to
be updated based on the availability of new template definitions.

• Notification Factory: This sub-component receives notification about the events in a

different vehicle with the installed system. Further, this component receives and validates the
events. In order to handle multiple events, it maintains a queue. (iii) Tier 3 consists of mobile
applications that are executed on the users’ devices. The application helps a user, who
witnesses a crime, to notify the police.
 Healthcare IoT

Introduction

 The development of numerous healthcare technologies and systems has rapidly increased over
the last few years. Currently, various IoT-enabled healthcare devices are in wide use around the
globe for diagnosing human diseases, monitoring human health conditions, caring/monitoring for
elders, children, and even infants.
 Moreover, IoT-based healthcare systems and services help to increase the quality of life for
common human beings; in fact, it has a promising scope of revolutionizing healthcare in
developing nations. IoT-based healthcare devices provide access and knowledge about human
physiological conditions through hand held devices.
 With this development, users can be aware of the risks in acquiring various diseases and take
necessary precautions to avoid preventable diseases. The basic skeleton of an IoT-based
healthcare system is very similar to the conventional IoT architectures. However, for IoT-based
healthcare services, the sensors are specifically designed to measure and quantify different
physiological conditions of its users/patients.
 A typical architecture for healthcare IoT is shown in Figure 14.1. We divide the architecture into
four layers. The detailed descriptions of these layers are as follows:

Layer 1:
We have already explained in previous chapters that sensors are one of the key enablers
of IoT infrastructure. Layer 1 contains different physiological sensors that are placed on the
 human body. These sensors collect the values of various physiological parameters. The
physiological data are analyzed to extract meaningful information.
Layer 2:
Layer 1 delivers data to Layer 2 for short-term storage and low-level processing. The
devices that belong to Layer 2 are commonly known as local processing units (LPU) or
centralized hubs. These units collect the sensed data from the physiological sensors attached to
the body and process it based on the architecture’s requirement. Further, LPUs or the
centralized hubs forward the data to Layer 3.

Layer 3:

This layer receives the data from Layer 2 and performs application specific high-
level analytics. Typically, this layer consists of cloud architecture or high-end servers.
The data from multiple patients, which may be from the same or different locations, are
accumulated in this layer. Post analysis of data, some inferences or results are provided to
the application in Layer 4.
Layer 4:
The end-users directly interact with Layer 4 through receiver-side applications. The
modes of accessibility of these services by an end user are typically through cellphones,
computers, and tablets.
 Components of healthcare IoT

The different components for a basic healthcare IoT system.

Sensors: We have already explained that Layer 1 mainly consists of physiological sensors that
collect the physiological parameters of the patient.

Wireless Connectivity:

 Without proper connectivity and communication, the data sensed by the physiological
sensors are of no use in an IoT-based healthcare system. Typically, the communication
between the wearable sensors and the LPU is through either wired or wireless
connectivity.
 The wireless communication between the physiological sensors and LPU occurs with the
help of Bluetooth and ZigBee. On the other hand, the communication between the LPU
and the cloud or server takes place with Internet connectivity such as WiFi and WLAN.
 In Layer 4 of the healthcare IoT architecture, the healthcare data are received by the end
users with different devices such as laptops, desktops, and cellphones. These
communication protocols vary depending on the type of device in use.
Privacy and Security:

 The privacy and security of health data is a major concern in healthcare IoT services. In a
healthcare IoT architecture, several devices connect with the external world. Moreover,
between LPU and the server/cloud, different networking devices work via network hops
(from one networked device to another) to transmit the data.
 If any of these devices are compromised, it may result in the theft of health data of a
patient, leading to serious security breaches and ensuing lawsuits. In order to increase the
security of the healthcare data, different healthcare service providers and organizations
are implementing healthcare data encryption and protection schemes.

Analytics:

 For converting the raw data into information, analytics plays an important role in
healthcare IoT. Several actors, such as doctors, nurses, and patients, access the healthcare
information in a different customized format.
 This customization allows each actor in the system to access only the information
pertinent to their job/role. In such a scenario, analytics plays a vital role in providing
different actors in the system access to meaningful information extracted from the raw
healthcare data . Analytics is also used for diagnosing a disease from the raw
physiological data available.

Cloud and Fog Computing:

 In a healthcare IoT system, several physiological sensors are attached to a patient’s body.
These sensors continuously produce a huge amount of heterogeneous data. For storing
these huge amounts of heterogeneous health data, efficient storage space is essential.
 These data are used for checking the patient’s history, current health status, and future for
diagnosing different diseases and the symptoms of the patient. Typically, the cloud
storage space is scalable, where payment is made as per the usage of space.
 Consequently, to store health data in a healthcare IoT system, cloud storage space is used.
Analytics on the stored data in cloud storage space is used for drawing various
inferences. The major challenges in storage are security and delay in accessing the data.
  Therefore, cloud and fog computing play a pivotal role in the storage of these massive
volumes of heterogeneous data.

Interface:

 The interface is the most important component for users in a healthcare IoT system.
Among IoT applications, healthcare IoT is a very crucial and sensitive application.
 Thus, the user interface must be designed in such a way that it can depict all the required
information clearly and, if necessary, reformat or represent it such that it is easy to
understand. Moreover, an interface must also contain all the useful information related to
the services.
Advantages of healthcare IoT
The major advantages of healthcare IoT can be listed as follows:
• Real-time:
A healthcare IoT system enables users, such as doctors, end users at the patient-side, and staff in
a healthcare unit, to receive real-time updates about the healthcare IoT components, as
mentioned earlier. Moreover, a healthcare IoT system can enable a doctor to observe a patient’s
health condition in real-time even from a remote location, and can suggest the type of care to be
provided to the patient.
On the other hand, users at the patient-end can easily take different decisions, such as where to
take a patient during critical situations. Moreover, the staffs in a healthcare unit are better aware
of the current situation of their unit, which includes the number of patients admitted, availability
of the doctors and bed, total revenue of the unit, and other such information.
• Low cost:
Healthcare IoT systems facilitate users with different services at low cost. For example, an
authorized user can easily find the availability of the beds in a hospital with simple Internet
connectivity and a web-browser-based portal. The user need not visit the hospital physically to
check the availability of beds and facilities. Moreover, multiple registered users can retrieve the
same information simultaneously.
• Easy management:
Healthcare IoT is an infrastructure that brings all its end users under the same umbrella to
provide healthcare services. On the other hand, in such an infrastructure, the management of
numerous tangible and intangible entities (such as users, medical devices, facilities, costs, and
security) is a challenging task. However, healthcare IoT facilitates easy and robust management
of all the entities.
• Automatic processing:
A healthcare unit consists of multiple subsystems, for which manual interventions are required.
For example, to register a patient with a hospital, the user may be required to enter his/her details
manually.
However, automatic processing features can remove such manual intervention with a fingerprint
sensor/device. Healthcare IoT enables end-to-end automatic processing in different units and also
consolidates the information across the whole chain: from a patient’s registration to discharge.
• Easy record-keeping:
When we talk about a healthcare IoT system, it includes a huge number of patients, doctors, and
other staff. Different patients suffer from different types of diseases. A particular disease requires
particular treatment, which requires knowledge of a patient’s health history, along with other
details about them.
Therefore, the timely delivery of health data of the patient to the doctor is important. In such a
situation, the permanent storage of the patients’ health data along with their respective details is
essential.
Similarly, for the smooth execution of the healthcare unit, details of the staff with their daily
activity in a healthcare unit are also required for storage. A healthcare IoT enables the user to
keep these records in a safe environment and deliver them to the authorized user as per
requirement.
• Easy diagnosis:
We have already explained that a healthcare IoT system stores the data of the patient in a secure
manner. Sometimes, for diagnosing a disease, a huge chunk of prior data is required. In a
healthcare IoT system, the diagnosis of the disease becomes easier with the help of certain
learning mechanisms along with the availability of prior datasets.
 Risk in healthcare IoT
The various risks associated with a healthcare IoT system.
• Loss of connectivity: A healthcare IoT system consists of different physiological sensors that
sense and transmit the sensed data to a centralized unit. Moreover, continuous data transmission
from the patient is expected in a good healthcare system. Intermittent connectivity may result in
data loss, which may result in life-threatening situations for the patient. Proper and continuous
connectivity is essential in a healthcare IoT system.
• Security: A healthcare IoT system contains the health data of different patients associated with
the system. The healthcare system must keep the data confidential. This data should not be
accessible to any unauthorized person. On the other hand, different persons and devices are
associated with a healthcare IoT system. In such a system, the risk of data tampering and
unauthorized access is quite high.
• Error: The management of a huge amount of data is a crucial task in any IoT-based system.
Particularly, in the healthcare system, errors in data may lead to misinterpretation of symptoms
and lead to the wrong diagnosis of the patient. It is a challenging task to construct an error-free
healthcare IoT architecture.

Case Studies
 AmbuSens system
o In many developing countries, patients need to be transferred from primary-care to
tertiary-care hospitals for proper diagnosis and treatment. During the transit, the hospitals
at both ends—the referring one as well as the referred one—do not have any information
about the patient’s health condition during transit.
o In such situations, the hospitals are unable to suggest any precautionary measures in the
event of some emergency during transit. Consequently, many patients die during the
transit due to lack of proper suggestive care by medical experts.
o To overcome these shortcomings, the Smart Wireless Applications and Networking
(SWAN) laboratory at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur developed a system:
AmbuSens.
o The system was primarily funded by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development
(MHRD) of the Government of India. This product system is a very crucial part of the
healthcare IoT system.
o The primary objectives of the AmbuSens system are summarized as follows:
• Digitization and standardization of the healthcare data, which can be easily accessed by the
registered hospital authorities.
• Real-time monitoring of the patients who are in transit from one hospital to another. At both
hospitals, doctors can access the patients’ health conditions.
• Accessibility by which multiple doctors can access the patient’s health data at the same time.
• Provision of confidentiality to the health data of the patients in the cloud.
• In the AmbuSens system, wireless physiological sensor nodes are used. These sensor nodes
make the system flexible and easy to use.
 Architecture
The AmbuSens system is equipped with different physiological sensors along with a local hub.
These sensors sense the physiological parameters from the patient’s body and transmit those to a
local data processing unit (LDPU).
The physiological sensors and LDPU form a wireless body area network (WBAN). Further, this
local hub forwards the physiological data to the cloud for storing and analyzing the health
parameters. Finally, the data are accessed by different users.

Layer 1: This layer consists of multiple WBANs attached to a patient’s body. These WBANs
acquire the physiological data from the patient and transmit them to the upper layer. The
physiological sensors are heterogeneous, that is, each of these sensors senses different
parameters of the body. Moreover, the physiological sensors require calibration for acquiring the
correct data from a patient’s body. Layer 1 takes care of the calibration of the physiological
sensor nodes.
Layer 2: In the AmbuSens system, cloud computing has an important role. Layer 2 is
responsible for handling the cloud-related functions. From Layer 1, WBANs attached to the
different patients deliver data to the cloud end. The cloud is used for the long-term analysis and
storage of data in the AmbuSens system.
Moreover, the previous health records of the patients are stored in the cloud in order to perform
patient-specific analysis. A huge volume of health data is produced by the WBANs, which are
handled by the cloud with the help of big data analytics for providing real-time analysis.

Layer 3: In the AmbuSens system, the identity of the patients remains anonymous. An algorithm
is designed to generate a dynamic hash value for each patient in order to keep the patient’s
identity anonymous.
Moreover, in the AmbuSens system, at different time instants, a new hash value is generated for
the patients. The entire hashing mechanism of the AmbuSens is performed in this layer.
Layer 4: The users simply register into the system and use it as per requirement.

Hardware
In the AmbuSens system, a variety of hardware components are used such as sensors,
communication units, and other computing devices.
• Sensors: The sensors used in the AmbuSens system are non-invasive. The description of the
sensors used for forming the WBAN in the AmbuSens system are as follows:
(i) Optical Pulse Sensing Probe: It senses the photoplethysmogram (PPG) signal and
transmits it to a GSR expansion module. Typically, PPG signals are sensed from the
ear lobe, fingers, or other location of the human body. Further, the GSR expansion
module transfers the sensed data to a device in real-time.
(ii) Electrocardiogram (ECG) unit and sensor: The ECG module used in AmbuSens is
in the form of a kit, which contains ECG electrodes, biophysical 9” leads, biophysical
18” leads, alcohol swabs, and wrist strap. Typically, the ECG sensor measures the
pathway of electrical impulses through the heart to sense the heart’s responses to
physical exertion and other factors affecting cardiac health
(iii) Electromyogram (EMG) sensor: This sensor is used to analyze and measure the
biomechanics of the human body. Particularly, the EMG sensor is used to measure
different electrical activity related to muscle contractions; it also assesses nerve
conduction, and muscle response in injured tissue.
(iv) Temperature sensor: The body temperature of patients changes with the condition
of the body. Therefore, a temperature sensor is included in the AmbuSens system,
which can easily be placed on the body of the patient.
(v) Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) sensor: The GSR sensor is used for measuring the
change in electrical characteristics of the skin.

• Local Data Processing Unit (LDPU):

In AmbuSens, all the sensors attached to the human body sense and transmit the sensed data
to a centralized device, which is called an LDPU. An LDPU is a small processing board with
limited computation capabilities. The connectivity between the sensors and the LDPU
follows a single-hop star topology. The LDPU is programmed in such a way that it can
receive the physiological data from multiple sensor nodes, simultaneously.

• Communication Module: Each sensor node consists of a Bluetooth (IEEE 802.15.1

standard) module. The communication between the sensor nodes and the LDPU takes place
with the help of Bluetooth, which supports a maximum communication range of 10 meters in
line-of-sight. The LDPU delivers the data to the cloud with 3G/4G communication.

Front End

 In the AmbuSens system, three actors—doctor, paramedic/nurse, and patient—are able to

participate and use the services. The web interface is designed as per the requirements of
the actors of the system. Each of the actors has an option to log in and access the system.
 The confidentiality of a patient and their physiological data is important in a healthcare
system. Therefore, the system provides different scopes for data accessibility based on
the category of an actor.
 For example, the detailed health data of a patient is accessible only to the assigned
doctor. These data may not be required for the nurse; therefore, a nurse is unable to
access the same set of data a doctor can access.
 The system provides the flexibility to a patient to log in to his/her account and download
the details of his/her previous medical/treatment details. Therefore, in AmbuSens, the
database is designed in an efficient way such that it can deliver the customized data to the
 respective actor. Each of the users has to register with the system to avail of the service of
the AmbuSens.
 Therefore, in this system, the registration process is also designed in a customized
fashion, that is, the detail of a user to be entered into the registration form is different for
different actors. For example, a doctor must enter his/her registration number in the
registration form.
 IoT Analytics
 Introduction
 The sensors collect data from the environment and serve different IoT-based applications.
The raw data from a sensor require processing to draw inferences. However, an
IoT based system generates data with complex structures; therefore, conventional data
processing on these data is not sufficient.
 Sophisticated data analytics are necessary to identify hidden patterns. In this chapter, we
discuss a few traditional data analytics tools that are popular in the context of IoT
applications.
 These tools include k-means, decision tree (DT), random forest (RF), k-nearest neighbor
(KNN), and density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN)
algorithms. Before discussing these algorithms, let us understand some of the basics
related to machine learning (ML)
Machine learning
 The term “machine learning” was coined by Arthur Lee Samuel, in 1959. He defined
machine learning as a “field of study that gives computers the ability to learn without
being explicitly programmed”.
 ML is a powerful tool that allows a computer to learn from past experiences and its
mistakes and improve itself without user intervention. Typically, researchers envision
IoT-based systems to be autonomous and self-adaptive, which enhance services and user
experience.
 To this end, different ML models play a crucial role in designing intelligent systems in
IoT by leveraging the massive amount of generated data and increasing the accuracy in
their operations.
 The main components of ML are statistics, mathematics, and computer science for
drawing inferences, constructing ML models, and implementation, respectively.
Advantages of ML
 Applications fueled by ML open a plethora of opportunities in IoT-based systems, from
triggering actuators to identifying chronic diseases from images of an eye. ML also
enables a system to identify changes and to take intelligent actions that relatively imitates
that of a human.
  As ML demonstrates a myriad of advantages, its popularity in IoT applications is
increasing rapidly. In this section, we discuss the different advantages of ML, as depicted
in Figure 17.1

Self-learner: An ML-empowered system is capable of learning from its prior and run-time
experiences, which helps in improving its performance continuously. For example, an ML-
assisted weather monitoring system predicts the weather report of the next seven days with high
accuracy from data collected in the last six months. The system offers even better accuracy when
it analyzes weather data that extends back to three more months.
Time-efficient: ML tools are capable of producing faster results as compared to human
interpretation. For example, the weather monitoring system generates a weather prediction report
for the upcoming seven days, using data that goes back to 6–9 months. A manual analysis of
such sizeable data for predicting the weather is difficult and time-consuming. Moreover, the
manual process of data analysis also affects accuracy. In such a situation, ML is beneficial in
predicting the weather with less delay and accuracy as compared to humans.
Self-guided: An ML tool uses a huge amount of data for producing its results. These tools have
the capability of analyzing the huge amount of data for identifying trends autonomously. As an
example, when we search for a particular item on an online e-commerce website, an ML tool
analyzes our search trends. As a result, it shows a range of products similar to the original item
that we searched for initially.
Minimum Human Interaction Required: In an ML algorithm, the human does not need to
participate in every step of its execution. The ML algorithm trains itself automatically, based on
available data inputs. For instance, let us consider a healthcare system that predicts diseases. In
traditional systems, humans need to determine the disease by analyzing different symptoms
using standard “if– else” observations. However, the ML algorithm determines the same disease,
based on the health data available in the system and matching the same with the symptoms of the
patient.
Diverse Data Handling: Typically, IoT systems consist of different sensors and produce diverse
and multi-dimensional data, which are easily analyzed by ML algorithms. For example, consider
the profit of an industry in a financial year. Profits in such industries depend on the attendance of
laborers, consumption of raw materials, and performance of heavy machineries. The attendance
of laborers is associated with an RFID (radio frequency identification)-based system. On the
other hand, industrial sensors help in the detection of machiney failures, and a scanner helps in
tracking the consumption of raw materials.
Diverse Applications: ML is flexible and can be applied to different application domains such
as healthcare, industry, smart traffic, smart home, and many others. Two similar ML algorithms
may serve two different applications.
Challenges in ML
An ML algorithm utilizes a model and its corresponding input data to produce an output. A few
major challenges in ML are listed as follows:
(i) Data Description: The data acquired from different sensors are required to be
informative and meaningful. Description of data is a challenging part of ML.
(ii) Amount of Data: In order to provide an accurate output, a model must have sufficient
amount of data. The availability of a huge amount of data is a challenge in ML.
(iii) Erroneous Data: A dataset may contain noisy or erroneous data. On the other hand,
the learning of a model is heavily dependent on the quality of data. Since erroneous
data misleads the ML model, its identification is crucial.
(iv) Selection of Model: We have already discussed the use of ML algorithms in different
applications. Multiple models may be suitable for serving a particular purpose.
However, one model may perform better than others. In such cases, the proper
selection of the model is pertinent for ML.
(v) Quality of Model: After the selection of a model, it is difficult to determine the
quality of the selected model. However, the quality of the model is essential in an
ML-based system. 17.1.4
Types of ML
Typically, ML algorithms consist of four categories:
(i) Supervised
(ii) Unsupervised
(iii) Semi-supervised
(iv) Reinforcement Learning (Figure 17.2).

Labeled data contain certain meaningful tags, known as labels. Typically, the labels
correspond to the characteristics or properties of the objects. For example, in a dataset
containing the images of two birds, a particular sample is tagged as a crow or a pigeon.

On the other hand, the unlabeled dataset does not have any tags associated with them. For
example, a dataset containing the images of a bird without mentioning its name.

(i) Supervised Learning:

 This type of learning supervises or directs a machine to learn certain activities
using labeled datasets. The labeled data are used as a supervisor to make the
machine understand the relation of the labels with the properties of the
corresponding input data.
 Consider an example of a student who tries to learn to solve equations using a
set of labeled formulas. The labels indicate the formulae necessary for solving
an equation. The student learns to solve the equation using suitable formulae
 from the set. In the case of a new equation, the student tries to identify the set
of formulae necessary for solving it. Similarly, ML algorithms train
themselves for selecting efficient formulae for solving equations.
 The selection of these formulae depends primarily on the nature of the
equations to be solved. Supervised ML algorithms are popular in solving
classification and regression problems.
 Typically, the classification deals with predictive models that are capable of
approximating a mapping function from input data to categorical output. On
the other hand, regression provides the mapping function from input data to
numerical output. There are different classification algorithms in ML.
However, in this chapter, we discuss three popular classification algorithms:
(i) k-nearest neighbor (KNN), (ii) decision tree (DT), and (iii) random forest
(RF).
 We use regression to estimate the relationship among a set of dependent
variables with independent variables, as shown in Figure 17.3. The dependent
variables are the primary factors that we want to predict. However, these
dependent variables are affected by the independent variables. Let x and y be
the independent and dependent variables, respectively. Mathematically, a
simple regression model is represented as
(ii) Unsupervised Learning:
 Unsupervised learning algorithms use unlabeled datasets to find scientific trends. Let
us consider an example of the student similar to that described in the case of
supervised learning, and illustrate how it differs in case of unsupervised learning.
 As already mentioned, unsupervised learning does not use any labels in its operations.
Instead, the ML algorithms in this category try to identify the nature and properties of
the input equation and the nature of the formulae responsible for solving it.
 Unsupervised learning algorithms try to create different clusters based on the features
of the formulae and relate it with the input equations. Unsupervised learning is
usually applied to solve two types of problems: clustering and association.
 Clustering divides the data into multiple groups. In contrast, association discovers the
relationship or association among the data in a dataset.
(iii) Semi-Supervised Learning:
 Semi-supervised learning belongs to a category between supervised and
unsupervised learning. Algorithms under this category use a combination of
both labeled and unlabeled datasets for training.
 Labeled data are typically expensive and are relatively difficult to label
correctly. Unlabeled data is less expensive than labeled data. Therefore, semi-
 supervised learning includes both labeled and unlabeled dataset to design the
learning model.
 Traditionally, semi-supervised learning uses mostly unlabeled data, which
makes it efficient to use, and capable of overcoming samples with missing
labels.
(iv) Reinforcement Learning:
 Reinforcement learning establishes a pattern with the help of its experiences
by interacting with the environment. Consequently, the agent performs a
crucial role in reinforcement learning models.
 It aims to achieve a particular goal in an uncertain environment. Typically, the
model starts with an initial state of a problem, for which different solutions are
available. Based on the output, the model receives either a reward or a penalty
from the environment.
 The output and reward act as inputs for proceeding to the next state. Thus,
reinforcement learning models continue learning iteratively from their
experiences while inducing correctness to the output.