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Bachelor of Engineering (Honour)
Sustainable Design
Research
Contents
Introduction – what is the Internet of Things?
The internet of things is a very broad description which encompasses countless scenarios whereby objects of all kinds could be connected – presumably but not necessarily using a central processor, memory and sensors – to a wireless network, through which it would autonomously transfer some kind of useful data. The use of particular sensors and particular objects to be monitored are only variations on the Internet of Things concept. The wireless network used in the phrase is generally taken to be the internet itself. A number of other wireless networks are however also seen as being in the ‘tradition’ of the Internet of Things ideal, which is to advance a world in which an innumerable number of interconnected networks of smart sensors collaborate seamlessly to improve everyone’s quality of life. As there are so many definitions of the ‘Internet of things’, a universal description is difficult to assign, however, the Internet of things is generally understood to be a single network connecting around us to real-world and virtual objects.
Figure 1 IOT (www.fundacionbankinter.org)
‘IOT - the concept of space in which the analogue and digital worlds can be combined - redefines our relationship with objects and properties, and the essence of the objects themselves.’ (Rob van Kranenburg ). According to a common definition , from the point of view of the connecting IoT’s network, the‘thing ‘ can be any real or virtual object that exists and moves in space and time and can be uniquely identified. The ‘thing’ connected to the wireless network could therefore be almost anything, or as is even being suggested now, anyone. Examples include a watch that links to the internet and your mobile phone, displaying an image of the person calling you and telling you when you’ve received an email; a pair of gloves for motorcyclists that is connected to your MP3 player by Bluetooth, allowing you to skip songs, control volume level and so on by making certain hand movements – so you don’t have to fumble in your pockets while on the motorway
Figure 2 Smart gloves
..and incredibly an autonomous billboard for the TV show ‘big brother’ that sends your mobile phone an anonymous text message as you pass that reads “I’m watching you, you’re at DkIT’s front entrance (for example)…” The internet of things is not however simply a lot of different devices and sensors connected together through wired and wireless communication channels and/or connected to the Internet , it is about creating a closer integration of real and virtual worlds in which seamless communication is made between people and devices. It is assumed by the pioneers of IoT technology that in the future, the ‘things’ become active participants in business, information and social processes where they can interact and communicate with each other by exchanging information about the surrounding environment, thereby responding to and influencing the processes occurring in the outside world that we experience, without any need for human intervention. According to Rob Van Kranenburg, the writer of a book on the subject (‘The Internet of Things; A critique of ambient technology and the all-seeing network of RFID’), the Internet of Things is a four -layer pie with a definite structure: • Level 1 is associated with identification of each object (or ‘thing’). • Level 2 provides a service by addressing the needs of the consumer (essentially an individual’s own personalised ‘network of things', a particular example - the "smart home "). • Level 3 is associated with urbanization of city life. This is the concept of "smart cities", where information for the residents of a city is compiled and sent to the homes in your specific residential area. • Level 4 – a smart planet. The final Internet of Things level would provide all kinds of important information on the wellbeing, security, climate and so on of our planet, and like its counterpart in the homes or the cities, would actually influence these important factors autonomously. In other words, the Internet of Things can be seen as a network of networks in which small networks are connected form the larger ones in order to provide a top-down and bottom-up channel of useful information and automated actuation.
Figure 3 IOT Diagram(whatis.techtarget.com/In
Below is an excellent image of the proposed four layers of integrated networks: Figure 4 Smart world (www.libelium.com)
Key milestones in the history of the Internet of Things
The Internet of Things is already associated with an interesting history. The following are some milestones in the development of the technology. While of course the creation of the Internet in the 1980s led directly to the idea of connecting to external devices, even as far back as 1926, Nikola Tesla in an interview with ‘Collier's’ magazine said that the fut...