Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an environment in which objects, animals or people are provided
with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-tohuman or human-to-computer interaction. IoT has evolved from the convergence of wireless
technologies, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and the Internet. The concept may also be
referred to as the Internet of Everything.
IoT stands for Internet of Things, the technology which helps us interact with things around us in
various ways. The things can be systems, machines or static objects. Unlike M2M which is used for
machine to machine communication for mere monitoring and control applications, IoT is used for
wide variety of applications. The applications of IoT are enormous viz. interacting with text books
using QR code printed on it, smart meters, home router, TV, light control, A/C control, finding
where which movie is running using NFC. IoT has covered all the industries right from energy,
manufacturing, healthcare, telecom and transportation.
IPv6s huge increase in address space is an important factor in the development of the Internet of
Things. According to Steve Leibson, who identifies himself as occasional docent at the Computer
History Museum, the address space expansion means that we could assign an IPV6 address to
every atom on the surface of the earth, and still have enough addresses left to do another 100+
earths. In other words, humans could easily assign an IP address to every "thing" on the planet.
Though there are numerous advantages of IoT for the user there are many security aspects which
need to be taken care by the user of IoT enabled devices. An increase in the number of smart nodes,
as well as the amount of upstream data the nodes generate, is expected to raise new concerns about
data privacy, data sovereignty and security. There are three main aspects such as connectivity,
remote management and security.
The concept of clouds and mobile app has pioneered the existence of IoT.

Potential of the Internet of Things:

Today computers -- and, therefore, the Internet -- are almost wholly dependent on human
beings for information. Nearly all of the roughly 50 petabytes (a petabyte is 1,024 terabytes) 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.
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. 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. We
would know when things needed replacing, repairing or recalling and whether they were fresh or
past their best.

How does it Work?

As mentioned any device, system, person referred as things can be remotely controlled using
applications running on smart device (can be smart phone, remote controller etc.). Only need to
have IP address assigned to each IoT things. There is no common protocol stack finalized for IoT
things. In general First each thing should have physical layer to connect with the medium either
wired or wireless (Wi-Fi, WiPAN, LTE, GSM etc.). Second, each should have layer to interface
with backhaul network as per technology the device will be developed for. The third is basic IP
address interface. These three basic layers comprise the IoT protocol stack. The figure depicts IoT
network comprised of Hub and things. Things can be either controller or things directly. In the case
of controller, it is controller which controls the things.

IoT Applications
IoT devices are used for following applications:
in consumer market for smart home control (lighting, security, and comfort), Optimized energy
use maintenance.
In Industrial market for smart meters, Wear-out sensing devices, Manufacturing control, Climate
control
In Automotive industries for parking, traffic flow control, Anti-theft devices, Location tracking
etc.
In Environmental for species tracking, weather prediction and resource management.
In agriculture market for crop management and soil analysis.
In military for resource allocation, threat analysis, troop monitoring etc.

 In medical industry for wearable devices, implanted devices and telehealth services.
In retail for product tracking, Inventory control, focused marketing, etc.

IoT Entities
There are two major subsystems involved in the IoT network viz. front end part and back end part.
Front end is mainly consists of IoT sensors which are MEMS based. It includes optical sensors,
light sensors, gesture and proximity sensors, touch and fingerprint sensors, pressure sensors and
more.
Back end consists of cellular, wireless and wired networks which are interfaced with IoT devices.
The devices will report to the central servers and also interact with databases in the backbone
network. Routers and gateways are part of the wireless backbone networks.

IoT Protocol layers

As the standard has not been finalized for IoT but one can think of IoT having 4 protocol layers as
shown in the figure-2. Sensing and Identification include various smart sensor devices based on
GPS, RFID, Wi-Fi etc. Network connectivity layer is based on wired and wireless network such as
WLAN, WPAN, WMAN, Ethernet, optical fiber and more. Other two layers are information
Processing layer and application layer.
We all know about internet which is collection of computers connected together to share the
information and resources. It is also referred as Inter-Connection of Networks. Internet basically
connects only people. Internet of Things basically connects all the things/devices/objects into the
internet world as explained later with figure-1. IoT has changed the concept of "connecting people"
to "connecting Every-Things".

Extending the present internet and providing connection, communication and inter-working
between physical devices or things is the simplest definition of Internet of Things (IoT).
IoT market is increasing day by day. As per Cisco there will be about 50 billion connected devices
based on IoT technology by 2020. To achieve this all the wireless devices and networks will be
made compatible to support IoT.

Cellular IoT

As mentioned in the figure.1 sensors are interfaced with the IoT device. IoT device will be
connected with PAN or LAN or Wi-Fi (wireless LAN) or cellular network. Cellular network can be
any existing one such as GSM, LTE, and CDMA etc.
As IoT standard has not yet been finalized, companies are working towards converting their
existing IPs compliant for IoT support. There will be change in the physical layer and upper layer
protocol stack will remain same.
As mentioned in fig.1 IoT device gets connected with device gateway on the network side which
intern interfaced with internet via WAN connection? This way two IoT devices can communicate
with each other.
IoT Applications are enormous. Out of these medical, retail, industrial and automotive sectors will
be a big market for IoT. IoT is considered to be of 4 layers. It consists of sensing and identification
layer, network construction (as information to be converted to be suitable for wireless cellular
connection or to any network as required), and information processing and application layer.

Major IoT Device requirements

Figure.2 depicts typical IoT device. This will be powered by battery which should last long. The
physical layer need to be slightly modified to accommodate conversation of received sensor
information into the form suitable to be transmitted over the cellular network. The companies are
working towards following primary requirements for the IoT devices to be successful in the market.
Companies such as Ericsson and Huawei are taking initiative to provide cellular solutions to
address the huge requirements of IoT devices. Ericsson is looking into GSM and LTE while Huawei
is looking towards narrowband M2M solution based on FDM concept.

IoT Device and components

The IoT device mainly consists of battery for providing power. It should have long life
approx. about 10 years.

The parts include interfacing with sensors and connectivity with wireless and wired
network. Hence it includes small part of physical layer and also upper protocol layers to
interface with application layer.

Devices should support both IPV4 and IPV6 based IP protocols

. IoT devices must have receiver sensitivity at least 20dB better than non-IoT devices.

The IoT devices should be cheaper about less than $10.