Internet of Things Services, Applications, Issues, and Challenges

1. Introduction

In early 1990’s, the evolution of new technology and new creativity could bring the concept of Internet as “Internet of Computers” as global networks with services provided as “world wide web” built on top of the original platform. Over the years, with the development of Web 2.0, the concept of “Internet of computers” has been changed to “Internet of people” where billions of people are connected through many social web sites. The boundary of Internet is getting expanded day by day with the integration of Micro Electro Mechanical devices (MEMs) and wireless communication technology and the devices are becoming smaller compared to the original PC with increasing processing and storage capacity. These devices are utilized in the form of mobile phones to note books, tablets etc. When these devices are fitted with sensors along with the actuators, the sensing, computing, and communicating capability can be extended with other devices under the network connectivity.

According to Cisco the definition of “Internet of Everything” which brings together people, process, data and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before by turning information into action. Cities globally have the potential to claim $1.9 Trillion in value from Internet of Things over the next decade. In a 2005 report, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) suggested that the “Internet of Things will connect the world's objects in both a sensory and intelligent manner” (ITU report, 2005). By combining various technological developments, the ITU has described four dimensions in IoT: item identification (“tagging things”), sensors and wireless sensor networks (“feeling things”), embedded systems (“thinking things”) and nano-technology (“shrinking things”). The definition of IoT is not limited to a particular domain and still it is fuzzy to define the vast concept. As a concluding remark, it can be defined as the combination of smart devices communicating with other devices, objects, environments and producing a huge volume of data. These data can be processed into useful actions that provide command and control to the things to enhance the quality of life. The elements of IoT are given in Figure 1.

1.1 Elements of IoT

The elements of IoT can be grouped in three categories: Hardware, Middleware, and Presentation (Gubbi et. al, 2013).

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  Hardware: The main hardware components that plays major role in IoT are Sensors, Actuators and Embedded Processor.

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  Middle Ware: The middleware technology implies on-demand storage and computing tools for data analytics. This is a software or collection of sub-layers interposed between the technological and application levels. The main feature is to hide the details of different technological complexity and allows the programmer independently to develop the specific IoT enabled application.

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  Presentation: In IoT platforms visualization is critical as it involves user interaction with the environment. So visualization must be simple to understand and interpretation tools must be compatible with various platforms. It must be user friendly to use for different applications. In this section, some enabling technologies are discussed which can bring up the above stated components in practice. Only practical implementation of IoT can full-fill the dream of smart homes, smart environments, smart cities and smart country by making use of smart devices.

Figure 1.

Elements of IoT