The internet of things (IoT) is the network of physical objects—devices, vehicles, buildings, and other objects—embedded with software, electronic devices, sensors, and network connectivity that enable these objects to collect and share information or data. Its applications include smart homes, healthcare, industries, transportation systems, logistics, and energy. Building an IoT real-time-based application involves the proper selection of combination of sensors, technology, networks, and communication modules, supported with the concepts of data processing, remote sensing, cloud computing, etc. This chapter highlights advantages and disadvantages IoT and various techniques, such as computer vision, remote sensing, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data, ubiquitous computing, which are widely used in various applications. Many new IoT-based applications will evolve, as new devices, sensors, chips, and computational techniques are developed.
TopIntroduction
The network of several interconnected devices is termed as Internet of Things (IoT) (White Paper, 2018). The use of connect devices, and research & development into smart object networking gave birth to IoT. The IoT can be defined as “smart objects, machines interacting and communicating with other machines using sensors, smart environments and infrastructures”, resulting in enormous data generated which is processed and converted into useful activities employed to command & control the things, and make living much comfortable. It is a unique system of interconnected computing devices, mechanical & digital devices, sensors, smart objects, smart infrastructures, and human-beings that are interconnected together with unique identifiers. It has the ability to transfer the huge data collected over a network without the need of human-to-computer interaction.
The IoT essentially is the network of connected things, such as sensors and actuators, as well as communication technologies along with the required hardware & software to collect data for a large number of applications, data mining, data analytics, and developing innovations. Figure 1 presents a concept behind the development of IoT. Here, the A’s refer to the utilization of technology globally (anytime, anywhere, any device, any network, etc.) and C’s indicate the functions of IoT, such as collection, convergence, connectivity and computing. The IoT today has already developed much beyond the A’s and C’s (Gupta, 2016).
The development in networking technologies also enabled the usage of networking in motion-based objects which resulted in improvement of real-time applications. Using these technologies, object’s behavior may be automatically detected, and an alarm may be raised in case of any suspicious, threatening or illegal activities are observed by the intelligent surveillance system. Intelligent surveillance system requires the usage of both control system and IT technologies to reduce the needs of people, which helps users to monitor, control and operate their system from anywhere with the help of IoT-based devices. In essence, the IoT involves sensors that are embedded in all kinds of devices and send data streams via Internet connections to one or more central (Cloud) locations.
Figure 1. A’s and C’s concept in IoT (Gupta, 2016)
The IoT is a most promising technology these days. The AI is playing an important role in the connected ecosystem of devices & sensors, and allowing these devices to perform certain defined tasks. It is estimated that by the end of 2020, there will be about 30 million IoT gadgets or devices all over the globe. The market revenues for IoT-based security services are expected to be more than $11 billion by 2021. Gartner predicted that more than 80% of enterprise projects involving the use of IoT will include an Artificial Intelligence (AI) component by year 2022. More than 50% of the enterprises will start using AI and machine learning approach by 2022 to effectively utilize their IoT data (Evans, 2011).
Several technologies, such as IoT, AI, Big Data, and cloud computing have taken lead in transforming the businesses and processes in organizations, world-wide. With digital revolution and transformation, these technologies are gaining popularity in almost all the businesses. Each of these is no longer considered as a sophisticated technology, but in present day context they have become almost a necessity to implement. All IoT devices are expected to follow five basic steps: measuring, sending, storing, analyzing, and acting. The last step ‘acting’ means an infinite number of things, ranging from a physical action to providing information, which will entirely depend on the ‘analysis of data’ using appropriate algorithm.
While Big Data deals with the science of storing and analyzing the ever-growing digital data; the number of connected devices and sensors are contributing to this growth of digital data. On the other hand, the cloud computing helps to leverage the big data analytics through anytime-anywhere access to this data through cloud servers. Thus, the cloud computing is essential for organizations to draw insights from IoT data. The dividing lines of AI, Big Data, IoT, and cloud computing are increasingly getting narrowed as they develop further. It is expected that the convergence of these technologies will transform organizations and business applications in an exponential manner.