Internet of things (IoT) is a network of connected devices that work together and exchange information. In IoT, things or devices means any object with its own IP address that is able to connect to a network and can send and receive using internet. Examples of IoT devices are computers, laptops, smart phones, and objects that are operational with chips to collect and correspond data over a network. The range of internet of things devices is huge. Consumers use smart phones to correspond with IoT devices.
TopIntroduction
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a collection of interrelated and interconnected computing devices, machines, objects and people. These things have a unique identifiers and transfer data over a network, without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. Internet of things is an aggregation of things, physical objects, and more particularly Smart things.
To transform electrical and electronic component into smarter one, IoT act as a user interface and it is integrated into these electrical and electronic devices. It is expected that in next 2 years approximately, 50 billion of things will be connected to internet. WSN is connecting things to the internet with the help of gateways.
The major components of Internet of things are: Things or Objects, Sensors, Actuators and Storage Component. Things are Smart Things. Smart things are the objects or entities or devices which are equipped with electronics, computing capabilities, and a communication interface. Smart things can be discovered, controlled and managed remotely using communication interfaces and computing capabilities, on the internet.
A sensor forms an essential interface for the IoT implementation and therefore referred as the front end of the IoT environment. Sensor data collection acts as a stimulating event to perform any of the task offered by any IoT implementation.
Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) are computer chips that are the unavoidable integral part of an IoT implementation. These contain both sensors and actuators. A sensor transforms the functional energy into electrical signals while, an actuator transforms electrical signals into functional and useful energy.
IoT is a collection of a large number of devices, applications and services which are communicating with each other. So a large amount of data is produced. The data must be stored in storage devices, for processing and analysis.B ulk of data is generated by some IoT applications like smart home, real-time financial analysis, smart banking etc. The data is large and heterogeneous. So cloud based storage with big data analytics is used for data storage in IoT.
Thus WSN is becoming the key technology of IoT. In future the interaction between user and environment will be like as shown below in figure 1.
Figure 1. Interaction between user and environment in IoT
It can be said that the most important application of WSN is in Internet of Things (IoT). Sensor nodes are integrated with IoT, connects with internet dynamically to achieve designated task. An IoT architecture is consist of sensing units and a cloud based layer. This layer is used to monitor these sensing units remotely by the user in real time. There are many issues, challenges and different methods when WSN is integrated with IoT for taking data from anywhere, WSN are integrated into network as a part of IoT. IoT needs sensors, actuators, RFID tags, mobile phones and internet connectivity to work properly.
Some enabling technologies of IoT are Near-Field Communication (NFC) and Radio frequency identification (RFID), Optical Codes (OC) and Quick Response Codes (QRC), ZigBee, 6LOwPAN, LTE-Advanced (LTE- A), Z-Wave etc. Some of the IOT Platforms used are AllJoyn, Xively, IoTivity, 2lemetry, HomeKit, EVRYTHNG etc.
Top1. Applications
IoT applications look more capable in the coming years. IoT will possibly be used within other technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation. The future of IoT is more attractive where billions of things will be talking with each other least or no human intervention.
IoT has many applications. Some applications are explored below.
1.1 Wearables
Wearable’s are built using IOT applications. It is earliest application deployed the IoT at its service. Examples of wearables are smart watches and guardian glucose monitoring device.
1.2 Health Care System
IoT has many applications in the healthcare. It provides high-quality medical services using internet of medical things (IoMT). Real-time monitoring of patients remotely can also be done using IoT medical devices. An emergency situation like an asthma attack, heart failure etc., can be reported immediately to a physician and thus lives of many individuals can be saved.