A Connected World of 50 billion Devices by 2020 - The Internet of Things (IOT)

Big data applications for IoT , Design of IoT (Product/Service/Experience) , IoT security , Changing world lifestyle , Machine to Machine , Machine to Human , New Players in IoT and so on and on …

Yeah ..so you are right , We have over lived the "SMART" word now the new word toy we have now is "IoT"  and today we are here to discuss the BIG Future of IoT . IoT what exactly is this ? , How is going to change our life , which industries will get affected first , top 10 cities of the world which are leading the IoT innovations and IoT events in India.

The Internet of Things (Iota) is system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals or people that are provided with the network of physical objects like devices, vehicles, buildings and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity that enables these objects to collect and exchange data.

The Internet of Things will revolutionize life. It has redefined business and affected every industry starting from essential industries like healthcare to entertainment industries like media. It is dramatically altering different industries especially the ones which affect our GDP.  IOT is transforming interaction between Machine to human and Machine to Machine, Machine to Infrastructure and Machine to Environment.

With the advancement of technology IOT will bring ample opportunities along with new threats to both society and business. It will allow us to control the physical entities like machines, factories etc. directly through internet affecting their value chains, business models, workforce and other necessary parts.

The key opportunities will be the highly improved and optimized operational efficiency through predictive maintenance and remote management, with advancement of technology, software driven services, innovation in hardware and software, and the increased visibility in products, processes, customers and partners. New connected ecosystems, coalescing around software platforms that blur traditional industry boundaries and the collaboration between human and machine will result in high productivity and more engaging work experience.

With IOT, business will shift from products to outcome based services, where measurable results will be delivered.

Such outcomes may range from guaranteed machine uptimes on factory floors, to actual amounts of energy savings in commercial buildings, to guaranteed crop yields from a specific parcel of farmland. Delivering such outcomes will require new levels of collaboration across an ecosystem of business partners, bringing together players that combine their products and services to meet customer needs. Software platforms will emerge that will better facilitate data capture, aggregation and exchange across the ecosystem. They will help create, distribute and monetize new products and services at unprecedented speed and scale. The big winners will be platform owners and partners who can harness the network effect inherent in these new digital business models to create new kinds of value.

While lower-skilled jobs, whether physical or cognitive, will be increasingly replaced by machines over time, the Industrial Internet will also create new, high skilled jobs that did not exist before, such as medical robot designers and grid optimization engineers. Companies will also use Industrial Internet technologies to augment workers, making their jobs safer and more productive, flexible and engaging. As these trends take hold, and new skills are required, people will increasingly rely upon smart machines for job training and skills development. 

As global chatter grows around the Internet of Things (IoT), businesses in India already are taking the plunge or planning to adopt the emerging technology. Businesses in Indian markets led its global peers, with 75 percent already tapping or had plans to deploy IoT applications and another 20 percent expressing interesting in doing likewise. In comparison, 52 percent of respondents in Latin America had deployed or were planning to deploy IoT, while 32 percent were keen to do so, revealed a Forrester study.

With customer relationships increasingly digital, organisations across all industry segments were looking to transform their business to support this trend. Across the globe, 19 percent said they were already using IoT products and services, while 31 percent expressed interest in doing so.

It’s a mammoth opportunity for the world, as much as it is for India. In five years, the global opportunity is likely to touch 300 billion USD and in comparison, India too would boast of a 15 billion USD market in IoT. It needs fostering with utmost care.

IOT helps in improving efficiency, accuracy and economic benefit by allowing objects to be sensed and controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure, creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computer-based systems, and resulting when IoT is augmented with sensors and actuators, the technology becomes an instance of the more general class of cyber-physical systems, which also encompasses technologies such as smart grids, smart homes, intelligent transportation and smart cities. Each thing is uniquely identifiable through its embedded computing system but is able to interoperate within the existing Internet infrastructure. Experts estimate that the IoT will consist of almost 50 billion objects by 2020.

1.) Sensors & Sensor technology – They will sniff a wide variety of information ranging from Location, Weather/Environment conditions, Grid parameters, Movement on assembly lines, Jet engine maintenance data to Health essentials of a patient

2.) IoT Gateways – IoT Gateways, as the name rightly suggests, are the gateways to internet for all the things/devices that we want to interact with. Gateways help to bridge the internal network of sensor nodes with the external Internet or World Wide Web. They do this by collecting the data from sensor nodes & transmitting it to the internet infrastructure.

3.) Cloud/server infrastructure & Big Data – The data transmitted through gateway is stored & processed securely within the cloud infrastructure using Big Data analytics engine. This processed data is then used to perform intelligent actions that make all our devices ‘Smart Devices’!

4.) End-user Mobile apps – The intuitive mobile apps will help end users to control & monitor their devices (ranging from room thermostat to jet engines & assembly lines) from remote locations. These apps push the important information on your hand-held devices & help to send commands to your Smart Devices!

5.) IPv6 – IP addresses are the backbone to the entire IoT ecosystem. Internet is concerned about IP addresses only & not if you are a human or a toaster. With Ipv4 we were running out of IP addresses, but with Ipv6 (launched in 2012) we now have 3.4*10^38 IP addresses!

1. The sensor will be integrated with the gateway. Gateway helps to connect the sensor network (things) to the Internet through Cloud infrastructure.

2. Cloud/server possesses the detailed records about the each and every device connected to it – device id, current status of the device, who has accessed the device last time, how many times the device has been accessed and more.

3. Connection with the cloud is implemented using web services such as RESTful.

4. End-users interact with Cloud (and in turn devices installed in our homes) through the mobile app. Request will be sent to the cloud with the authentication and device information. Authentication is configured to ensure cyber security.

5. Cloud will identify the device with the help of the device id and will send the corresponding request to the appropriate sensor network using gateways.

6. Then, the sensor will read the current temperature in the room and will send the response back to the cloud.

7. Cloud will identify the particular user who has requested the data and push the requested data to the app. So user will get the current information directly on his screen.

HISTORY

The concept of a network of smart devices was discussed as early as 1982, with a modified Coke machine at Carnegie Mellon University becoming the first internet-connected appliance able to report its inventory and whether newly loaded drinks were cold.

The concept of the Internet of Things first became popular in 1999, through the Auto-ID Centre at MIT and related market-analysis publications. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) was seen by Kevin Ashton (one of the founders of the original Auto-ID Centre) as a prerequisite for the Internet of Things at that point. If all objects and people in daily life were equipped with identifiers, computers could manage and inventory them. Besides using RFID, the tagging of things may be achieved through such technologies as near field communication, barcodes, QR codes and digital watermarking.

Industries affected by IOT

·         Media

·         Environmental monitoring

·         Infrastructure management

·         Manufacturing

·         Energy management

·         Medical and healthcare system

·         Building and home automation

·         Transportation

·         Agricultural

·         Education

·         Food

Media

The bulk of IoT activity in this industry involved the use of apps on smartphones, tablets or other digital devices. The industry appears to be moving away from the traditional approach of using specific media environments such as newspapers, magazines, or television shows and instead tap into consumers with technologies that reach targeted people at optimal times in optimal locations. The ultimate aim is of course to serve, or convey, a message or content that is (statistically speaking) in line with the consumer’s mind-set

Environmental Monitoring

 It utilize sensors to assist in environmental protection by monitoring air or water quality, atmospheric or soil conditions, and can even include areas like monitoring the movements of wildlife and their habitats.

In environmental monitoring, WAVIoT-connected sensors can aid in measuring emissions from factories, detect forest fires or measure the level and quality of river water.

Development of resource constrained devices connected to the Internet also means that other applications like earthquake or tsunami early-warning systems can also be used by emergency services to provide more effective aid. WAVIoT-based devices in this application typically span a large geographic area and can also be mobile.

Infrastructure management

 Monitoring and controlling operations of urban and rural infrastructures like bridges, railway tracks, on- and offshore- wind-farms is a key application of the IoT. The IoT infrastructure can be used for monitoring any events or changes in structural conditions that can compromise safety and increase risk. It can also be used for scheduling repair and maintenance activities in an efficient manner, by coordinating tasks between different service providers and users of these facilities. IoT devices can also be used to control critical infrastructure like bridges to provide access to ships. Usage of IoT devices for monitoring and operating infrastructure is likely to improve incident management and emergency response coordination, and quality of service, up-times and reduce costs of operation in all infrastructure related areas. Even areas such as waste management can benefit from automation and optimization that could be brought in by the IoT.

Manufacturing

Network control and management of manufacturing equipment, asset and situation management, or manufacturing process control bring the IoT within the realm on industrial applications and smart manufacturing as well. The IoT intelligent systems enable rapid manufacturing of new products, dynamic response to product demands, and real-time optimization of manufacturing production and supply chain networks, by networking machinery, sensors and control systems together.

Digital control systems to automate process controls, operator tools and service information systems to optimize plant safety and security are within the purview of the IoT. But it also extends itself to asset management via predictive maintenance, statistical evaluation, and measurements to maximize reliability. Smart industrial management systems can also be integrated with the Smart Grid, thereby enabling real-time energy optimization. Measurements, automated controls, plant optimization, health and safety management, and other functions are provided by a large number of networked sensors.

Energy management

Integration of sensing and actuation systems, connected to the Internet, is likely to optimize energy consumption as a whole. It is expected that IoT devices will be integrated into all forms of energy consuming devices (switches, power outlets, bulbs, televisions, etc.) and be able to communicate with the utility supply company in order to effectively balance power generation and energy usage. Such devices would also offer the opportunity for users to remotely control their devices, or centrally manage them via a cloud based interface, and enable advanced functions like scheduling (e.g., remotely powering on or off heating systems, controlling ovens, changing lighting conditions etc.). In fact, a few systems that allow remote control of electric outlets are already available in the market, e.g., Belkin’s WeMo, Ambery Remote Power Switch, Budderfly, Telkonet’s EcoGuard, WhizNets Inc., etc.

Besides home based energy management, the IoT is especially relevant to the Smart Grid since it provides systems to gather and act on energy and power-related information in an automated fashion with the goal to improve the efficiency, reliability, economics, and sustainability of the production and distribution of electricity. Using Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) devices connected to the Internet backbone, electric utilities can not only collect data from end-user connections, but also manage other distribution automation devices like transformers and reclosers.

 

Medical and healthcare systems

IoT devices can be used to enable remote health monitoring and emergency notification systems. These health monitoring devices can range from blood pressure and heart rate monitors to advanced devices capable of monitoring specialized implants, such as pacemakers or advanced hearing aids. Specialized sensors can also be equipped within living spaces to monitor the health and general well-being of senior citizens, while also ensuring that proper treatment is being administered and assisting people regain lost mobility via therapy as well. Other consumer devices to encourage healthy living, such as, connected scales or wearable heart monitors, are also a possibility with the IoT. More and more end-to-end health monitoring IoT platforms are coming up for antenatal and chronic patients, helping one manage health vitals and recurring medication requirements.

Building and home automation

IoT devices can be used to monitor and control the mechanical, electrical and electronic systems used in various types of buildings (e.g., public and private, industrial, institutions, or residential) in home automation and building automation systems.

Transportation

The IoT can assist in integration of communications, control, and information processing across various transportation systems. Application of the IoT extends to all aspects of transportation systems (i.e. the vehicle, the infrastructure, and the driver or user). Dynamic interaction between these components of a transport system enables inter and intra vehicular communication, smart traffic control, smart parking, electronic toll collection systems, logistic and fleet management, vehicle control, and safety and road assistance

Agricultural

 IOT helps in increasing the quality, quantity, sustainability and cost effectiveness of agricultural production. Today’s large and local farms can, for example, leverage IoT to remotely monitor sensors that can detect soil moisture, crop growth and livestock feed levels, remotely manage and control their smart connected harvesters and irrigation equipment, and utilize artificial intelligence based analytics to quickly fulfil operational data combined with 3^rd party information, such as weather services, to provide new insights and improve decision making.

Industries most affected by IOT

Healthcare – Healthcare has emerged as one of the most promising industries for IoT. Over the past few years, healthcare providers have increasingly become connected through the use of Wi-Fi-enabled medical tools and devices, hospitals are able to collect record and analyse data faster and more accurately. It will also help in real time monitoring. Well established corporations like Philips, Verizon & Qualcomm already have a number of programs offered to healthcare providers and patients using IoT tools. Philips offers Tele Station that transmits vital sign data from the patient at home to the health care provider. It also offers a number of wireless monitoring devices. Verizon offers a solution dubbed Converged Health Management, which remotely monitors patients’ vitals at their homes, and sends the real time biometric information to health care givers onto PCs, tablets, and smartphones. QUALCOMM has developed a cloud-based platform dubbed the 2net Platform, which enables the wireless transfer, storage, and display of medical device data, and is natively interoperable with a number of existing medical devices and applications, and is HIPAA compliant. It includes wireless ultrasound monitoring and remote vital sign monitoring from hospital rooms.

Retail -  With IOT, IoT technology, in-store retailers now have an opportunity to level the playing field by providing customers a more personalized shopping experience, created using a variety of IoT tools. Retailers are increasingly adopting usage of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags to identify individual items in a store. With RFID tags, retail stores are able to efficiently track inventory and continuously update merchandise information.

Cities most affected by IOT

Top smart cities as per Forbes 2015

·         Barcelona(scored high on environment and smart parking)

·         New York city(scored high on Smart street lightning and smart traffic management)

·         London(Scored high on technology and open data)

·         Nice(Scored high on environment and energy cohesion)

·         Singapore(Scored high on smart traffic management and creative use of technology)

Based on the Innovation Cities Index, here are the top 10 smart cities in the world to date:

1.  Vienna Vienna was the only city that ranked in the top 10 in every category in the Innovation cities Index. It is well ahead of the pack in establishing brave smart-city targets and tracking their progress, in particular with programs like the Smart Energy Vision 2050, Roadmap 2020, and Action Plan 2012-2015. Ideas and vision is one thing but incorporating these concepts from planning stage, engaging stakeholders on every platform, means Vienna is leading the way for smart city technologies.

2.  Toronto. The highest rated smart city in North America, Toronto scores quite well across the board. The big names in Technology recognise this too – IBM recently opened a Business Analytics Solutions Centre in the city and Toronto is also an active member of C40 megacities. There are also private sector initiatives like Smart Commute Toronto which have been launched to help the city’s transport efficiency.

3.   Paris. Paris was highly rated in several categories including innovation, green cities in Europe, and digital governance. Paris was already on the world map for its highly successful bike sharing program, Velib, and it is following up this success with a similar scheme for Electric Vehicles (Evs).

4.  New York. New York scored higher than most other cities in the ranking in all of the categories. New York partnered with IBM in 2009 to launch the IBM Business Analytics Solution Centre to address “the growing demand for the complex capabilities needed to build smarter cities and help clients optimize all manner of business processes and business decisions.” This has resulted in helping the city prevent fires and protect first responders as well as identify questionable tax refund claims—a move that is expected to save the city about $100 million over a five-year period.

5.  Stockholm. Home to the HQ of Ericsson, pioneers of the ‘Networked Society’, Stockholm scores highly on the Innovation Cities Index for obvious reasons; it has a long track record of focused initiatives to drive the progress of ICT infrastructure. The city has a large service sector which accounts for roughly 85 percent of all jobs, and in combination with the near total absence of heavy industry, makes Stockholm one of the world’s cleanest metro areas. Stockholm was also the first city in the world to introduce 4G/LTE mobile services.

6.   London. The UK capital also scored relatively high across the board. London has been well-recognized for some of its sustainability innovations i.e. congestion tax and its robust transport system. The city is home to Smart Cities research centre housed at Imperial College, which focuses on initiatives in hope of making the city more efficient and innovative. And most conveniently for its citizens London has also announced a partnership with O2 to launch the largest free Wi-Fi network in Europe.

7.   Tokyo. Tokyo is the first Asian city on this list, scoring well in both the innovation and digital city categories. In 2011, the city announced plans to create a smart town in the suburbs. In partnership with Panasonic, Accenture, and Tokyo Gas, the eco-burb will contain homes that integrate solar panels, storage batteries, and energy efficient appliances all connected to a smart grid. Tokyo is also focused on promoting smart mobility solutions.

8.   Berlin. Berlin also performs well across the board, with good scores in innovation and green-ness. One of the most interesting initiatives Berlin has focused on collaboration with BMW. Together, they are testing out vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technologies in the hopes of creating a virtual power plant from electric vehicles.

9.  Hong Kong. Hong Kong scored quite well in key areas, Hong Kong is experimenting with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in its airport, as well as throughout the agriculture supply chain. The city has also been a leader in the adoption of smart cards, which are already used by millions of residents for services like public transit, library access, building access, shopping, and car parks.

10. Barcelona. Barcelona was recently ranked the number two smart city in Spain in the IDC report. The city is a pioneer in smart city and low-carbon solutions. It was among the first in the world to introduce a solar thermal ordinance about a decade ago. It recently launched the LIVE EV project to promote the adoption of Evs and charging infrastructure, and the city also recently announced a major partnership to develop a living lab for smart-city innovation.

Trust it was a nice reading retreat for you , will continue on our word toy The IOT in India in my next blog for time being put your reviews and remarks and connect with me at akxmails@gmail.com and on twitter @AshutoshNow .... Thanks guys see you again ..