IoT applications: Smart Car Tracker and Wireless Camera.

2018-12-29

What exactly is a connecting or connected object or a thing? In close-to-market IoT applications, RFID tags and sensors are connecting inanimate objects and are building the actual things enabling the first IoT services. Following the American Auto ID research center description of the IoT and the European CASAGRAS research project terminology [CAS 08], “things” or “objects” are described as a set of atoms. The atom is the smallest object in the IoT; as could be seen by nanotechnology, which is one of the enabling technologies of the IoT. A network of atoms combined with a network of bits falls into what is named the IoT. It will gather a set of objects connected to the network to help in the execution of new services enabling the smart world. So with the atom, being the smallest possible object, it is possible to classify objects based on their size and complexity, their moveable aspect and whether they are animate or inanimate.

Different technologies can be used to interconnect objects. Note that connecting objects, such as consumer electronics, e.g. a Wireless Camera or a smart heater, has started with home networking where consumer appliances are connected through wired technology, such as PLC, allowing communication through the power line. A number of standardization and industry organizations are addressing different issues of the home networking puzzle. Current home networking applications do not suffer from any resource limitations. The connected objects (smart fridge, smart TV, etc.) can easily deploy an existing communication model, such as the TCP/IP model, to allow data transmission. They are affected more by interoperability problems. This is different from the issues of new applications of IoT, which rely on sensors and RFIDs where the resources of the connected objects via radio are limited by energy, memory and processing capability.

Another concern is how to support the connectivity of heterogenous objects, when a huge number of these objects/things will be connected by tags or sensors. Sensor networks have been used in industrial process control. They have allowed automation of the sense and actuate processes in order to perform automatic control, maintenance and data collection operations. A large number of potential environment monitoring applications for RFID and sensor networks are still to come. In home networking, new applications using sensor and RFID technologies will allow the automatic control of certain processes, hence minimizing human intervention.

Different technologies can be used to interconnect objects. Note that connecting objects, such as consumer electronics, e.g. a smart fridge or a smart heater, has started with home networking where consumer appliances are connected through wired technology, such as PLC, allowing communication through the power line. A number of standardization and industry organizations are addressing different issues of the home networking puzzle. Current home networking applications do not suffer from any resource limitations. The connected objects (Smart Car Tracker, smart TV, etc.) can easily deploy an existing communication model, such as the TCP/IP model, to allow data transmission. They are affected more by interoperability problems. This is different from the issues of new applications of IoT, which rely on sensors and RFIDs where the resources of the connected objects via radio are limited by energy, memory and processing capability.

More information at http://www.jimicloud.com/blog/ .