What is the internet of things (IoT)?

The internet of things, or IoT, is a network of interrelated devices that connect and exchange data with other IoT devices and the cloud. IoT
devices are typically embedded with technology such as sensors and software and can include mechanical and digital machines and consumer
objects.

Increasingly, organizations in a variety of industries are using IoT to operate more efficiently, deliver enhanced customer service, improve decision-
making and increase the value of the business.

With IoT, data is transferable over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interactions.

How does IoT work?

An IoT ecosystem consists of web-enabled smart devices that use embedded systems -- such as processors, sensors and communication hardware
-- to collect, send and act on data they acquire from their environments.

IoT devices share the sensor data they collect by connecting to an IoT gateway, which acts as a central hub where IoT devices can send data. Before
the data is shared, it can also be sent to an edge device where that data is analyzed locally. Analyzing data locally reduces the volume of data sent to
the cloud, which minimizes bandwidth consumption.

Sometimes, these devices communicate with other related devices and act on the information they get from one another. The devices do most of the
work without human intervention, although people can interact with the devices -- for example, to set them up, give them instructions or access the
data.

The connectivity, networking and communication protocols used with these web-enabled devices largely depend on the specific IoT applications
deployed.IoT can also use artificial intelligence and machine learning to aid in making data collection processes easier and more dynamic.

Why is IoT important?

IoT helps people live and work smarter. Consumers, for example, can use IoT-embedded devices -- such as cars, smartwatches or thermostats -- to
improve their lives. For example, when a person arrives home, their car could communicate with the garage to open the door; their thermostat could
adjust to a preset temperature; and their lighting could be set to a lower intensity and color.

In addition to offering smart devices to automate homes, IoT is essential to business. It provides organizations with a real-time look into how their
systems really work, delivering insights into everything from the performance of machines to supply chain and logistics operations.IoT enables
machines to complete tedious tasks without human intervention. Companies can automate processes, reduce labor costs, cut down on waste and
improve service delivery. IoT helps make it less expensive to manufacture and deliver goods, and offers transparency into customer transactions.

IoT is one of the most important technologies and it continues to advance as more businesses realize the potential of connected devices to keep them
competitive.

What are the benefits of IoT to organizations?

IoT offers several benefits to organizations. Some benefits are industry-specific and some are applicable across multiple industries. Common benefits
for businesses include the following:

 Monitors overall business processes.

 Improves the customer experience.

 Saves time and money.

 Enhances employee productivity.

 Provides integration and adaptable business models.

 Enables better business decisions.

 Generates more revenue.

IoT encourages companies to rethink how they approach their businesses and gives them the tools to improve their business strategies.

Generally, IoT is most abundant in manufacturing, transportation and utility organizations that use sensors and other IoT devices; however, it also
has use cases for organizations within the agriculture, infrastructure and home automation industries, leading some organizations toward digital
transformation.

IoT can benefit farmers in agriculture by making their job easier. Sensors can collect data on rainfall, humidity, temperature and soil content and IoT
can help automate farming techniques.
IoT can also help monitor operations surrounding infrastructure. Sensors, for example, can monitor events or changes within structural buildings,
bridges and other infrastructure that could potentially compromise safety. This provides benefits such as improved incident management and
response, reduced costs of operations and improved quality of service.

A home automation business can use IoT to monitor and manipulate mechanical and electrical systems in a building. On a broader scale, smart cities
can help citizens reduce waste and energy consumption.

IoT touches every industry, including healthcare, finance, retail and manufacturing.

What are the pros and cons of IoT?

Some of the advantages of IoT include the following:

 Enables access to information from anywhere at any time on any device.

 Improves communication between connected electronic devices.

 Enables the transfer of data packets over a connected network, which can save time and money.

 Collects large amounts of data from multiple devices, aiding both users and manufacturers.

 Analyzes data at the edge, reducing the amount of data that needs to be sent to the cloud.

 Automates tasks to improve the quality of a business's services and reduces the need for human intervention.

 Enables healthcare patients to be cared for continually and more effectively.

Some disadvantages of IoT include the following:

 Increases the attack surface as the number of connected devices grows. As more information is shared between devices, the potential
for a hacker to steal confidential information increases.

 Makes device management challenging as the number of IoT devices increases. Organizations might eventually have to deal with a
massive number of IoT devices, and collecting and managing the data from all those devices could be challenging.

 Has the potential to corrupt other connected devices if there's a bug in the system.

 Increases compatibility issues between devices, as there's no international standard of compatibility for IoT. This makes it difficult for
devices from different manufacturers to communicate with each other.
IoT standards and frameworks
Notable organizations that are involved in the development of IoT standards include the following:

 International Electrotechnical Commission.

 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

 Industrial Internet Consortium.

 Open Connectivity Foundation.

 Thread Group.

 Connectivity Standards Alliance.

Some examples of IoT standards include the following:

 IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN) is an open standard defined by the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). This standard enables any low-power radio to communicate to the internet, including 804.15.4, Bluetooth Low
Energy and Z-Wave for home automation. In addition to home automation, this standard is also used in industrial monitoring and
agriculture.

 Zigbee is a low-power, low-data rate wireless network used mainly in home and industrial settings. ZigBee is based on the IEEE
802.15.4 standard. The ZigBee Alliance created Dotdot, the universal language for IoT that enables smart objects to work securely on
any network and understand each other.

 Data Distribution Service (DDS) was developed by the Object Management Group and is an industrial IoT (IIoT) standard for real-
time, scalable and high-performance machine-to-machine (M2M) communication.
IoT standards often use specific protocols for device communication. A chosen protocol dictates how IoT device data is transmitted and received.
Some example IoT protocols include the following:

 Constrained Application Protocol. CoAP is a protocol designed by the IETF that specifies how low-power, compute-constrained
devices can operate in IoT.

 Advanced Message Queuing Protocol. The AMQP is an open source published standard for asynchronous messaging by wire.
AMQP enables encrypted and interoperable messaging between organizations and applications. The protocol is used in client-
server messaging and in IoT device management.

 Long-Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN). This protocol for WANs is designed to support huge networks, such as smart cities,
with millions of low-power devices.

 MQ Telemetry Transport. MQTT is a lightweight protocol that's used for control and remote monitoring applications. It's suitable
for devices with limited resources.

IoT frameworks include the following:

 Amazon Web Services (AWS) IoT is a cloud computing platform for IoT released by Amazon. This framework is designed to enable
smart devices to easily connect and securely interact with the AWS cloud and other connected devices.

 Arm Mbed IoT is an open source platform to develop apps for IoT based on Arm microcontrollers. The goal of this IoT platform is
to provide a scalable, connected and secure environment for IoT devices by integrating Mbed tools and services.

 Microsoft Azure IoT Suite platform is a set of services that let users interact with and receive data from their IoT devices, as well as
perform various operations over data, such as multidimensional analysis, transformation and aggregation, and visualize those
operations in a way that's suitable for business.

 Calvin is an open source IoT platform from Ericsson designed for building and managing distributed applications that let devices talk
to each other. Calvin includes a development framework for application developers, as well as a runtime environment for handling the
running application.
IoT security and privacy issues
IoT connects billions of devices to the internet and involves the use of billions of data points, all of which must be secured. Due to its expanded
attack surface, IoT security and IoT privacy are cited as major concerns.

One of the most notorious IoT attacks happened in 2016. The Mirai botnet infiltrated domain name server provider Dyn, resulting in major system
outages for an extended period of time. Attackers gained access to the network by exploiting poorly secured IoT devices. This is one the
largest distributed denial-of-service attacks ever seen and Mirai is still being developed today.

Because IoT devices are closely connected, a hacker can exploit one vulnerability to manipulate all the data, rendering it unusable. Manufacturers
that don't update their devices regularly -- or at all -- leave them vulnerable to cybercriminals. Additionally, connected devices often ask users to
input their personal information, including names, ages, addresses, phone numbers and even social media accounts -- information that's invaluable to
hackers.

Hackers aren't the only threat to IoT; privacy is another major concern. For example, companies that make and distribute consumer IoT devices
could use those devices to obtain and sell user personal data.

9)Different technologies together enable development of IoT applications. The IoT enabling technologies are:

 Wireless Sensor Networks

 Cloud Computing
 BigData Analytics
 Communication Protocols
 Embedded Systems

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a collection of devices which communicate through wireless channels. A WSN consists of distributed devices
with sensors which are used to monitor the environmental and physical conditions.

 A WSN consists of a number of end nodes, routers and coordinators. End nodes can also act as routers. A coordinator collects data from all
the nodes and is connected to Internet.

Examples of WSNs used in IoT systems:

 Weather monitoring systems

 Indoor air quality monitoring systems
  Soil moisture monitoring systems
 Surveillance systems
 Smart grids
 Structural health monitoring systems

Cloud computing is a computing model in which applications and services are delivered over Internet. The resources provisioned by cloud can be
compute, networking or storage. Cloud allows the users to access resources based on utility model. The characteristics of cloud computing are:

 On demand: The resources in the cloud are available based on the traffic. If the incoming traffic increases, the cloud resources scale up
accordingly and when the traffic decreases, the cloud resources scale down accordingly.
 Autonomic: The resource provisioning in the cloud happens with very less to no human intervention. The resources scale up and scale
down automatically.
 Scalable: The cloud resources scale up and scale down based on the demand or traffic. This property of cloud is also known as elasticity.
 Pay-per-use: On contrary to traditional billing, the cloud resources are billed on pay-per-use basis. You have to pay only for the resources
and time for which you are using those resources.
 Ubiquitous: You can access the cloud resources from anywhere in the world from any device. All that is needed is Internet. Using Internet
you can access your files, databases and other resources in the cloud from anywhere.

Cloud computing offers three basic service models using which users can subscribe to cloud resources. These service models are:

 Infrastructure-As-A-Service (IAAS)
 Platform-As-A-Service (PAAS)
 Software-As-A-Service (SAAS)

BigData is a collection of data coming from various types of sources. The data is often huge which cannot be handled by the traditional databases
and data warehouses. BigData is often characterized by six Vs. They are:

 Volume: Refers to the huge volume of data aggregated from various sources.
 Variety: Refers to different types of data. Data can be structured, semi-structured or unstructured.
 Velocity: Refers to the speed at which the data is generated. Now-a-days the amount of data available on the Internet per minute is several
peta bytes or even more.
 Veracity: Refers to the degree to which the data can be trusted. If the data collected is incorrect or has manipulated or wrong values, the
analysis of such data is useless.
 Value: Refers to the business value of the collected. Even though we have huge amount of data, but it is not useful for gaining profits in
the business, such data is useless.
 Variability: Refers to the ways in which the big data can be used and formatted.

The data analytics framework consists of six steps namely: collection, cleaning, integration, analysis, visualization and alerting.

Communications protocols form the backbone for IoT systems. They allow devices to communicate with each other. Protocols define the data
exchange formats, data encoding and addressing schemes for devices. Protocols also provide flow control, error control, and other functions.

Embedded system can be imagined as computing hardware with software embedded in it. An embedded system can be an independent system or it
can be a part of another larger system.

An embedded system is a microcontroller or microprocessor based system which is designed to perform a specific task. The key components include
microcontroller/micrprocessor, memory, networking units, I/O, and storage. It runs Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS).

An embedded system has three components. They are:

 Hardware
 Software
 Real Time Operating system (RTOS) that supervises the application software and provide mechanism to let the processor run a process as
per schedule by following a plan to control the latencies

What is RFID (radio frequency identification)?

RFID (radio frequency identification) is a form of wireless communication that incorporates the use of electromagnetic or electrostatic coupling in
the radio frequency portion of the electromagnetic spectrum to uniquely identify an object, animal or person.

How does RFID work?

Generally, RFID uses radio waves to perform AIDC function. AIDC stands for Automatic Identification and Data Capture technology which
performs object identification and collection and mapping of the data.
An antenna is an device which converts power into radio waves which are used for communication between reader and tag. RFID readers
retrieve the information from RFID tag which detects the tag and reads or writes the data into the tag. It may include one processor, package,
storage and transmitter and receiver unit

Working of RFID System :

Every RFID system consists of three components: a scanning antenna, a transceiver and a transponder. When the scanning antenna and
transceiver are combined, they are referred to as an RFID reader or interrogator. There are two types of RFID readers — fixed readers and
mobile readers. The RFID reader is a network-connected device that can be portable or permanently attached. It uses radio waves to transmit
signals that activate the tag. Once activated, the tag sends a wave back to the antenna, where it is translated into data.
The transponder is in the RFID tag itself. The read range for RFID tags varies based on factors including the type of tag, type of reader, RFID
frequency and interference in the surrounding environment or from other RFID tags and readers. Tags that have a stronger power source also
have a

12). RFID system consists of three components: a scanning antenna, a transceiver and a transponder.

When the scanning antenna and transceiver are combined, they are referred to as an RFID reader or interrogator.

RFID solution typically consists of four RFID system components: RFID tags, RFID Antennas, RFID readers, and RFID software.

1 – RFID Tags
RFID tags are a common form of RFID transponders, which are devices that emit radio waves to transmit information about the object to which they
are attached. RFID tags usually contain a microchip that stores and processes information, such as the tag’s unique identifier and an antenna that
allows the tag to receive and transmit radio signals.
In the case of RFID, there are two primary types of tags: active and passive. Active tags have their own power source, which allows them to transmit
data over long distances. Passive tags rely on the power of the reader to transmit data, and they have a shorter range.
2 – RFID Antennas
RFID antennas are devices that emit radio waves and receive reflected signals from RFID tags. The primary link between the tag and the reader, the
antenna, is the most important RFID system component, as it determines the range, speed, and accuracy of RFID tag reads.
3 – RFID Readers
RFID readers are devices that use antennae to capture and read the radio waves emitted by RFID tags. The antenna sends out a Radio Frequency
(RF) signal that energizes the tag, allowing the tag to reflect back its unique ID code.
The antenna also receives the reflected signal, which is then decoded by the RFID reader and used to identify the specific tag. Depending on the
specific application, an RFID reader may be able to read one tag at a time, or it may be able to read multiple tags simultaneously.

RFID middleware
The middleware refers broadly to software or devices that connect RFID readers and the data they collect, to enterprise information systems. RFID
middleware helps making sense of RFID tag reads, applies filtering, formatting and logic to tag data captured by a reader, and provides this
processed data to back-end applications (Burnell, 2008). RFID middleware serves in managing the flow of data between tag readers and enterprise
applications, and is responsible for the quality, and therefore usability of the information. It provides readers connectivity, context-based filtering and
routing, and enterprise / B2B integration. RFID middleware design and components will be discussed further in the next sections.

RFID middleware is generally composed of four major layers:

 Reader Interface

 Data Processor and Storage

 Application Interface

 Middleware Management

3.1. Reader interface

The reader interface is the lowest layer of the RFID middleware which handles the interaction with the RFID hardware. It maintains the device
drivers of all the devices supported by the system, and manages all the hardware related parameters like reader protocol, air interface, and host-side
communication.

3.2. Data processor and storage

The data processor and storage layer is responsible for processing and storing the raw data coming from the readers. Examples of processing logic
carried by this layer are data filtering, aggregation, and transformation. This layer also processes the data level events associated with a specific
application.

3.3. Application interface

The application interface provides the application with an API to access, communicate, and configure the RFID middleware. It integrates the
enterprise applications with the RFID middleware by translating the applications’ requests to low level middleware commands.

3.4. Middleware management- The middleware management layer helps managing the configuration of the RFID middleware, and provides the
following capabilities:

Add, configure, and modify connected RFID readers;

Modify application level parameters such as filters, and duplicate removal timing window;
Add and remove services supported by the RFID middleware.
Difference between IoE and IoT :

Serial
No. Internet of Everything (IoE) Internet of Things (IoT)

The term IoT coined by Kevin Ashton in 1999 during his work at
1. The term IoE is coined by CISCO.
Procter & Gamble.

IoE is the intelligent connection between people, process, data

IoT is the network of physical devices where collection and
2. and things by creating ‘web of things’ which is the next
exchange of data occurs without human intervention.
generation of internet.

The goal of IoE is turning information into actions, providing The goal of IoT is to form an ecosystem of connected
3. data based decision making and provide new capabilities and objects/physical devices. Or to create an ecosystem connecting from
richer experiences. Thing to Thing.

In IoE, communication occurs between Machine to Machine,

4. In IoT, communication occurs between Machine to Machine.
Machine to People and technology assisted People to People.

It is more complex than IoT as IoE includes IoD (Internet of

It is less complex than IoE as IoT(Internet of Things) is considered
5. Digital), IoH (Internet of Human) and IoT (Internet of
as a part of Bigger IoE ecosystem.
Things).

6. It has four pillars people, process, data, and things. It has one pillar things i.e it focuses on physical objects only.

It is considered as the superset for Internet of Things(IoT),

It is considered as the subset of bigger Internet of Everything(IoE)
7. along with IoH, IoD, communication technologies and the
and IoT is considered one generation before IoE.
internet itself and it is considered a generation after IoT.

Example are Connecting roads with hospitals to save more Examples are Wearable health monitors, Connected appliances,
8. lives, Connecting homes for comfort living, Connecting food Autonomous farming equipment, smarter energy management
and people in the supply chain, Elderly care monitoring. systems, Smart surveillance.

IoT refers to the network of physical devices, vehicles, home

IOE refers to the combination of people, processes, data, and appliances, and other items that are embedded with sensors,
9.
things connected to the internet. software, and network connectivity that allow them to exchange
data.

The scope of IOE is broader and includes people, processes, IoT focuses on connecting physical devices, sensors, and other
10.
data, and things. electronic equipment.

IOE focuses on connecting everything, including people, IoT focuses on connecting physical devices, sensors, and other
11.
processes, data, and things. electronic equipment.
 Serial
No. Internet of Everything (IoE) Internet of Things (IoT)

IOE can be applied in various industries, including healthcare, IoT can be applied in various industries, including healthcare,
12.
transportation, energy, and manufacturing. transportation, energy, and manufacturing.

IOE requires more robust security measures to protect the

IoT also requires security measures, but the focus is on securing
13. exchange of sensitive data between people, processes, and
devices and the data they generate.
things.

Difference between COAP and MQTT protocols:

Basis of COAP MQTT

Abbreviation Constrained Application Protocol Message Queuing Telemetry Transport

Communication Type It uses Request-Response model. It uses Publish-Subscribe model

Messaging Mode This uses both Asynchronous and Synchronous. This uses only Asynchronous

This mainly uses Transmission Control

This mainly uses User Datagram protocol(UDP)
Transport layer protocol protocol(TCP)

Header size It has 4 bytes sized header It has 2 bytes sized header

RESTful based Yes it uses REST principles No it does not uses REST principles

It supports and best used for live data

It does not has such support
Persistence support communication

Message Labelling It provides by adding labels to the messages. It has no such feature.

It is used in Utility area networks and has secured

It is used in IoT applications and is secure
Usability/Security mechanism.

Effectiveness Effectiveness in LNN is excellent. Effectiveness in LNN is low.

Communication Model Communication model is one-one. Communication model is many-many.

Real-World Applications of RFID

Agriculture
RFID can be useful to track the movement and health of animals on a farm. It ensures that each animal on the farm is consuming the correct food.
Monitoring your cattle’s health manually can be costly as well time-consuming.

Jewelry Tracking

RFID has successfully managed to mitigate the challenge of jewelry security.

With item-level tagging of jewelry with RFID, it’s possible to track the jewelry right from the factory to the distribution center and, ultimately, to the
store. Moreover, this process is both convenient and cost-effective.

Defense
RFID also has a key application in defense. It’s used for weapon and soldier’s movement tracking.

Moreover, it provides real-time information, so it becomes easy to track down the location of a weapon.

Laundry Automation
In large companies where they have a huge number of employee uniforms, RFID can be useful in creating a laundry management system.

It can track the uniforms that were assigned to an employee, the number of times it was washed, age of uniforms, and identifies the missing uniform.

Library Systems
RFID systems in a library help in enhancing the efficiency of circulation operations. Libraries often use barcodes with proper positioning and line of
sight.

Whereas with RFID tags, you scan it from multiple angles, which makes the check-in and check-out process faster than that of a barcode.

RFID in Supply Chain Management and Logistics

Supply chain management and logistics is the most fertile field as far as the applications of RFID are concerned. Let’s consider all the elements of

supply chain management one by one.

Inventory Management
Inventory management is an important element of supply chain management. It includes various aspects like monitoring, administering, controlling,
storing, and ultimately using the materials for the sale of a product.

Inaccuracy in inventory management is inevitable and prevalent in many industries. The inaccuracy is nothing but the mismatch between inventory
records and the actual amount of product available for sale.

.Warehouse Management

Warehouses are simply a storage area where you store different products received from the suppliers. These products are then distributed to the
customers.

Recently, RFID has emerged as a technology that supports warehouse management systems for simpler supply chain and greater product
intelligibility..

RFID also increases the efficiency of identification and validation activities along with reducing human errors.

Retail Sector
RFID technology has already started to revolutionize the retail sector. Wal-Mart, a behemoth in the retail sector, is experimenting with the passive
RFID tags of passive types to meet high consumer demand.

RFID increases product visibility in the retail inventory that helps in better inventory control and customer experience.

This is highly relevant in larger stores that have a facility of customers searching for their chosen products online, which the store has the current
stock available for sale.

Secondly, RFID provides enhanced product identification by storing a distinctive identification number.

Challenges in RFID Implementation

RFID Is a Costly Affair

RFID requires costly equipment — whether it be software or hardware. Moreover, talking about the tags, be it active, passive, or semi-passive, are a
costly affair and has the capability to set the business backward.

The rates of RFID tags have lowered since the 1970s, but still, many companies are reluctant to adopt it due to its steep prices.

Trouble With Metals and Liquids

RFID doesn’t go well with metals and liquids as they both make it difficult to obtain proper reads on assets. In metals, the radio waves bounce all
over the place.

Similarly, the liquid can absorb the signals from the RFID tags.

Difficult to Understand the Technology

It’s difficult to understand about the different tags and frequencies. Managers need to understand the technology well so that they can train their
employees about its working.

RFID Collision Course

Workers often come across reader and tag collisions. In reader collision, a worker faces the interferences from another reader in the field.

Similarly, in tag collision, the workers face reading an abundant amount of tags at a time. It occurs when more than one tag reflects a signal that
confuses the reader.