Internet of Things: Concept, Building blocks, Applications and Challenges

0.61 MB·

by  Riad Abdmeziem

Internet of Things: Concept, Building blocks, Applications and
Challenges
Riad Abdmeziem, Djamel Tandjaoui
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January 28, 2014
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n Keywords: Internet Of Things, RFID, WSN, The pervasive presence around us of various wire-
a Smart Environments, Pervasive computing. less technologies - such as Radio-Frequency IDen-
J
tification (RFID) tags, sensors, actuators, mobile
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phones,etc. inwhichcomputingandcommunication
Abstract
systemsareseamlesslyembeddedwillformthebuild-
]
Y ing block of the IoT concept [9]. The IoT’s full de-
Internet of things (IoT) constitutes one of the most
C ployement will give rise to new opportunities for the
importanttechnologythathasthepotentialtoaffect
. InformationandCommunicationTechnologies(ICT)
s deeplyourwayoflife,aftermobilephonesandInter-
c sector,pavingthewaytonewapplications,providing
net. Thebasicideaisthateveryobjetthatisaround
[ new ways of working; new ways of interacting; new
us will be part of the network (Internet), interacting
ways of entertainment; new ways of living [2].
1 to reach a common goal. In another word, the Inter-
v
netofThingsconceptaimstolinkthephysicalworld
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to the digital one. Technology advances along with Technology advances along with popular demand
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8 popular demand will foster the wide spread deploye- will foster the wide spread deployement of IoT’s ser-
6 ment of IoT’s services, it would radically transform vices, it would radically transform our corporations,
. ourcorporations,communities,andpersonalspheres. communities, and personal spheres. From the per-
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0 In this survey, we aim to provide the reader with a spectiveofaprivateuser,IoT’sintroductionwillplay
4 broad overview of the Internet of things concept, its a leading role in several services in both working
1 building blocks, its applications along with its chal- and domestic fields -such as Domotics, e-health, e-
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v lenges. learning, security and surveillance, etc. In the same
i manner, from the business point of view, IoT will
X
bring a deep change in the way automation, indus-
r 1 Introduction
a trial manufacturing, logistics, business/process man-
agement and transportation of goods and people are
Duringthepastfewyears,theacesstotheInternet
handleled.
has evolved from static (desktop) access to a more
mobileanddynamicone, usingseveraldevices-such
as Mobile phones,Tablets, Televisions, etc. In this Implementation of IoT paradigm rely on the inte-
context a novel paradigm named Internet Of Things gration of RFID systems, Wireless Sensor Networks,
(IoT) is rapidly gaining ground. The basic idea is intelligenttechnologies(usingknowledgetosolvecer-
that every objet that is around us will be part of the tain problems and mainly covering Artificial Intelli-
network (Internet), interacting to reach a common gence [10]) and nanometer technologie (concentrat-
goal, in another word, the Internet Of thing concept ing on the characteristic and application of materi-
aim to link the physical world to the digital one. als of size between 0.1 and 100 nm). Up to this
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day, since research of IoT is still embryonic there
exist no common IoT architecture. Nowadays the
Electronic Product Code (EPC) network architec-
ture supported by EPCglobal [1] together with the
Unique/Universal/UbiquitousIDentifier(UID)archi-
tecture in Japan [16] are the most representative
among others. The main idea underlying EPCglobal
network is to use RFID and wireless technologies to
wrapeveryday’sliveobjectsandconnectthemtothe
traditional Internet, while, UID provides middleware
based solutions for a global visibility of objects.
Several challenges stand between the conceptual
idea of IoT and its full deployement into our daily
life. Main issues are : making complete interoper-
ability of heteregenous interconnected devices which
requireadaptationandautonoumousbehaviourwhile
guaranteeingtrust, privacy, andsecurity; networking
Figure 1: Internet of Things paradigm as a result of
aspect is not in rest, low computation and energy
the convergence of different visions
capacities that characterized the things of the IoT
bring ressource effeciency as a fundamental element
in the proposed solutions. Around the globe, several
industrial, standardization and research bodies are
currently involved in the devloppement of solutions
in order to bring answers to the highlighted techno-
logical requirements. shall be the result of the convergence of three main
visions: internet-oriented (middleware), things ori-
ented(sensors)andsemantic-oriented(knowledge)as
In this survey, we aim to provide to the reader an
shown in Figure 1. Perspective of Things: This
overview of the IoT concept, the different enabling
perspective focuses on how to integrate generic ”ob-
technologies,researchchallengesandtheimplications
jects”or”Things”intoacommonframework,andthe
of a wide spread diffusion of IoT. The remainder of
”Things” under investigation are RFID tags. RFID
this paper is organized as follows: in Section 2, def-
isconsideredasaoneoftheleadingtechnologies[12],
initions of IoT from various perspectives are intro-
mainly due to its maturity and low cost, and conse-
duced. Section 3 introduces the main IoT enabling
quently its strong support from the business com-
technologies. The applications of IoT already avail-
munity. Nevertheless, IoT is more than a global
able are summarized in Section 4. Section 5 states
EPC system where the only objects are RFID tags.
the research challenges. Finally Section 6 gives the
Besides that,United Nations (UN) has also stated
conclusion.
that the perspective of ”Things” of IoT goes beyond
RFID. It is stated in a UN report that a new era of
2 Definition and vision ubiquity is coming where the users of the Internet
will be counted in billions, and where humans may
InInternetofthings(IoT),hugenumberofsmallde- become the minority as generators and receivers of
vices will be connected to the Internet in some way. traffic. Changes brought about by Internet will be
IoT’s definition is usually studied through various dwarfed by those prompted by the networking of ev-
perspectives. According to [10], the IoT paradigm eryday objects.
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The consortium CASAGRAS 1 also proposes an Within the latter category falls the IoT vision of
IoT vision statement that goes well beyond a mere theIPSO(IPforSmartObjects)Alliance[8],aforum
”RFID centric” approach. Its members focus on a formed in September 2008 by 25 founding compa-
world where things can automatically communicate nies to promote the Internet Protocolas the network
to computers and each other, providing services to technology for connecting Smart Objects around the
the benefit of the human kind. It not only proposes world. This vision favors the Internet protocols as
IoT would connect both virtual and physical generic the network technology for connecting smart objects
objects as a global infrastructure, but also empha- around the world. According to IPSO, the IP stack
sizes the importance of incorporating the traditional isalightweightprotocolthatalreadyconnectsahuge
Internet related technologies and infrastructures in amount of communicating devices and runs on tiny
the development of IoT. Similarly, other relevant in- and battery operated embedded devices. Reducing
stitutionshavestressedtheconceptthatIoThaspri- the complexity of the IP stack in order to design a
marily focused on the ”Things” and that the road to protocoltorouteIPoverthings isthepromotedidea.
its full deployment has to start from the augmenta-
tionintheThingsintelligence. Fromthething’sper- Furthermore, as the Internet is running out of ad-
spective,theInternationalTelecommunicationUnion dresses, in the near future it will be moving to a
(ITU) has given the following definition of the IoT: new protocol, IPv6. The current system, IPv4, has
from anytime, any place connectivity for anyone, we roughlyfourbillionaddresses. Thenewaddressspace
will add a connectivity for anything . The same def- cansupport(about3.41038)addresses,whichmeans,
inition is given by the European Commission, it re- to take a commonly used analogy, that it provides
lates to : things having identities and virtual per- enough addresses for every grain of sand on every
sonalities operating in smart spaces using intelligent beach in the world! While it is unlikely that we will
interfacestoconnectandcommunicatewithinsocial, beassigningIPaddressestograinsofsand,theideaof
environmental, and user contexts [3]. assigningthemtoeachofthemoreorless5,000daily
objects that surround us, is quite appealing. With
the right technology in each object (e.g., an RFID
Perspective of Internet: “A world where things
tag) and the right network in the surroundings, it
can automatically communicate to computers and
will become easy to locate and catalogue items in a
eachotherprovidingservicestothebenefitofthehu-
few seconds and to reap the benefits of the vast ar-
mankind”,thisvisionisbroughtbytheCASAGRAS
ray of new information that communications among
consortium, avisionofIoT asaglobal infrastructure
them will provide. IPv6 is undoubtedly one of the
which connects both virtual and physical generic ob-
steps to making the Internet of Things a reality[6].
jectsandhighlightstheimportanceofincludingexist-
ing and evolving Internet and network developments
init. Inthissense,IoTbecomesthenaturalenabling Reducing the complexity of the IP stack and in-
architecture for the deployment of independent fed- corporatingIEEE802.15.4intotheIParchitectureis
erated services and applications, characterized by a looked as the wisest way to to move from the Inter-
highdegreeofautonomousdatacapture,eventtrans- netofDevicestotheInternetofThings. Accordingto
fer, network connectivity and interoperability. This the IPSO and 6LoWPAN 2, the IoT will be deployed
definitionleadstotheInternetorientedvisionofIoT, by means of a sort of simplification of the current
while the perspective of things focuses on integrat- IP to adapt it to any object and make those objects
ing generic objects into a commun framework, the addressable and reachable from any location.
perspective of ”Internet” pushes towards a network
oriented definition. Perspective of Semantics: The basic idea behind
is that the number of items involved in the futur In-
1Coordination And Support Action for Global RFID-
relatedActivitiesandStandardisation 2IPV6LowPowerWirelessPersonnalAreaNetwork
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ternet Of Things is likely to become very high, thus,
issues related to how to represent, store, intercon-
nect, search, and organize information generated by
the IoT will become very challenging.
Such development will also necessarily create de-
mand for a much wider integration with various ex-
ternal resources, such as data storages, information
services,andalgorithms,whichcanbefoundinother
units of the same organization, in other organiza-
tions, or on the Internet. Therefore, issues of rep-
resenting, storing, searching, and interconnecting in-
formation generated in IoT will become very chal-
lenging.
In this context, semantic technologies could play a
key role. In fact, these can exploit appropriate mod-
eling solutions for things description, reasoning over
data generated by IoT, semantic execution environ-
ments and architectures that accommodate IoT re-
quirements [9].
Figure 2: IoT Elements
3 IoT elements
computationnalcapabliltiessensornodeswillhaveto
The Internet of things is unlikely to rise as a brand be equipped with a battery. While a number of solu-
new class of systems. An incremental develope- tionsforincreasingenergyefficiency atvariouslayers
ment path, along which IoT technologies will be of the OSI model has been devised, the need to re-
progressivly employed to extend existing ICT sys- place batteries from time to time represents a huge
tems/applications,providingadditionnalfunctionali- barrier to the widespread development of IoT. Be-
tiesrelatedtotheabilityofinteractingwiththephys- sides, nodes in a classical wireless sensor network are
icalrealm. Thissectionfocusesontheenablingtech- expected to possess a set of common characteristics,
nologiesthatareexpectedtoformthebuildingblocks and to share a number of common features including
of the IoT, each technology is briefly presented with a full protocol stack. While advances in embedded
itssupposedimpactontheIoT’sdevloppement. Fig- electronics and software are making such a require-
ure2givesanoverviewofthemaintechnologiesthat mentlessandlessstringent, solutionsabletoaccom-
will be involved in the future IoT. modate heterogeneity in terms of supported features
shouldbeintroducedtoeaseincrementaldeployment
[2].
3.1 Sensing, computing and identifi-
cation technologies
Wireless technologies will play a key role in the
The ability of sensing the environement and to self- futur IoT, in a way where the major part of data
organize into ad hoc networks represent an impor- traffic between objects will be carried in a wireless
tant feature from the IoT perspective. Nevertheless, way. Otherwisethereductionintermsofsize,weight,
some limiting factors stands in front of a widespread energy consumption, and cost of the radio can lead
adoption: Energy management of the futur embed- us to a new era where radios could be integrated in
deddevicesisacrucialissue, inordertogetminimal almost all objects and thus, add the world anything
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Figure 3: RFID tag and reader
to the Anytime, anywhere, anymedia vision.
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and radio-
Figure 4: Wireless Sensor Network
frequencyidentification(RFID)areconsideredasthe
twobuildingblocksofthesensingandcommunication
technologies in the futur IoT: readers have their own battery supply and can in-
stantiate the communication. Obviously the radio
coverageisthehighestforactivetags,though,thisis
3.1.1 RFID
achieved at the expenses of higher production costs
RFIDtechnologyisamajorbreakthroughintheem- . Oftheseveralapplications, themainapplicationof
bedded communication paradigm which enables de- activeRFIDtagsisinportcontainersformonitoring
sign of microchips for wireless data communication. cargo [9].
RFIDtagsareexpectedtoplayakeyroleasenabling Sensor networks will also play a crucial role in the
identification technology in IoT. They help in au- IoT. In fact, they can cooperate with RFID systems
tomatic identification of anything they are attached to better track the status of things, i.e., their loca-
to acting as an electronic barcode. From a physical tion, temperature, movements, etc. As such, they
point of view, as shown in Figure 3 ,a RFID tag is a can augment the awareness of a certain environment
smallmicrochipattachedtoanantenna(thatisused and, thus, act as a further bridge between physical
for both receiving the reader signal and transmitting and digital world.
the tag ID) in a package which usually is similar to
anadhesivesticker. Dimensionscanbeverylow: Hi-
3.1.2 WSN
tachi has developed a tag with dimensions 0.4 mm x
0.4 mm x 0.15 mm.
Sensor networks consist of a certain number, which
can be very high, of sensing nodes communicating in
The passive RFID tags are not battery powered awirelessmulti-hopfashion[7]asshowninFigure4.
and they use the power of the readers interrogation Usually nodes report the results of their sensing to
signal to communicate the ID to the RFID reader. a small number (in most cases, only one) of special
This has resulted in many applications particularly nodes called sinks. A large scientific literature has
in retail and supply chain management. The appli- beenproducedonsensornetworksintherecentpast,
cations can be found in transportation (replacement addressingseveralproblemsatalllayersoftheproto-
oftickets,registrationstickers)andaccesscontrolap- colstack. Designobjectivesoftheproposedsolutions
plications as well. The passive tags are currently be- are energy efficiency (which is the scarcest resource
ingusedinmanybankcardsandroadtolltagswhich in most of the scenarios involving sensor networks),
is among the first global deployments. Active RFID scalability (the number of nodes can be very high),
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reliability (the network may be used to report ur-
gent alarm events), and robustness (sensor nodes are
likely to be subject to failures for several reasons).
Today, most of commercial wireless sensor network
solutions are based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard,
which defines the physical and MAC layers for low-
power, low bit rate communications in wireless per-
sonal area networks (WPAN). IEEE 802.15.4 does
not include specifications on the higher layers of the
protocol stack, which is necessary for the seamless
integration of sensor nodes into the Internet.
Integration of sensing technologies into passive
RFID tags would enable a lot of completely new ap-
plications into the IoT context. Sensing RFID sys-
temswillallowtobuildRFIDsensornetworks,which
Figure 5: IoT middleware architecture
consist of small, RFID-based sensing and computing
devices,andRFIDreaders,whicharethesinksofthe
datageneratedbythesensingRFIDtagsandprovide
for service composition. Figure 5 addresses the mid-
the power for the network operation.
dleware issues with a complete and integrated archi-
tectural approach. Each layer is briefly presented:
3.2 Middleware
The middleware is a software layer or a set of sub-
Applications: Applications are on the top of the
layers interposed between the technological and the
architecture,exportingallthesystemsfunctionalities
application level. Its main feature of hiding the de-
to the final user. the integration between distributed
tails of different technologies is fundamental to keep
systems and applications is ensured through the
the programmer away from issues that are not di-
use of standard web service protocols and service
rectly pertinent to her/his focus, which is the devel-
composition technologies.
opmentofthespecificapplicationenabledbytheIoT
infrastructures. The middleware is gaining more and
Service composition: This is a common layer on
more importance in the last years due to its major
top of a SOA-based middleware architecture. It
role in simplifying the development of new services
provides the functionalities for the composition of
and the integration of legacy technologies into new
single services offered by networked objects to build
ones. This spares the programmer from the exact
specific applications. On this layer there is no no-
knowledge of the heterogeneous set of technologies
tionofdevicesandtheonlyvisibleassetsareservices.
adopted by the lower layers[10].
Service management: This layer provides the
As far as frameworks for developing IoT applica- main functions that are expected to be available for
tions are concerned, a major role is expected to be each object and that allow for their management in
played by approaches based on service-oriented com- theIoTscenario. Thislayermightenabletheremote
puting(SOC). SOC proposes a possibly distributed deploymentofnewservicesduringrun-time, inorder
architecture, whereby entities are treated in a uni- to satisfy application needs. A service repository
form way and accessed via standard interfaces pro- is built at this layer so as to know which is the
viding a common set of services and an environment catalogue of services that are associated to each
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object in the network. theubiquitouscomputingconcept, looselydefinedas
the embedding of computational devices into the en-
Object abstraction: The IoT relies on a vast vironment [4].
and heterogeneous set of objects, each one providing
specific functions accessible through its own dialect.
AmI shares with IoT a number of aspects. This
There is thus the need for an abstraction layer capa-
comprises the inclusion in the system of sens-
ble of harmonizing the access to the different devices
ing/computing capabilities embedded in the envi-
with a common language and procedure.
ronment. Nevertheless, AmI applications have been
A service-oriented architecture (SOA) is mainly a
mainly developed for closed environments (e.g., a
collection of services, which communicate with each
room,abuilding),wherebyanumberofspecificfunc-
other via a set of standardized interaction patterns.
tions, known at design time, can be accommodated
The communication can involve either simple mes-
and supported. Accordingly, one of the main fo-
sage passing or it could involve two or more ser-
cus of research in AmI has been the development of
vicescoordinatingsomeactivityviaappropriatepro-
reasoning techniques for inferring activities of users
tocols. Currently, many SOC deployments make use
and proposing appropriate response strategies from
of Web-based protocols (e.g., http) for supporting
the embedded devices. IoT expands the AmI con-
interoperability across administrative domains and
cepts to integrate open scenarios, whereby new func-
enabling technologies. SOC can be used to man-
tions/capabilities/servicesneedtobeaccommodated
age web services and make them act like a virtual
at run-time without them having been necessarily
network, adapting applications to the specific users
considered at design time. This requires IoT solu-
needs. Service-orientedarchitecturessupportagiven
tions to be inherently autonomic, i.e., presenting the
level of heterogeneity and flexibility in the software
self-configurationandself-organization,possiblycog-
modules, nevertheless, to be deployed and executed,
nitive, capabilities needed to provide this additional
SOC/SOA in general and Web services in particu-
degree of flexibility.
lar, cannot be straightforwardly applied to the con-
struction of IoT applications. In particular, such ap-
IoT application scenarios require applications to
proaches, at least in their current form, may prove
prove adaptable to highly diverse contexts, with dif-
too heavyweight for being deployed on resources-
ferent resources available and possibly deployment
constrained devices. Nonetheless, they represent a
environments changing over time. A number of ap-
very powerful approach in terms of abstracting func-
proaches have been proposed to overcome devices
tionality from the specific software implementation
heterogeneity in related scenarios. All the efforts re-
as well as for ensuring integration and compatibility
quired in terms of development of IoT architectures,
of IoT technologies into the bigger Future Internet-
methods for management of resources, distributed
Future Web perspective[2].
communicationandcomputation,representthebase-
line for the introduction of innovative services that
3.3 Ambient intelligence and self
will improve user’s experience.
management systems
A parralel can be established between IoT and am- IoTserviceswillberesponsiveinnature,beingable
bient intelligence, as a matter of fact, IoT shares a to anticipate user needs, according to the situation
number of characteristics with ambient intelligence. they are in, by means of dynamic resource manage-
In Ambient Intelligence (AmI), environments rich mentschemesandon-the-flycompositionofdifferent
in sensing/computing/actuation capabilities are de- service components. This requires applications to be
signedsotorespondinanintelligentwaytothepres- abletounderstandthecontextandsituationtheuser
ence of users, thereby supporting them in carrying is in. Such a theme has been addressed within the
out specific tasks. Ambient intelligence builds upon ambientintelligence,ambientassistedlivingandper-
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vasive computing fields, leading to a number of solu-
tions able to leverage contextual information coming
from a number of sources.
Services in IoT are expected to be able to seam-
lessly adapt to different situations and contexts. A
number of research efforts for building self-adaptive
situatedserviceshavebeenundertakeninthelastfew
years [11]. However, we are still far from reaching a
global understanding of how to develop self-adaptive
services presenting the flexibility level required by
IoTscenarios. Mostoftheapproachesproposedhave
beenconceived tobeappliedtoa single, well-defined
specific application field. What is needed to foster
the deployment of IoT applications is instead a set Figure 6: Applications domains and relevant major
of design patterns that can be used to augment end- scenarios
user applications with self-adaptive properties. This
requiresmethodsfordiscovering,deployingandcom-
4.1 Personal and social
posing services at run-time in a distributed fashion,
supportingautonomicitywithinallphasesoftheser-
In this domain, the sensor information collected is
vice life-cycle. While smart objects may be able to
used only by the individuals who directly own the
run some limited and lightweight services, one key
network. Usually WiFi is used as the backbone en-
aspect of IoT is the integration with the Internet in-
ablinghigherbandwidthdata(video)transferaswell
frastructure, i.e., the cloud. This may take the form
ashighersamplingrates(Sound). Ubiquitoushealth-
of appropriate Web-based services and applications,
care has been envisioned for the past two decades.
able to leverage data and/or atomic services made
IoT gives a perfect platform to realize this vision us-
availablebysmartthingstoprovidevalue-addedser-
ing body area sensors and IoT backend to upload
vices to the end user.
the data to servers. For instance, a Smartphone can
be used for communication along with several inter-
4 Applications faceslikeBluetoothforinterfacingsensorsmeasuring
physiological parameters. So far, there are several
applicationsavailableforAppleiOS,GoogleAndroid
Enabling the objects in our everyday working or liv-
and Windows Phone operating system that measure
ing environment to possibly communicate with each
various parameters.
other and elaborate the information collected will
make a lot of applications possible.
As shown in figure 6 ,there are several application An extension of the personal body area network
domains which will be impacted by the emerging In- is creating a home monitoring system for aged-care,
ternet of Things. IoT technologies, which are either which allows the doctor to monitor patients and el-
directlyapplicableorclosertoourcurrentlivinghabi- derlyintheirhomestherebyreducinghospitalization
tudes, mightbeclassifiedintothefollowingdomains: coststhroughearlyinterventionandtreatment. Con-
Personal and social, Business environement, Service trol of home equipment such as air conditioners, re-
and utility monitoring and Mobility and transporta- frigerators, washing machines etc., will allow better
tion based on the type of network availability, cover- home and energy management. This will see con-
age, scale, heterogeneity, repeatability, user involve- sumersbecomeinvolvedinIoTrevolutioninthesame
ment and impact. manner as the Internet revolution itself.
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Social networking is set to undergo another trans- As a result of applications, the reaction time of tra-
formationwithbillionsofinterconnectedobjects. An ditional enterprises is 120 days from orders of cus-
interesting development will be using a Twitter like tomerstothesupplyofcommoditieswhileWal-Mart
concept where Things in the house can periodically applying these technologies only needs few days and
tweet the readings which can be easily followed from can basically work with zero safety stock [3].
anywhere creating a TweetOT. Although this pro-
vides a common framework using cloud for informa-
4.3 Service and utiliy monitoring
tion access, a new security paradigm willbe required
for this to be fully realized [9]. Theinformationfromthenetworksinthisapplication
domain are usually for service optimisation rather
4.2 Business environement thanconsumerconsumption. Itisalreadybeingused
by utility companies (smart meter by electricity sup-
We refer to the Network of Things within a work en- ply companies) for resource management in order to
vironment as an enterprise based application. Infor- optimise cost vs. profit. These are made up of very
mationcollectedfromsuchnetworksareusedonlyby extensive networks (usually laid out by large organi-
the owners and the data may be released selectively. sation on regional and national scale) for monitoring
Environmentalmonitoringisthefirstcommonappli- critical utilities and efficient resource management.
cation which is implemented to keep a track of the The backbone network used can vary between cellu-
numberofoccupantsandmanagetheutilitieswithin lar, WiFi and satellite communication.
the building.
Smart grid and smart metering is another po-
Sensorshavealwaysbeenanintegralpartoffactory tential IoT application which is being implemented
setup for security, automation, climate control, etc. around the world. Efficient energy consumption can
This will eventually be replaced by wireless system be achieved by continuously monitoring every elec-
giving the flexibility to make changes to the setup tricity point within a house and using this informa-
wheneverrequired. ThisisnothingbutanIoTsubnet tion to modify the way electricity is consumed. This
dedicated to factory maintenance. information at the city scale is used for maintaining
theloadbalancewithinthegridensuringhighquality
Real-timeinformationprocessingtechnologybased of service. Video based IoT which integrates image
on RFID and NFC (Near Field Communication) will processing, computer vision and networking frame-
be widely used in supply chain, due to their low works will help develop a new challenging scientific
costandlowrequirement. Accordingly, accurateand research area at the intersection of video, infrared,
real-timeinformationrelatingtoinventoryoffinished microphone and network technologies. Surveillance,
goods, work-in-progress, and in-transit stages with the most widely used camera network applications,
reliable due dates would be obtained. As a result, helps track targets, identify suspicious activities, de-
thedemandforecastwouldbemoreaccurateandex- tect left luggages and monitor unauthorized access.
tra buffers would be unnecessary. Automatic behavior analysis and event detection (as
partofsophisticatedvideoanalytics)isinitsinfancy
and breakthroughs are expected in the next decade
For example, a manufacturer of soft drinks can
[9].
identifywiththeclickofabuttonhowmanycontain-
ersofitssodacansarelikelytoreachtheirexpiration
dateinthenextfewdaysandwheretheyarelocated Disasteralertingandrecoverysystemscouldbesig-
at various grocery outlets. Using this information, it nificantly enhanced. Natural disasters (flood, land-
might modify its future production and distribution slide, forest fire, etc.) and accidental disasters (coal
plans, possibly resulting in significant cost savings. mine accident, etc.) are taking place more and more
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frequently. Technologies in IoT, such like RFID and congestion directly imposes significant costs on eco-
WSNcouldplayacrucialroleindisasteralertingbe- nomic and social activities in most cities. Supply
foreithappens,anddisasterrecoveryafteritends. In chain efficiencies and productivity, including just-in-
ordertolessentheeffectsofnaturaldisasterssuchlike time operations, are severely impacted by this con-
flood, landslide or forest fire, it is necessary to antic- gestion causing freight delays and delivery sched-
ipate its occurrence and to alert in time. The timely ule failures. Dynamic traffic information will af-
access to relevant information on hazardous environ- fectfreightmovement, allowbetterplanningandim-
mental conditions gives residents in the nearing area proved scheduling. [9]
time to apply preparedness procedures, alleviating
the damage and reducing the number of casualties Cars, busesandtaxisaswellasroadsintersections
derived from the event. WSN enables the acquisi- are becoming more instrumented with sensors, actu-
tion, processing and transmission of environmental ators, and processing power. Important information
data from the location where disasters originate to could be collected to realize traffic control and guid-
potentially threatened cities. Then this information ance,helpinthemanagementofthedepots,andpro-
could be used for authorities to rapidly assess criti- vide tourists with appropriate transportation infor-
cal situations and to organize resources. As to acci- mation. One of the successful applications of IoT in
dent disaster recovery, for example, after a coal mine transportation is the Traffic Information Grid (TIG)
accident occurs, instant tracking and positioning of implemented on ShanghaiGrid.
trapped workers using RFID technologies could pro-
videtimelyrescueandlessencasualtiesandeconomic
TIGshieldsallthecomplexitiesininformationcol-
loss to the largest extent. Knowing trapped workers
lection, storage, aggregation and analysis. It uti-
geographic distribution and comparatively accurate
lizes Grid technology to ingrate traffic information
position, the rescue action would be more targeting
collected by sensors and actuators, share traffic data
thus is time-efficient [3].
andtrafficresources,providebettertrafficservicesto
traffic participators, and help to remove traffic bot-
tlenecks and resolve traffic problems. The TIG por-
Waternetworkmonitoringandqualityassuranceof
tal provides users with various information services
drinking water is another critical application that is
andcanbeaccessedbyWebbrowsers,mobilephones,
beingaddressedusingIoT.Sensorsmeasuringcritical
PDAs and other public infrastructure. Services pro-
waterparametersareinstalledatimportantlocations
videdinTIGincludedroadstatusinformation,least-
in order to ensure high supply quality. This avoids
time travel scheme selection, leastcost travel scheme
accidental contamination among storm water drains,
selection, map operation and information query [3].
drinking water and sewage disposal. The same net-
work can be extended to monitor irrigation in agri-
culturalland. Thenetworkisalsoextendedformoni- Apart from the above applications, many others
toringsoilparameterswhichallowsinformeddecision could be described as futuristic since they rely on
making about agriculture. some (communications, sensing, material and indus-
trial processes) technologies that are still to come or
whoseimplementationisstilltoocomplex. Themost
4.4 Mobility and transportation
appealing futuristic applications included robot taxi,
city information model and enhanced game room.
Smart transportation and smart logistics are placed
in a separate domain due to the nature of data shar-
ing and backbone implementation required. Urban 5 Research challenges
traffic is the main contributor to traffic noise pol-
lution and a major contributor to urban air quality In spite of the partial feasability of the IoT concept
degradation and greenhouse gas emissions. Traffic thanks to the advances realized in the enabled tech-
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