Before we start discussing the above topic I want
you to realize that we as civilization have advanced very rapidly in the last
decade, mainly in fields of telecommunication, healthcare, composite materials,
automobiles, efficiency and cost of electronics, etc. There is plethora of
technologies surrounding us that we take for granted. All these made and
continue to make our lives easier in making and managing huge amounts of data.
Without our knowledge, data like calendars, email and memos in our smartphone gets
synchronized with data on internet which prevents us from updating once again
on keyboard. This collective system of knowledge is now referred to as “cloud”.
Cloud computing is ubiquitous now. It is the backbone of every large
organization. That’s why more attention is being given to a ‘secure’ cloud since
privacy and security come first.
The cloud apparently is
a part of internet. Internet is now a widespread thing. Back at starting of
2000’s, having a LAN connection at home used to be a privilege. Now, a decade
later we get data allowance of 25MB on mobile phones for a day at five rupees.
It has become a necessity for everyone to stay connected.
Now, we just have devices
like mobiles, tablets, servers and PCs interconnected across vast networks.
These devices have input-output capabilities in a very limited way. Your laptop
can derive input from human interfaces like mouse, keyboard and joystick,
networks and protocols like Bluetooth, WiFi, Ethernet, etc. and data storages
like SD card, Compact disk and hard drives but cannot seek input from real time
events like reading temperature, recognizing sign language, sensing human
presence. In a nutshell, a microprocessor cannot directly interact with the
beautiful analog world. It needs special devices primarily Analog to Digital
Converter (ADC) to sample signals from real world and this is where signal
processing, microcontrollers (uC) and physical computing come in. A uC is
designed to be robust and for low cost applications where you need just low
power 32KB, 16MHz rather than an excess 2GB, 2GHz.
Connecting
the world
We
have been hearing things like smart homes, smart grid and smart traffic. Now we
are about to know what makes these to be prefixed ‘smart’. The above mentioned
low cost and minimal power devices can change the way we live if they are
interconnected and programmed to behave in a way to communicate and cooperate
with other devices. Many Facebook users skip breakfast but don’t forget to
check number of likes the last uploaded selfie got. What if a box called ‘like
counter’ is build which takes feed from phone’s FB app in background via WiFi and
shows it in a mechanical odometer display? You now need not log in again as you
observe the digits turning up by themselves. A RFID tag can be placed inside
pet dog’s collar. With this thought there are many possibilities like tracking
movements with receivers placed at fixed spots, opening an automated door just
when the dog near its tray so the food doesn’t get spoiled and even tweeting
whenever the dog barks with piezo microphone placed below its jaw.
The picture below gives rough picture of what ‘Internet
of Things (IoT)’ means.
There is a well known contemporary relevant saying.
“Don’t just keep staring at the screen. Shut it and look up. The world is much
more real and beautiful”. The purpose of today’s technology is not to engage us
more in gadgets but to reduce time in managing data and save time to build real
relations and focus on our jobs. To achieve this aim more effectively, IoT is
the next technology revolution which connects objects right from books in
library to vital monitoring wearable computers of health conscious morning
walkers, from pickle jar lids to toilet seats. Kevin Ashton, editor, RFID
journal quoted “The Internet of Things has the
potential to change the world, just as the Internet did. Maybe even more so”.
In large scale and more serious applications
like integrating Bluetooth enabled pacemakers in heart patients, log their
activity and upload them to a huge database where surveys and studies can be
made. In worst case, the nearest ambulance can be alerted if a person suffers from
a cardiac arrest. In other case, temperature and moisture sensors inside soil
of a greenhouse powered by this technology can be fully automated where
sprinklers and thermostats can target specific plants to be watered and
maintained based on their location.
As of now IoT is only confined to
specific environments such as homes and electricity grids in Europe and
America. With microcontrollers and wireless networking devices, we as
individuals can develop prototypes and devise special protocols for Machine to
Machine (M2M) communication and be at forefront of this second wave of internet(of
objects rather than computers) which may have greater impact than what (first)
internet did.
