The Internet of Things revolution started in 2015 and will continue to be strong in 2016. 2015 was the year everyone talked about the Internet of Things. (So was 2014. And 2013.) But unlike before, it was the year everyone started making plans, laying groundwork, and building the infrastructure. Internet of Things is coming. It’s not a matter of if or whether, but when and how. The premise of IoT is that a connected world will offer gains through efficiency.
The Internet of Things (IoT) has been called the next Industrial Revolution — it will change the way all businesses, governments, and consumers interact with the physical world. The Internet of Things (IoT) is an environment in which objects, animals or people are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer the data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. IoT has evolved from the convergence of wireless technologies, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS)
and the Internet. IoT is also called the Internet of Everything. A critical component for the IoT system to be a success will be secure bi-directional communication, mobility and localization services.
In the future, everything will be connected. It won’t just be our phones that access the Internet; it will be our light bulbs, our front doors, our microwaves, our comforters, our blenders. You can call it the Internet of Things, The Internet of Everything, Universal Object Interaction, or your pick of buzzwords that begin with Smart. They all hold as inevitable that everything, everything will be connected, to each other and to the Internet. And this is promised to change the world. Remember that the objects themselves do not benefit us, but what services and functions they make it possible to obtain. We will enjoy the outcome, hopefully even better quality products, informative and reliable services, and even new applications.
There will be lots of money spend on IoT in 2016, the exact sum is hard to define, but it is estimated that nearly $6 trillion will be spent on IoT solutions over the next five years. IoT is now a very large global business dominated by giants (IBM, Intel, Cisco, Gemalto, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Bosch, GE, AT&T, T-Mobile, Telefonica and many others). I see that because it is still a young and quickly developing market, there will be lots of potential in it for startups in 2016.
There will be a very large number of new IoT devices connected to Internet in the end of 2016. According to Business Insider The Internet of Things Report there was 10 billion devices connected to the internet in 2015 and there will be will be 34 billion devices connected to the internet by 2020. IoT devices will account for 24 billion, while traditional computing devicesw ill comprise 10 billion (e.g. smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, etc.). Juniper research predicted that by 2020, there will be 38.5 billion connected devices. IDC says it’ll be 20.9 billion. Gartner’s guess? Twenty-five billion. The numbers don’t matter, except that they’re huge. They all agree that most of those gadgets will be industrial Internet of Things. The market for connecting the devices you use all day, every day, is about to be huge.
Businesses will be the top adopter of IoT solutions because they see ways the IoT can improve their bottom line: lowering operating costs, increasing productivity, expand to new markets and develop new product offerings. Sensors, data analytics, automation and wireless communication technologies allow the study of the “self-conscious” machines, which are able to observe their environment and communicate with each other. From predictive maintenance that reduces equipment downtime to workers using mobile devices on the factory floor, manufacturing is undergoing dramatic change. The Internet of Things (IoT) is enabling increased automation on the factory floor and throughout the supply chain, 3D printing is changing how we think about making components, and the cloud and big data are enabling new applications that provide an end-to-end view from the factory floor to the retail store.
Governments are focused on increasing productivity, decreasing costs, and improving their citizens’ quality of life. The IoT devices market will connect to climate agreements as in many applicatons IoT can be seen as one tool to help to solve those problems. A deal to attempt to limit the rise in global temperatures to less than 2C was agreed at the climate change summit in Paris in December 2015. Sitra fresh market analysis indicates that there is up to an amount of EUR 6 000 billion market potential for smart green solutions by 2050. Smart waste and water systems, materials and packaging, as well as production systems together to form an annual of over EUR 670 billion market. Smart in those contests typically involves use of IoT technologies.
Consumers will lag behind businesses and governments in IoT adoption – still they will purchase a massive number of devices. There will be potential for marketing IoT devices for consumers: Nine out of ten consumers never heard the words IoT or Internet of Things, October 2015! It seems that the newest IoT technology extends homes in 2016 – to those homes where owner has heard of those things. Wi-Fi has become so ubiquitous in homes in so many parts of the world that you can now really start tapping into that by having additional devices. The smart phones and the Internet connection can make home appliances, locks and sensors make homes and leisure homes in more practical, safer and more economical. Home adjusts itself for optimal energy consumption and heating, while saving money. During the next few years prices will fall to fit for large sets of users. In some cases only suitable for software is needed, as the necessary sensors and data connections can be found in mobile phones. Our homes are going to get smarter, but it’s going to happen slowly. Right now people mostly buy single products for a single purpose. Our smart homes and connected worlds are going to happen one device, one bulb at a time. The LED industry’s products will become more efficient, reliable, and, one can hope, interoperable in the near future. Companies know they have to get you into their platform with that first device, or risk losing you forever to someone else’s closed ecosystem.
The definitions what would be considered IoT device and what is a traditional computing devices is not entirely clear, and I fear that we will not get a clear definition for that in 2016 that all could agree. It’s important to remember that the IoT is not a monolithic industry, but rather a loosely defined technology architecture that transcends vertical markets to make up an “Internet of everything.”
Too many people – industry leaders, media, analysts, and end users – have confused the concept of
“smart” with “connected”. Most devices – labeled “IoT” or “smart” – are simply connected devices. Just connecting a device to the internet so that it can be monitored and controlled by someone over the web using a smart phone is not smart. Yes, it may be convenient and time saving, but it is not “smart”. Smart means intelligence.
IoT New or Not? YES and NO. There are many cases where whole IoT thing is hyped way out of proportion. For the most part, it’s just the integration of existing technologies. Marketing has driven an amount of mania around IoT, on the positive side getting it on the desks of decision makers, and on the negative generating ever-loftier predictions. Are IoT and M2M same or different? Yes and no depending on case. For sure for very many years to come IoT and M2M will coexist.
Nearly a dozen contenders are trying to fill a need for long distance networks that cut the cost and power consumption of today’s cellular machine-to-machine networks. Whose technology protocols should these manufacturers incorporate into their gear? Should they adopt ZigBee, Apple’s HomeKit, Allseen Alliance/AllJoyn, or Intel’s Open Interconnect Consortium? Other 802.15.4 technologies? There are too many competing choices.
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, two pioneers of the Internet of Things are expanding their platforms and partnerships. Crowdfunding sites and hardware accelerators are kicking out startups at a regular clip, typically companies building IoT devices that ride Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Bluetooth Special Interest group is expected to release in2016 support for mesh networks and higher data rates.
Although ZWave and Zigbee helped pioneer the smart home and building space more than a decade ago, but efforts based on Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 6LoWPAN are poised to surpass them. Those pioneering systems are actively used and developed. Zigbee Alliance starts certification for its unified version 3.0 specification in few months (includes profiles for home and building automation, LED lighting, healthcare, retail and smart energy). EnOcean Alliance will bring its library of about 200 application profiles for 900 MHz energy harvesting devices to Zigbee networks. Zigbee will roll out a new spec for smart cities. The Z-Wave Security 2 framework will start a beta test in February and Z-Wave aims to strike a collaboration withleading IoT application framework platforms. Zigbee alredy has support Thread.
The race to define, design and deploy new low power wide area networks for the Internet of Things won’t cross a finish line in 2016. But by the end of the year it should start to be clear which LPWA nets are likely to have long legs and the opportunities for brand new entrants will dim significantly. So at the moment it is hard to make design choices. To protect against future technology changes, maybe the device makers should design in wireless connectivity chips and software that will work with a variety of protocols? That’s complicated and expensive. But if I pick only one technology I can easily pick up wrong horse, and it is also an expensive choice.
Within those who want to protect against future technology changes, there could be market for FPGAs in IoT devices. The Internet of Things (IoT) is broken and needs ARM-based field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology to fix it, an expert told engineers at UBM’s Designers of Things conference in San Jose. You end up with a piece of hardware that can be fundamentally changed in the field.
There seems to be huge set of potential radio techniques also for Internet of Things even for long distance and low power consumpion. Zigbee will roll out a new spec for smart cities in February based on the 802.15.4g standard for metro networks. It will compete with an already crowded field of 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz networks from Sigfox, the LoRa Alliance, Ingenu and others. Weightless-P is an open standard announced by Weightless SIG, which operates at frequencies below one gigahertz. Weightless-P nodes and development cards will be expected to be in the market already during the first quarter of 2016, at the moment Weightless IoT Hardware Virtually Unavailable.
I expect LoRa Technology is expected to be hot in 2016. The LoRaWAN standard enables low-data-rate Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) wireless communication with a range of up to 10 miles, a battery life of 10 years, and the ability to connect millions of wireless sensor nodes to LoRaWAN gateways. LoRa® technology works using a digital spread spectrum modulation and proprietary protocol in the Sub-GHz RF band (433/868/915 MHz). I see LoRa technology interesting because lots of activity around in Finland in several companies (especially Espotel) and I have seen a convincing hands-in demo of the LoRa system in use.
It seems that 3GPP Lost its Way in IoT and there is fragmentation ahead in cellular standards. In theory 3GPP should be the default provider of IoT connectivity, but it seems that it has now failed in providing one universal technology. At the moment, there are three major paths being supported by 3GPP for IoT: the machine-type version of LTE (known as LTE-M) and two technologies coming from the Cellular-IoT initiative — NB-IoT and EC-GSM. So here we are with three full standardization efforts in 3GPP for IoT connectivity. It is too much. There will like be a base standard in 2016 for LTE-M.
The promise of billions of connected devices leads everyone to assume that there will be plenty of room for multiple technologies, but this betrays the premise of IoT, that a connected world will offer gains through efficiency. Too many standard will cause challenges for everybody. Customers will not embrace IoT if they have to choose between LTE-M and Sigfox-enabled products that may or may not work in all cases. OEM manufacturers will again bear the cost, managing devices at a regional or possibly national level. Again, we lose efficiency and scale. The cost of wireless connectivity will remain a barrier to entry to IoT.
Today’s Internet of Things product or service ultimately consists of multiple parts, quite propably supplied by different companies. An Internet of Things product or service ultimately consists of multiple parts. One is the end device that gathers data and/or executes control functions on the basis of its communications over the Internet. Another is the gateway or network interface device. Once on the Internet, the IoT system needs a cloud service to interact with. Then, there is the human-machine interface (HMI) that allows users to interact with the system. So far, most of the vendors selling into the IoT development network are offering only one or two of these parts directly. Alternatives to this disjointed design are arising, however. Recently many companies are getting into the end-to-end IoT design support business, although to different degrees.
Voice is becoming more often used the user interface of choice for IoT solutions. Smartphones let you control a lot using only your voice as Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung have their solutions for this. For example Amazon, SoundHound and Nuance have created systems that allow to add language commands to own hardware or apps. Voice-activated interface becomes pervasive and persistent for IoT solutions in 2016. Right now, most smart home devices are controlled through smartphones, and it seems like that’s unlikely to change. The newest wearable technology, smart watches and other smart devices corresponding to the voice commands and interpret the data we produce – it learns from its users, and generate as responses in real time appropriate, “micro-moments” tied to experience.
Monitoring your health is no longer only a small group oriented digital consumer area. Consumers will soon take advantage of the health technology extensively to measure well-being. Intel Funds Doctor in Your Pocket and Samsung’s new processor is meant for building much better fitness trackers. Also, insurance companies have realized the benefits of health technologies and develop new kinds of insurance services based on data from IoT devices.
Samsung’s betting big on the internet of things and wants the TV to sit at the heart of this strategy. Samsung believes that people will want to activate their lights, heating and garage doors all from the comfort of their couch. If smart TVs get a reputation for being easy to hack, then Samsung’s models are hardly likely to be big sellers. After a year in which the weakness of smart TVs were exploited, Samsung goes on the offensive in 2016. Samsung’s new Tizen-based TVs will have GAIA security with pin lock for credit card and other personal info, data encryption, built-in anti-malware system, more.
This year’s CES will focus on how connectivity is proliferating everything from cars to homes, realigning diverse markets – processors and networking continue to enhance drones, wearables and more. Auto makers will demonstrate various connected cars. There will be probably more health-related wearables at CES 2016, most of which will be woven into clothing, mainly focused on fitness. Whether or not the 2016 International CES holds any big surprises remains to be seen. The technology is there. Connected light bulbs, connected tea kettles, connected fridges and fans and coffeemakers and cars—it’s all possible. It’s not perfect, but the parts are only going to continue to get better, smaller, and cheaper.
Connectivity of IoT devices will still have challeges in 2016. While IoT standards organizations like the Open Interconnect Consortium and the AllSeen Alliance are expected to demonstrate their capabilities at CES, the industry is still a ways away from making connectivity simple. In 2016 it will still pretty darn tedious to get all these things connected, and there’s all these standards battles coming on. So there will be many standards in use at the same time. The next unsolved challenge: How the hell are all these things going to work together? Supporting open APIs that connect with various services is good.
Like UPnP and DLNA, AllJoyn could become the best-kept secret in the connected home in 2016 — everyone has it, no one knows about it. AllJoyn is an open-source initiative to connect devices in the Internet of Things. Microsoft added support for AllJoyn to Windows in 2014.
Analysis will become important in 2016 on IoT discussions. There’s too much information out there that’s available free, or very cheaply. We need systems to manage the information so we can make decisions. Welcome to the systems age.
The rise of the Internet of Things and Web services is driving new design principles. The new goal is to delight customers with experiences that evolve in flexible ways that show you understand their needs. “People are expecting rich experiences, fun and social interactions… this generation gets bored easily so you need to understand all the dimensions of how to delight them”
With huge number of devices security issues will become more and more important. In 2016, we’ll need to begin grappling with the security concerns these devices raise. The reality of everything being connected can have unintended consequences, not all of them useful – Welcome to the Internet of stupid (hackable) things.
Security: It was a hot topic for 2015 and if anything it will get hotter in 2016. The reason is clear. By adding connectivity embedded systems not only increase their utility, they vastly increase their vulnerability to subversion with significant consequences. Embedded systems that add connectivity face many challenges, of which the need for security is both vital and misunderstood. But vendors and developers have been getting the message and solutions are appearing in greater numbers, from software libraries to MCUs with a secure root of trust.
Bruce Schneier is predicting that the IoT will be abused in conjunction with DMCA to make our lives worse instead of better. In theory, connected sensors will anticipate your needs, saving you time, money, and energy. Except when the companies that make these connected objects act in a way that runs counter to the consumer’s best interests. The story of a company using copy-protection technology to lock out competitors—isn’t a new one. Plenty of companies set up proprietary standards to ensure that their customers don’t use someone else’s products with theirs. Because companies can enforce anti-competitive behavior this way, there’s a litany of things that just don’t exist, even though they would make life easier for consumers.
Internet of Things is coming. It’s not a matter of if or whether, but when and how. Maybe it’ll be 2016, maybe the year after, but the train is coming. It’ll have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and probably eight other things, and you’ll definitely get a push notification when it gets here.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Simplifying sensor network interactions
http://semiengineering.com/system-bits-july-12/
Given that the IoT consists of millions of sensing devices in buildings, vehicles and elsewhere that deliver reams of data online, and involves so many different kinds of data, sources and communication modes that its myriad information streams can be onerous to acquire and process, scientists at Georgia Tech Research Institute have developed a flexible, generic data-fusion software that simplifies interacting with sensor networks.
The FUSE software is meant to be a framework to standardize the diverse IoT world, and its API lets users capture, store, annotate and transform any data coming from Internet-connected sources.
The researchers stressed that the IoT has always been something of a Tower of Babel, because it gathers data from everywhere – from the latest smart-building microcontrollers and driver-assist vehicles to legacy sensors installed for years, and traditionally, people wanting to utilize IoT information have had to examine the attributes of each individual sensor and then write custom software on an ad-hoc basis to handle it.
Before FUSE, the team said a typical IoT task could require several manual steps but FUSE allows a task that used to involve a week or two, and complete in 10 or 15 minutes by providing a standard way of communicating in the unstandardized world of IoT.
FUSE makes extensive use of the generic representational state transfer (REST) data capability; referred to as RESTful, this widely used Internet standard supports the framework’s ability to receive and transmit divergent data streams.
Standardizing Communications for the Internet of Things
http://www.rh.gatech.edu/news/546651/standardizing-communications-internet-things
The fast-growing Internet of Things (IoT) consists of millions of sensing devices in buildings, vehicles and elsewhere that deliver reams of data online. Yet this far-flung phenomenon involves so many different kinds of data, sources and communication modes that its myriad information streams can be onerous to acquire and process.
Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have developed a flexible, generic data-fusion software that simplifies interacting with sensor networks. Known as FUSE, it provides a framework to standardize the diverse IoT world. Its application programming interface (API) lets users capture, store, annotate and transform any data coming from Internet-connected sources.
The result was FUSE, with capabilities that include:
Providing users with online forms that let them define the sources they need in the form of “domains” – abstract descriptions of how the targeted data interrelate;
Gathering incoming raw data according to user specifications and mapping them into the specified domains. The data can then be transformed and manipulated using “tasks,” which are user-defined JavaScript functions or legacy software that run inside the FUSE service;
Displaying the processed data to users on-screen via an interactive data visualization, exploration and analysis dashboard that supports most data types including numeric, logical, and text data. Users can also devise their own custom dashboards or other interfaces.
FUSE makes extensive use of the generic representational state transfer (REST) data capability. Referred to as RESTful, this widely used Internet standard supports the framework’s ability to receive and transmit divergent data streams.
Tomi Engdahl says:
FPGAs solve challenges at the core of IoT implementation
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-iot-/4442318/FPGAs-solve-challenges-at-the-core-of-IoT-implementation?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_review_20160708&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_review_20160708&elqTrackId=a3622ca5294c436bbb194ce2f1e12343&elq=5911f418b2904351a28495d785d6df64&elqaid=33011&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28834
But to reach the tens of billions of devices projected to make up the IoT, designers will have to overcome significant implementation challenges. Some of the key among them will be making IoT devices power efficient, handling incompatible interfaces, and providing a processing growth path to handle the inevitable increase in device performance requirements. An FPGA-based design approach can help address such challenges.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Power Behind the Protocols: Batteries and the IIoT
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=280892&cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20160711.tst004c
The explosive growth of remote wireless technology is transforming all industrial sectors, from manufacturing and distribution to transportation infrastructure, energy production, environmental monitoring, healthcare, smart metering, and smart buildings, to name a few. The introduction of WirelessHART, ZigBee, LORA, and other low-power communications protocols has created a clear pathway for industrial automation to play a crucial role in the burgeoning Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).
For decades, the leading communications interface for industrial automation has been the Highway Addressable Remote Transducer (HART) communications protocol, which controls nearly 30 million devices used worldwide for process control, asset tracking, safety systems, machine-to-machine (M2M), and system control and data automation (SCADA) applications.
However, despite its popularity, nearly 85% of all potentially HART-enabled devices remain unconnected, with broader adoption hindered by the major expense of hard wiring, which can cost $100 or more per foot to install. This cost barrier becomes even more daunting in remote, environmentally sensitive locations where logistical, regulatory, and permitting hurdles make wireless connectivity a virtual necessity.
Inexpensive Batteries, Hidden Costs
Inexpensive, consumer-grade alkaline batteries can be ideal for wireless devices that are easily accessible and operate within a moderate temperature range (i.e. indoor thermostats and wireless light switches). But alkaline batteries have major drawbacks, including low voltage (1.5V or lower), a limited temperature range (00C to 600C), a high self-discharge rate that reduces life expectancy to one to two years, and crimped seals that may leak.
Choosing the ideal power supply depends on numerous factors: energy consumed in active mode (including the size, duration, and frequency of pulses); energy consumed in dormant mode (the base current); storage time (as normal self-discharge during storage diminishes capacity); thermal environments (including storage and in-field operation); equipment cut-off voltage (as battery capacity is exhausted, or in extreme temperatures, voltage can drop to a point too low for the sensor to operate); battery self-discharge rate (which can be higher than the current draw from average sensor use); and lifetime cost considerations, taking into account replacement costs over time, where applicable.
Industrial-grade lithium batteries are preferred over consumer grade batteries if the device is to be deployed in a hard-to-reach location where battery replacement is difficult or impossible, and where data links cannot be interrupted.
Lithium battery chemistry is preferred for long-term deployments
Bobbin-type LiSOCl2 batteries are commonly deployed in industrial automation applications such as tank level monitoring and asset tracking applications, where remote sensors must endure extreme temperature cycling.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The 5 Important Signposts on the Wireless Design-to-Manufacturing Road
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=280873&cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20160711.tst004c
Designing a wireless product is unlike designing any other type of product. From the solution’s very reason for being to every stage of the design, prototyping, and manufacturing process, working with a wireless product means paying attention to unique steps and stages that aren’t part of “usual” product design.
Fortunately, there are a few signposts to be heeded along the way that will help smooth the path from idea inception to the final manufacturing and marketing of your product. Whether you’re new to wireless product design or want to make sure your teams are covering all the right bases, here are the steps of the process that are key for the timely and cost-effective delivery of your idea from prototype to finished product.
Signpost 1: Is Wireless Functionality Necessary?
Signpost 2: Know the Wireless-specific Requirements and Certifications
Signpost 3: Concepting, Designing, and Prototyping
Signpost 4: Testing and Certification
Signpost 5: Connecting With a Product Design Partner
If reading about the many signposts and cautions along the way of designing and bringing a wireless product to market sounds daunting, then working with a product design partner may be the right choice for you. Doing so doesn’t necessarily mean that you lack the ability to accomplish all of these tasks in-house; it may simply be a function of bandwidth or recognizing that you’ll speed through the process much more quickly with an experienced partner who knows all the rules of the road, so to speak.
If you’re not sure whether your team is up to the task, consider whether you have sufficient electrical, firmware, antennae, and mechanical design experience in-house. Make sure that your capabilities also include a strong understanding of the different limitations of wireless technology, such as the pros and cons of cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth, or others, since some wireless technologies will be a better fit for your product than others.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Crawling the Dark Places for Data
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=280937&cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20160713.tst004c
With a plethora of new data-gathering tools swarming the market, increasing amounts of data is being collected. Yet some of the most important data is going unused because it can’t be found by the right person at the critical time. With all the data coming over the transom, there is plenty of “Dark Data” that isn’t getting analyzed. Consequently, potentially useful trends are missed. Some companies are seeking advances in data collection and storage to help solve the problem. Even machine learning is coming into play so the data you need can find you.
Dark Data is quietly becoming an important issue in product design and production. According to data management experts, product companies need to spend more time analyzing data, instead of just collecting it in overwhelming volume. The dark unused data may hide critical secrets about products, from parts information to customer-use data. This is data they already have but don’t know it.
What Is Dark Data and Where Does it Hide?
Dark Data is a relatively new term. It comes off the heels of Big Data. Once you decide your data is useful, then you have to make sure you can find that data.
“In our view, Dark Data is data that can’t be located when it’s highly relevant and helpful.”
The challenge of Dark Data is that in the past it wasn’t viewed as valuable after it was created.
Product data usually stays in the silo where it was created, and typically, those in one silo can’t search the data in a different silo. “When the data is not within reach, it’s literally not visible”
Organize it So it Can Be Found
One way to keep data within reach of users is to describe it in terms that become part of a company’s dictionary. “If we use the meta-data approach, we organize the data by what it is rather than where it’s stored. We want to find it by accurately describing it,”
Let the Data Find You
Just as Google and Amazon learn your preferences, data management systems can learn a company’s terminology preferences in order to help simplify cross-function searches.
Ultimately, a smart system should be able to find the data no matter who seeks it, whether it’s someone from the design team or someone in sales. “It’s about creating a more unified environment where information can be accessed in common ways. There is no monolithic way to get things done, but making it easy to move from one information system to another helps,” said Milliken. “The PLM vendors are trying to solve the case, but often the PLM doesn’t reach far beyond the engineering side.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Information from wireless transmitters saves energy
Cover Story: Wireless transmitters provide process information and increase energy efficiency in facilities.
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/information-from-wireless-transmitters-saves-energy/2a8b89449aaf3af7a0f801fd4a03d7f2.html?OCVALIDATE&ocid=101781
Every process plant has hundreds if not thousands of measurements it would like to make to save energy. However, installing wired pressure, flow, temperature, or other transmitters in a process plant is expensive. A wired 4-20mA, Profibus, or Foundation Fieldbus transmitter requires power, cabling, conduit, junction boxes, marshalling cabinets, and control system inputs or fieldbus communications. And if the device to be measured is in a hazardous area, this can add even more expense. If the measurement has to be made in a remote area or the top of a tank, the cost of making the measurement with a wired transmitter can be astronomical.
For about one-fifth to one-third of the cost of a wired transmitter-depending on the specific application-a wireless transmitter can be installed and connected back to the control system. Many organizations are taking advantage of wireless transmitters for significant energy savings, with payback periods as quick as two weeks.
Corrective action and optimized cleaning schedules can produce an improved energy intensity index and capacity utilization for a return of over $3 million per year in an average-sized refinery. Heat exchangers can use wireless temperature measurement and analytics software to check the equipment’s health status.
Typically, cooling towers are poorly instrumented, and fans and pumps are checked manually or left unmonitored. Because evaporation is dependent on air temperature, humidity, pH of the water, and fan efficiency, cooling towers present an ideal opportunity to reduce energy and chemical consumption with wireless monitoring.
As electric utilities move more toward time-of-day pricing, there will be a wider differential between peak and off-peak power pricing. Installing wireless power monitoring transmitters can help a plant adjust its operations to reduce energy costs by using power at the right time.
Future plans are to use the power monitoring data to detect when the plant is approaching a consumption level that would trigger power demand charges from the electric utility. With a sufficient advanced warning, they will be able to take advantage of lower off-peak rates and avoid demand charges by shutting down equipment, postponing operations to a period of lower electrical rates, and/or rescheduling processes to minimize consumption.
Wireless transmitters with integral power modules require no wiring infrastructure or power source and no input points at the control system. At one-third to one-fifth the cost of a wired transmitter, wireless devices make it possible to obtain the measurements needed to cut energy costs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Time-sensitive networking and Industrial IoT
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/time-sensitive-networking-and-industrial-iot/30aa873af64b9c46478e469e8d6ae92d.html?OCVALIDATE&ocid=101781
The future of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is built upon the foundation of time-sensitive networking (TSN). IIoT creates a smart system of systems where smarter, hyper-connected devices and infrastructure of manufacturing machines, transportation systems, and the electrical grid will embed sensing, processing, control, and analysis capabilities. Here’s how TSN will help.
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) promises a world of smarter, hyper-connected devices and infrastructure where manufacturing machines, transportation systems, and the electrical grid will be outfitted with embedded sensing, processing, control, and analysis capabilities. Once networked together, they’ll create a smart system of systems that shares data between devices across the enterprise and in the cloud.
Much of today’s network infrastructure is not equipped to handle such time-sensitive data. Many industrial systems and networks were designed according to the Purdue model for control hierarchy in which multiple, rigid bus layers are created and optimized to meet the requirements for specific tasks. Each layer has varying levels of latency, bandwidth, and quality of service, making interoperability challenging and flexibly changing data connections virtually impossible.
Today on Ethernet networks, there is a need for functions such as quality of service, which we can think about as paying to get onto a toll road.
TSN provides not only access to a tollway, or an express lane, but along with providing access, the signals along the way are all very tightly coordinated with time. Not only is there the benefit of a priority through the network, but it can actually guarantee end-to-end scheduling, and every light turns green at the right time.
Certification helps interoperability
The AVnu Alliance, an industry consortium driving open, standards-based deterministic networking, in addition to advancements made to TSN, is working with member companies to drive this next-generation standard and create an interoperable ecosystem through certification. Members are working within the Alliance to develop the foundational elements needed for industrial applications based on the common elements of AVB/TSN.
TSN promises through standard silicon to converge the previously disparate technologies needed for standard Ethernet communication, for deterministic high-speed data transfer, and for high accuracy time synchronization. These developments will create a common foundation that will impact numerous applications and markets ranging from machine control and asset monitoring to test cells and vehicle control.
The keynote speech by Marek Neumann, “The future of self-driving vehicles and how time-coordinated, networked intelligence will make that future a reality,” offered a compelling view of potential developments involving TSN. There were 27 speakers over the two-day conference across markets and industries.
“This year’s TSNA Conference was proof that support for TSN is growing at a rapid rate,”
As IIoT adoption continues, increased amounts of data and widely distributed networks will require new standards for sharing and transferring critical information
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fault detection and IIoT: an umbrella for the cloud
Define and analyze data to improve your operational efficiency.
http://www.plantengineering.com/single-article/fault-detection-and-iiot-an-umbrella-for-the-cloud/9b5017277fb68c72cdd67ee402d794ca.html?OCVALIDATE=
If you manage your company’s national or global maintenance operations-let’s say you manufacture umbrellas-each machine operating in your plant has multiple points of failure (symptoms) with multiple causes. The challenge is to manage the different manufacturing assets worldwide to improve production output, optimize energy consumption and make the system visible for all enterprise users via the cloud. This is a project for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).
Each piece of equipment is an asset of your company. Intelligent asset software can organize all enterprise and equipment data into reusable equipment (asset) classes, which can be organized according to the organization’s hierarchy and factory typology to construct a system.
Fault detection and diagnosis
Siemens
The use of intelligent asset software is a start, as now there is a way to identify and manage assets in an easy-to-manage hierarchical structure. The next step is to connect that system with fault detection and diagnostics (FDD). With individual manufacturing machines connected as manageable assets, you can determine:
Real-time status and alarm data
Historical data
Historical analysis (indicating efficiency curves and energy use)
Run time accumulation/downtime accumulation by cause
Mechanical drawings accessed from a networked computer-aided design (CAD) system
Unit-production data accessed from an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system
Maintenance work order data acquired from a network-connected enterprise asset management (EAM) system
Fault detection rules.
FDD software helps to significantly reduce costs and improve operational efficiency. It incorporates user-customizable fault rules to weigh the probability of equipment failure and advises personnel of immediate preventive actions that can be taken before failure occurs, improving safety and optimizing energy savings.
Using the cloud
The combination of intelligent asset software and an FDD solution are just two-thirds of a complete asset-management solution using IIoT. The additional piece is connecting these systems to the cloud. There are multiple reasons to consider adopting a cloud-based IIoT strategy in relation to managing assets within a manufacturing enterprise including:
Ensure operational uptime
Ensure information technology (IT) security
Future-proof existing IT and operations equipment
Ensure global access to accumulated data.
Without the ability to connect devices from behind firewalls and securely publish data to cloud-based applications, organizations will not be able to achieve the benefits of advanced analytics through computing power in the cloud. IIoT gateways, in the form of hardware devices and software add-ons to existing installed applications inside a manufacturing site or building, play an important role in securely connecting things to the cloud.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teardown: Bluetooth controller for low-cost VR
http://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4442445/Teardown–Bluetooth-controller-for-low-cost-VR?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160803&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160803&elqTrackId=5c2f9bd3557b4cc8846a341b1d69086d&elq=3216d171ec7b46208da2cbb7d768b430&elqaid=33297&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29105
So … let’s see what’s inside, shall we?
Beken BK3231 Bluetooth 3.0 HID (human interface device) profile controlle
So why was this original Bluetooth controller dead on arrival, even though the supplier swore it had been tested prior to shipment to me? The design is highly integrated, therefore with few possible points of solder, trace, or other failure. So my guess is that either the battery itself or its supporting circuitry died.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IIoT hinges on effective security
http://www.plantengineering.com/single-article/iiot-hinges-on-effective-security/da759f5a25bf731c9f8c29fef50be27c.html?OCVALIDATE&ocid=101781
Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS) president Vimal Kapur talked about the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and how cybersecurity will be key as manufacturing starts to embrace its potential in the next few years.
Manufacturing operations will embrace the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), but it will not be a sudden and jarring transformation, rather it will be a long evolutionary process.
The catch is, though, as it is becoming more abundantly clear with everything in the industry, security will be the underlying linchpin that will make or break this new era of operations.
Kapur said IIoT will help solve key business issues all plants face in terms of production efficiency, process reliability and safety.
Change, he said, is not new for the industry and there have been plenty of inflection points over the past few decades or so
“IIoT is an evolution,” Kapur said. “It is moving legacy systems into the new age of technology to take advantage of everything new technology and connectivity have to bring.”
Kapur also talked about a comprehensive cybersecurity offering including:
Audits and remediation
Secure network refresh
Application whitelisting
Risk manager
Secure media exchange
Managed security services.
One of the other elements in an IIoT environment is being able to aggregate data from multi-vendor equipment. That is why they created a comprehensive suite to provide secure connectivity to multi-vendor equipment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Help with IIoT, digital manufacturing
http://www.plantengineering.com/single-article/help-with-iiot-digital-manufacturing/0bc23586ef12a8be9ef0cd2627a74788.html?OCVALIDATE&ocid=101781
Why organizations are helping with Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Industrie 4.0, and digital manufacturing: No one wants to miss opportunities to accelerate.
Many organizations are offering to help with implementation of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Industrie 4.0, and digital manufacturing methods and technologies, in part because of the large measured and perceived benefits of using these frameworks, as explained at the MESA 2016 North American Conference last month.
Academia, industrial companies, technologies partners, and others are collaborating on how to build technology systems for smart manufacturing
Digital manufacturing is the clever use of data at every stage of design and manufacturing, capturing, analyzing, and making sense of data to move products down line more competitively to retain and bring more U.S. jobs, explained Jacob Goodwin, director of membership at the Digital Manufacturing and Design Institute (DMDII). Goodwin said a digital thread connects software and tools, intelligent machining uses sensors to monitor conditions in real time to keep processes with specifications, and advanced analytics are used to get data and derive benefits.
Imagine that regulations require updates to a product design where detailed documentation no longer is available. Digital tools might allow needed design changes within hours that might have otherwise taken months, Goodwin said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft, GE ready to collaborate on IIoT
GE’s Predix operating system to be part of Microsoft’s Azure cloud offering.
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/microsoft-ge-ready-to-collaborate-on-iiot/9c16424be13d12736d00bd1c3c59650a.html?OCVALIDATE&ocid=101781
Two of the biggest names in business—and two of the companies most interested in growing their profile in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)—will collaborate on an industrial cloud platform.
Microsoft will make the Predix platform developed by GE available on Microsoft’s Azure cloud. On its Website, GE describes Predix as “an operating system and platform for building applications that connect to industrial assets, collect and analyze data, and deliver real-time insights for optimizing industrial infrastructure and operations.”
“GE and Microsoft plan to integrate Predix with Azure IoT Suite and Cortana Intelligence Suite along with Microsoft business applications, such as Office 365, Dynamics 365 and Power BI, in order to connect industrial data with business processes and analytics,” Microsoft officials said in a press release
Tomi Engdahl says:
Prototype to Production: Using industrial sensors
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/embedded-basics/4442395/Prototype-to-Production–Using-Industrial-Sensors?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160804&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160804&elqTrackId=1e6fe50616e146ef8c29eeddc47c4e37&elq=62208d8ecdd94191905d68606125f7ac&elqaid=33323&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29130
So far in this series, from prototype to production, we have examined a few fundamental requirements for an industrial IoT controller utilizing Arduino hardware and even how a developer can use Python. Let’s now examine a few tips to keep in mind for interfacing with industrial sensors.
Tip #1 – Beware the interface voltage
Values vary from vendor to vendor, but microcontroller hardware typically expects to see input signal voltages right around the 3.0 – 3.3 Volts mark.
An industrial sensor might be directly connectable to the typical microcontroller, but the odds are that the industrial sensor interface will be anywhere from 5 Volts to as much as 48 Volts depending on the system and sensor.
Tip #2 – Select sensors with standard interfaces
Over the past fifteen years I have come across some extraordinarily cool sensors, but no matter how practical and cutting-edge a sensor is, if it doesn’t have a standard interface watch out! Custom sensor interfaces can be very difficult to interface with.
Keep sensors to known and standard interface such as Analog, CAN, Modbus, Serial, and other interfaces that a microcontroller can easily interpret.
Tip #3 – Use a protocol analyzer for development
Despite the diligence, discipline, and genius that engineers bring to the table, very rarely does code or hardware ever work on the first try. Engineers have gotten very good at minimizing how many issues are encountered but the fact is we still need to debug the system. Scopes work great for watching the raw hardware interface but a protocol analyzer that can decode the data being transmitted can help a developer discover problems very quickly. Protocol analyzers could be stand-alone tools such as a bus monitor or they could be an analyzer built right into a sophisticated oscilloscope.
Tip #4 – Watch out for the Vin trap
On the Arduino hardware that we examined in the previous posts, and on many shields and development kits, it can appear that applying voltage to Vin will result in voltage on the 3V3 and 5V bus pins.
Tip #5 – Use try/except/finally
When developing firmware to communicate with the sensor, don’t assume in a naïve and optimistic manner that everything is going to work as expected. Instead, take the exact opposite approach and assume that things will go wrong. Use try/except/finally Python constructs to catch and handle sensor communication issues.
Conclusions
Interfacing to industrial sensors can pose a few problems to developers. The first hurdle is simply making sure that the sensor and microcontroller hardware interfaces are compatible. Once that hurdle is jumped, the sensor protocol becomes a potential stumbling block.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Packaging advances needed to ensure IoT growth
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-iot-/4442447/Packaging-advances-needed-to-ensure-IoT-growth?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160804&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160804&elqTrackId=a3432b279d2e48d3a2ece124534a6c5e&elq=699d4f3d83e6416b8020b6da87b3a5d2&elqaid=33326&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29133
Many see the Internet of Things (IoT) as the third wave of technology, with the personal computer boom of the late 80’s and early 90’s as the first and the cellular phone as the second wave. In this third wave, engineers will build upon the experience and infrastructure of the first two waves to make day-to-day chores more connected, especially as related to packaging.
he transition to reduced size and increased functionality in the first two waves resulted from an equally dramatic transition from discrete packaged semiconductors to integrated circuits (ICs), and packaging changes of similar magnitude will be needed for the IoT to achieve its anticipated growth.
The Case for a SiP Solution
The requirements outlined are increasing the popularity of integrated system-in-package (SiP) solutions. Some IoT applications are size and height constrained. SiPs are a perfect way to integrate sensors, embedded processors, and RF connectivity into a small form factor.
The value proposition for SiP technology is that it enables the integration of multiple technologies and components in one package, such as combining MEMS and CMOS. Such a combination is not practical with conventional IC integration.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What’s Important For IoT—Power, Performance Or Integration?
http://semiengineering.com/whats-important-for-iot-power-performance-or-integration/
Experts at the table, part 1: Different approaches are being considered for reducing power across a wide range of devices and applications, but pricing is still a challenge.
SE: One of the major issues everyone talks about when it comes to the IoT is power. How do we get the power down? Is it design, materials, or a rethinking of the architecture?
Hardin: One of the things we’re working on with all of our partners are a couple of technologies that don’t get used in wireless networks. One is called DRX (discontinuous reception), and another is called power-save mode. These are new developments that essentially allow even existing technologies to adapt to these solutions. IoT devices aren’t like smart phones where you want to get alerts on your e-mail as soon as it comes in. The network will be aware of these devices and know that they’re going to be asleep for longer periods of time, so it does not de-register them from the network.
Rajan: One of the most important things about power is to realize what the device is going to do. If you have applications that need sustained power, usually they have a low operating requirement. Then they do burst processing, and then they come back down. If you can manage the interplay between power, the current requirement, and the kind of application being run, you can get a lot more juice out of the system.
SE: Where do standards fit in?
Hardin: A lot of wireless technology has been driven by a completely different segment. There had not been attention paid for this particular use case. That now has the focus of folks in standards committees. Now we need to get the volume to develop silicon just for these use cases. Because they don’t sell at the same premium of a cell phone, it has to be in numbers that exceed that. Any technology that improves power and helps drive volume will be helpful.
SE: We’ve heard that 55nm is the mainstream IoT process, but the reality is the IoT includes everything from sensors to servers in a data center.
Rajan: It’s a little bit of all of those. It’s not just which technology is the right one. From a commercial path standpoint, it’s which company is willing to adopt which technology. A few years ago, IoT was slated to be here by now. Now there are reports that IoT is slowing down. There were reports that 40nm was going to be a longer-lived node. Now there are reports that 40 and 28 are going to be longer-lived nodes
Tomi Engdahl says:
Software System Identifies Household Voltage Patterns
http://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/1198-ntb/news/news/25154
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a system that determines exactly how much power is being used by every appliance, lighting fixture, and device in a home.
To enable the MIT technology, no wires need to be disconnected. The placement of the postage-stamp-sized sensors over the incoming power line does not require any particular precision.
Because the system samples data very quickly, the sensors can pick up enough detailed information about voltage spikes and patterns. Dedicated software supports the differentiation between every different kind of light, motor, and other device in the home, showing exactly which ones go on and off, and at what times.
According to the team, the system, once developed into a commercial product, should only about $25 to $30 per home.
What’s wasting power at home? Ask your app!
New system from MIT can identify how much power is being used by each device in a household.
http://news.mit.edu/2016/wasting-power-home-app-0801
Tomi Engdahl says:
Medical IoT Showing Signs Of Life
http://semiengineering.com/iot-will-impact-health-and-medicine/
Mention the Internet of Things and many people think of fitness trackers on their wrists, or an Internet-connected thermostat at home. IoT technology, however, is also extending into the world of clinics, doctors’ offices, and hospitals.
Research and Markets is calling it the Internet of Healthcare Technology, bringing together IoT applications, services, and technologies. Electronic healthcare records, also known as electronic medical records, will be a key element of the IoHT, with real-time health systems drawing on big-data analytics processes and tools to help in diagnoses and treatments, according to the market research firm, which sees cost savings and improved service emanating from the use of IoT in health care.
Grand View Research forecasts the worldwide health-care IoT market will hit almost $410 billion by 2022. IBM’s Watson artificial-intelligence platform is being used in clinical trial matching, drug discovery, and oncology, the market research firm notes. Radio-frequency identification tags will be implemented for asset tracking and transportation, medication management, and development of “smart beds” and “smart pills,” according to Grand View.
Technavio looks for the global IoT market in healthcare to enjoy a compound annual growth rate of more than 36% through 2020.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building the IoT: standards and hardware needs
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-iot-/4442410/Building-the-IoT–standards-and-hardware-needs?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_review_20160729&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_review_20160729&elqTrackId=801b4253598e4569bd81341639e876ae&elq=a65d620c3f8d4e8dbea1116af0f3220f&elqaid=33238&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29060
the main components comprising an IoT system:
Sensors/actuators
Embedded hardware
Embedded software
Wireless sensor network(s)
Gateway/hub/concentrator
Mobile network(s)
Mobile operating system(s)
IP network(s)
Information technologies (cloud back-end services)
Storage
Analytics
Enterprise resource planning and related IT
In addition to architecture considerations, we must also understand the division of hardware equipment by device category to help evaluate the challenge in deploying a global IoT infrastructure.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bluetooth module enhances IoT security
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4442473/Bluetooth-module-enhances-IoT-security?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160808&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160808&elqTrackId=a97aa21ac3cb4094a0303e27ab902900&elq=0b69ffff5fc04410890dada64d4f2195&elqaid=33359&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29160
Laird’s BLE652 Bluetooth V4.2 and NFC certified radio module offers robust security and easy programming for enterprise IoT applications. Its small 14×10-mm footprint, optimized low-power schemes, and smartBasic programming language—along with security upgrades such as AES-128, Diffie-Hellman pairing, and link-layer privacy—provide a stable, standalone Bluetooth environment for any embedded design
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building wearables that sense, think, and communicate, part 1
http://www.edn.com/design/wireless-networking/4442481/Building-wearables-that-sense–think–and-communicate–part-1?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160808&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160808&&elqTrackId=002ce0e9cf104117b8805b22765aac8b&elq=0b69ffff5fc04410890dada64d4f2195&elqaid=33359&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29160
Design requirements for modern wearable products include sleek form factor, embedded intelligence, energy efficiency, expandability, cost-effectiveness, and more. These requirements impose many design challenges for manufactures of these types of devices, including:
Long battery life to ensure “always on” functionality
Housing multiple ICs within a small form factor
Maintaining low cost while adding new functionality
Monitoring multiple sensors while also performing sensor fusion using DSP-like processing
Providing differentiating features such as Over-The-Air (OTA) firmware upgrades
Ensuring secure storage and personal data transmission
The ability to communicate information to other devices
Sophisticated user interfaces such as touchscreen displays
Tomi Engdahl says:
Handling IT, OT convergence is crucial for cybersecurity
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/handling-it-ot-convergence-is-crucial-for-cybersecurity/fc3757567c16978951365e4ac5c43b71.html?OCVALIDATE&ocid=101781
Information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) have always been on opposite sides, but they need to come together to combat a cybersecurity threat that is becoming easier for anyone to exploit and use.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Who’s Calling The Shots
First of two parts: Systems vendors used to take their lead from chipmakers. Not anymore.
http://semiengineering.com/whos-calling-the-shots/
Throughout the PC era and well into the mobile phone market, it was semiconductor companies that called the shots while OEMs followed their lead and designed systems around chips. That’s no longer the case.
A shift has been underway over the past half decade, and continuing even now, to reverse that trend. The OEM — or systems company as it is more commonly called today — now determines what features go into a system, often based on what software will be needed or what application it will be used for. After that, the specification is developed for the hardware, including the performance characteristics, the power budget and the cost target.
This is a significant change, and it is unfolding over a period of years—sometimes unevenly, sometimes in unexpected ways, and usually in small pieces that don’t provide a clear overall picture of what’s happening. And while it doesn’t necessarily make hardware any less valuable — semiconductors are at the center of every major development and shift in technology — it does affect ecosystems for everything from IoT appliances to consumer electronics to automotive subsystems, and the underlying IP and design strategies that are used to create them.
Shifting business models change the support ecosystem, as well. They affect the chip design strategy, and they affect the entire design flow — and they raise a lot of unanswered questions.
“We are putting ourselves in our customer’s shoes and trying things out,” said Frank Schirrmeister, group director for product marketing of the System Development Suite at Cadence. “We try to replicate that internally, so we have as part of our agreement with ARM, for example, access to their internals so that we can do validation of our tools with it.”
Who’s Calling The Shots
http://semiengineering.com/whos-calling-the/
A large part of this shift involves software, which falls on many plates throughout the ecosystem. Making sure all of the layers of software interoperate and integrate well together is no small feat, and it is growing in complexity at every turn as systems becomes more sophisticated.
“Even if you look back 10 or 20 years ago, there was already a lack of communication between hardware and software teams,” said Simon Rance, senior product manager in the systems and software group at ARM. “Now, the communication is almost completely broken or segmented because there’s an imbalance. There are four to six times as many software designers than there are hardware designers. Hardware is designing their portion of it having no idea how software is going to go in and program it all. And when something goes wrong for the software engineer, the hardware engineer has no idea what the heck they were trying to do in the first place anyway, so they can’t help them debug. It’s these type of issues that are where the system schedules are getting very long, not shrinking.”
Going forward, a complete solution from the system level down will include the quality and security of the software
Software challenges are daunting
Andrew Caples, senior product manager for Nucleus product line in Mentor Graphics’ Embedded Systems Division, observed that software and hardware collide or they converge. “Right now, there’s so much capability on the hardware — there’s all sorts of accelerators, there’s crypto acceleration, there are GPUs, and all sorts of connectivity, but if you look at what devices have today as far as the capabilities of the silicon today, it requires an awful lot of low-level code to make that all work. Just bringing up GPU support for graphics acceleration for a display is more difficult. Displays used to be cool and novel. Now compelling displays are necessary. Everybody wants their device to look like an iPad in all sorts of cool displays and icons and lots of capabilities — those require that type of graphics support.”
Supporting the various graphics engines out there requires a tremendous amount of expertise, he explained. “After that, you can extrapolate out. Everything is connected, we already know that. If you look at the connectivity, supporting 802.11 is kind of passé now. But there are lots of chipsets out there”
“There are certifications that can be required from the WiFi Alliance to ensure conforming and compliance. And then you add in Bluetooth and 802.15.4 and Zigbee, and it becomes really quite difficult to be able to provide all this support in the chipsets.”
It’s not uncommon today for devices to have many cores and require a substantial amount of low-level support for bring up.
“It’s harder to provide comprehensive support for all of the boards out there and all of the SoCs out there, all the processors out there — you really have to make your bets on which boards and processors are going to be widely embraced,”
The response by OEMs in some cases is to conform to standards and standardized testing and certifications. But just throwing more bodies at a problem isn’t necessarily the best strategy.
ARM has been wrestling with this issue for quite some time and recently rolled out some technology that looks to address this by allowing any designer, whether they are hardware or software or verification, the same viewpoint of the system design information, Rance said.
“It’s not doing it from a hardware point of view, or a software point of view or a verification point of view,”
This type of technology does mean that the more design teams take this approach, EDA tools need to be able to work and play nicely with each other, Rance said. And clearly, they will have to because the systems companies require it.
At the end of the day, as part of the gargantuan effort of designing, integrating and verifying an elegant, sophisticated electronic system today the systems OEMs are in the driver’s seat. Whether it is choosing partners, IP, foundry, packaging the OEM is also driving openness and interoperability amongst all the players in the game. The successful players will learn where their pieces fit, and how to ease the integration in the system.
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 predictions for the next 60 years in analog electronics
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4442479/10-predictions-for-the-next-60-years-in-analog-electronics?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160804&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160804&elqTrackId=11f377dd53014f39bc7979185ff29da3&elq=62208d8ecdd94191905d68606125f7ac&elqaid=33323&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29130
Steve Whalley, Chief Strategy Officer of the MEMS & Sensors Industry Group (MSIG), forsees a single MEMS process with many MEMS silos, not unlike the silicon process, to advance the MEMS industry in the future. There will be multiple designs in the future, not only a single dominant one like the Intel processor.
Proprietary solutions will disappear and allow the trillions or even quadrillions of MEMS to proliferate in 2076. Wearables will be non-intrusive, not like smart watches today, but will be virtually invisible arrays of different sensors as a part of our clothing and even on our skin in ultra-thin, but non-invasive processes which can include sensors integrated with conditioning, processor, battery, radio, antenna, etc. No fabs will be needed since roll-to-roll printing will be the norm. T-Sensors will be in full swing solving world hunger, pollution, and clean sustainable energy and may change their name to P-Sensors (Peta-Sensors) in 2076. Security will begin at the sensor’s edge and “garbage data” will be eliminated at the sensor.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dust Networks – Wireless Mesh Networks
http://www.linear.com/products/wireless_sensor_networks_-_dust_networks?utm_source=SmartMeshIPnetwork&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=EDN
Dust Networks® SmartMesh® wireless products are embedded chips and pre-certified PCB modules complete with fully developed, field-proven, intelligent wireless mesh networking software. SmartMesh wireless sensor networks (WSN) deliver unmatched data reliability over ultra-low power, secure wireless communications, enabling sensors to be placed anywhere in tough Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) environments.
SmartMesh IPTM for 6LoWPAN Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) applications
SmartMesh WirelessHART products comply with the WirelessHART (IEC 62591) standard
Time Synchronization in SmartMesh IP Network
http://www.edn.com/education-training/edntv?bclid=1740131708&bctid=5007193253001
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home> Analog Design Center > How To Article
Technologies that make cities smarter and better to live in
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4442415/Technologies-that-make-cities-smarter-and-better-to-live-in?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160728&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160728&elqTrackId=8c18abb957ce4b27b3531131246ea0d7&elq=f842e05996774c5fae9f4635d7ce124f&elqaid=33213&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29041
A key strategy for a more efficient and sustainable society in metro areas is the smart city concept, which introduces innovative applications in municipalities, utilities, transportation, and public services. For example, a smart city could reduce energy usage by employing smart meter technology—adding a connectivity infrastructure to easily monitor and control final user power consumption and energy grid loss; and introduce remote public light management services to a municipality for street lights by adding sensors and connectivity, thereby optimizing energy consumption and reducing maintenance costs; and using that same connectivity communication system to improve overall life quality by adding other multi-services for security, air and water pollution monitor and control, or even smart parking and smart waste management. On that score, improving the efficiency of garbage collection mainly in suburbs area, a smart system for waste management could send a pick-up request when a dumpster is full and needs to be emptied. A smart parking system could monitor parking spaces and direct drivers to open parking places, or offer the possibility to book a spot in advance.
The Internet of Things, the IoT, is a network of smart nodes, mostly low-power and low-cost sensor nodes, which senses data and communicates information to a cloud, without the need of direct human interaction. The web cloud collects, processes, and protects this information as data, and only shares it with designated people or as it pertains to provide services to utilities. The main target of the IoT is to use this technology to improve the day by day quality of life.
This IoT scenario includes four main application areas: Wearables, Smart Homes, Smart Cars, and Smart Cities. Smart city applications are emerging as driving markets in the Internet of Things trend. The smart cities scenario includes smart buildings, smart metering, street lighting monitor and control, traffic and mobility management, smart parking, environmental monitoring, smart garbage collection, and smart health services.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intelligent, IO-Link connected sensors underpin the Industrial Internet of Things
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4442434/Intelligent–IO-Link-connected-sensors-underpin-the-Industrial-Internet-of-Things?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160728&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160728&elqTrackId=84cfac784f684e92a18c9c06efa96c38&elq=f842e05996774c5fae9f4635d7ce124f&elqaid=33213&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29041
Factory automation environments are currently experiencing a massive surge in the number of sensors deployed. These sensors measure everything from temperature to proximity and weight to pressure, as well as a host of other variables. The key trend is smart sensors. Traditional industrial sensors simply communicate an analog voltage/current, or a digital on/off signal. Smart sensors communicate critical parameters enhancing the agility of modern factories and enabling rapid process decisions. Furthermore, these smart sensors add critical pieces to the Big Data resource that will eventually allow for better plant optimization and/or predict the maintenance and/or failure of critical systems.
While there are various communication protocols for sensors, the fastest growth is now occurring with the new and open standard called IO-Link. This simple interface, based on the popular 3-wire sensor cable, allows users to build relatively inexpensive sensor systems with a minimal set of components. The simplicity of this sensor protocol has resulted in a double digit compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of IO-Link sensors deployed within the control and automation market. IO-Link can be used wherever analog or digital sensors were previously used—and it provides significantly more information and affords higher levels of configurability of each sensor.
Introduction to industrial IoT
While much of the industry buzz has been around Internet of Things (IoT), many large companies have been quietly implementing and deploying an industrial version of IoT. This is primarily to gain operational efficiency, but also to better serve their customers and to grow their revenue by offering more services around their product.
A recent research report from PwC writes, “In the future, successful companies will use the Industrial Internet of Things to capture new growth through three approaches: boost revenues by increasing production and creating new hybrid business models, exploit intelligent technologies to fuel innovation, and transform their workforce.”1
To enable the IIoT, first we must extract the valuable data from the different end-points within the manufacturing flow. This data is in effect the lifeblood of the industrial Internet, as all the higher end processes rely and operate on this data to deliver the promised benefits of the next generation digital factory.
Sensors are integral in both process and factory automation systems, and there is indeed a proliferation in the number and the intelligence of the sensors deployed on the factory floor.
Since the 1980s, industrial field buses have allowed smarter devices, quicker installations, reduced wiring, and easier maintenance. However, the lack of a single, universally accepted field bus has also created confusion, training challenges, high costs, and compatibility issues among equipment. IO-Link is the first open, field bus diagnostic, low-cost, point-to-point serial communication protocol used for communicating with sensors and actuators.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sensors Expo emphasizes embedded and IoT 2.0 sensor integration
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/sensor-ee-perception/4442236/Sensors-Expo-emphasizes-embedded-and-IoT-2-0-sensor-integration
Sensors and security are just two of the five key themes for the event this year: Sensing. Powering. Processing. Connecting. Securing.
“Sensors are becoming more integrated systems for the IoT,” he said, “so we’re adding content around the embedded area, as well as education on security and hands-on courses – including kits.” Education and hands-on design learning and experience are strong themes at the event
An exciting fifth symposium, “IoT 2.0 – Sensor Innovation Moves From Smart to Intelligent,” is led by Willard Tu, vice president of business development at DSP Concepts, Inc. The title refers to how sensors have evolved from delivering the basic signals of changing parameters to being highly intelligent enabling elements of the IoT 2.0.
With that in mind, who better to kick off the IoT 2.0 symposia than Steve Malkos, Google’s technical program manager. With a background in GPS, Malkos will talk about Google’s vision as well as his own Android Location and Context Group’s vision around sensors and location. He will support his discussion with examples of where he and Google are taking sensors in the not-to-distant future.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The tyranny of numbers: Sensors in the next 60 years
http://www.edn.com/design/sensors/4442436/The-tyranny-of-numbers–Sensors-in-the-next-60-years?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160728&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160728&elqTrackId=77c1839c424540b3b548b65bbb38213a&elq=a10b28a33581402b8a4825ba8ba0e613&elqaid=33219&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29047
Almost 60 years ago, when EDN magazine had just begun, a young newly graduated employee at Texas Instruments spent his summer wrestling the “tyranny of numbers” in an effort to efficiently scale the number of transistors in a circuit.
That young man was Jack Kilby, of course, and now that same rethinking of how to scale devices using fundamental materials science is being done for sensors, and the impact the practical realization of this research will have on how we interface with our world and architect systems over the next 60 years could be just as dramatic.
Of course, it’s important to recognize that long before the Internet of Things (IoT) and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), electrical and mechanical designers have been using sensors of some form for generations to connect the analog to the digital world.
Here at EDN we even did a recent poll to find out what designers considered to be their favorite (it’s temperature sensors, by the way, followed by … well, check out the survey.)
That survey had a long list of sensor types: humidity, pressure, temperature, infrared, flow, MEMS accelerometers and gyroscopes, and the list is still growing.
So the main issue was packaging and interconnects and making the device comfortable and cost effective, given the numerous boards
Still, the packaging problem remains, as more and more sensors, with their electronics, are added per node, and more nodes are added to a human’s personal area network as well as the IoT in general. As Michael Long, Analog Devices Inc (ADI) segment manager for industrial and instrumentation, pointed out at Sensors Expo, the nirvana right now is the concept of zero-pin sensors (ZPS) that are self-powered and maintenance free with ultra-low-power processing. This, he said, requires a combination of optimized processors, sensor, radio, and power management, including energy harvesting.
Long was at ADI’s booth and demonstrated the SNAP Sensor imaging technology which addresses power consumption by doing a lot of functions on-chip, instead of using the main host processor
TMicroelectronics’ Edoardo Gallizio demonstrated BlueCoin, a miniature MEMS reference platform with four MEMS microphones, inertial MEMS, and a Bluetooth low energy radio
Vesper recently took low-power MEMS to a new level, announcing the first commercially available quiescent-sensing MEMS device. The VM1010 microphone detects acoustic events while consuming virtually zero power
In the context of MEMS, the combination of sensor fusion with an increasing number of sensors, from gyroscopes and accelerometers to actuators and acoustics, is now all about the system and creating value
“Standards are important for IoT interoperability,” said Lightman.
Of course, with standards comes competition for differentiation, as “it can’t be about cost,” said Lightman. “Companies aren’t after high volume, but [instead are after] high margins.” This comes about through more sophisticated performance, particularly in medical, “where there’s no margin for error.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Understand firmware’s total cost
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/embedded-basics/4442394/Understand-firmwares-total-cost?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160726&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160726&elqTrackId=43f6f35cac2a4eccb4d33fde7f9bc75c&elq=94c022fd1f6143ffb4733b15876f4a76&elqaid=33182&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29011
Innovation can be an exciting endeavor but on occasion management and developer decisions will optimistically estimate the cost implications for a project. That optimism can sometimes come from a short-sightedness or knowledge gap in understanding what is involved in the total cost of ownership for developing embedded software. Let’s look at the five major cost contributors that affect the total cost of ownership.
Contributor #1 – Software licensing
Contributor #2 – Software development
Contributor #3 – Software maintenance
Contributor #4 – Certifications
Contributor #5 – Sales and marketing
The total cost to own firmware is far larger than just the development costs. In order to truly understand the full investment necessary to be successful, companies and teams need to expand their considerations and understand how software licensing, certifications, and even the maintenance cycle will affect their return on investment. Without all these pieces the story is incomplete and the chances for a product’s financial success may be drastically reduced.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Report: 84% of IoT data comes from data center equipment
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/pt/2016/06/report-84-of-iot-data-comes-from-data-center-equipment.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_DataCenters_July262016&eid=289644432&bid=1478945
Even though they may not be familiar with the term “Internet of Things” (IoT), 65 percent of organizations are collecting data from equipment, devices, or other connected endpoints. And they’re using that data for business purposes, according to an IoT study conducted by 451 Research.
The study finds that the vast majority of IoT data derives from data centers. The research indicates that more than half of IoT data (51 percent) is coming through data center IT equipment, followed by camera/surveillance equipment (34 percent), data center facilities equipment (33 percent), and smartphones (29 percent).
The type of industries using these platforms are evenly split between manufacturing organizations collecting data from factory equipment and healthcare organizations from medical devices, according to the study.
The types of data being collected are broken down into three categories: machine sensing (data gathered from machines), biological sensing (data gathered from humans and animals) and environmental sensing (data gathered from the environment). The majority of the data today is gathered from machines for business use (71.5 percent), while data gathered from humans and animals (8.5 percent) and the environment (20 percent) represents a smaller, but growing portion of the overall data.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Smart Batteris With Built-In Monitoring
http://dpstele.com/network-monitoring/battery/smart-system.php?article_id=61230&m_row_id=1999640&mailing_id=10777&link=C&uni=128875796edc896bd1
Your batteries are typically “out of sight, out of mind”, which is fine – until you need them. When commercial power fails, your batteries absolutely have to work. It’s simply too risky to leave such a critical piece of your network unmonitored. You need to know that your network sites will stay online.
String voltage monitoring isn’t enough
Monitoring the entire string is better than no monitoring at all – but it’s not the most effective way to improve reliability. It only takes one bad cell to degrade the performance and lifespan of an entire array of batteries. String voltage doesn’t tell you how many cells have degraded and to what extent.
“Smart” batteries have built-in monitoring…
“Smart” batteries are now replacing traditional cells. These cells come equipped with internal sensors that allow for self-monitoring. With smart batteries, you no longer need extra equipment like sensors and collectors. Your batteries simply report to your RTU.
…You just need an RTU to collect and present the data
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building the IoT: standards and hardware needs
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-iot-/4442410/Building-the-IoT–standards-and-hardware-needs?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160725&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160725&elqTrackId=28b10f37da664ae3930e9d27f1a36f68&elq=f3f51723c0664194a2cbcec566dc9a39&elqaid=33166&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28997
The diagram in Figure 1 is a high-level architecture. Although not exhaustive, it shows the main components comprising an IoT system:
Sensors/actuators
Embedded hardware
Embedded software
Wireless sensor network(s)
Gateway/hub/concentrator
Mobile network(s)
Mobile operating system(s)
IP network(s)
Information technologies (cloud back-end services)
Storage
Analytics
Enterprise resource planning and related IT
Figure 2 shows that there will be many more small-edge devices (sensors/actuators based on microprocessors and microcontrollers) than there will be networking or user devices. Because of the sheer volume of devices, the cost structure of a sensor/actuator device is crucial to establishing a profitable business case. We need to look at all the elements composing such a device and identify where the challenges are.
Consumer IoT vs. industrial IoT
The fact is, as consumers, we accept product behavior and usage that we would not accept in other markets. For example, we accept that our smartphones, tablets or PCs need to reboot. We accept a certain level of non-secure processing, communication, or storage. We accept the need to perform regular software upgrades on our consumer products. We embrace changing our smartphones (or wanting to change them because we want the latest/greatest) every 18 months. We accept needing to replace our tablets/smartphones every two years or less, but, for example, we accept none of these conditions for our thermostats. This is why I often refer to the consumer market as the IoT laboratory—ideas, concepts, systems, technologies can be tested here.
However, consumer product rules can’t apply to medical or industrial products. For a given industry installing equipment to automate a process, equipment cannot be replaced every 18 months because the cost/benefit goal for that industry will rule out this behavior. When a manufacturing or building automation equipment is put in place, it is for 10 to 20 years.
Not so long ago, industrial equipment was electromechanical in nature. It had a fixed function to perform, and it was designed to do only that. Electronics and processing capabilities have been added to these components. Now, these devices do something in a larger system and are designed to work in collaboration with other devices and systems. New functions or bug fixes can be uploaded to the devices thanks to the processing capabilities and firmware/software in them.
This raises another issue. If the equipment is to be in place for a minimum of 10 years, how do you ensure the piece of equipment itself has the right hardware resources to allow for upgradability? Do you need to overdesign the resources to plan for a longer operational life?
It is becoming clear that there are many technologies that need more development and economies of scale for IoT to achieve the size predicted by many business analysts and media. This idea of the IoT under construction is well-represented in a report from Gartner, the IT research company, called: Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies. In this report, Gartner forecasts the adoption of different technology trends.
Gartner’s opinion about IoT is interesting. In 2015, Gartner believes the IoT to be in the “Peak of Inflated Expectations” phase, and that it will take five to 10 years to reach mainstream adoption, defined as the “Plateau of Productivity.” In other words, the IoT will be under construction for the next decade
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building the IoT: standards and hardware needs
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-iot-/4442410/2/Building-the-IoT–standards-and-hardware-needs
James Turino, partner at Redwood Capital, in his IoT Slam 2016 presentation, cited the 2015 McKinsey report Unlocking the potential of the Internet of Things, which concluded that without interoperability, at least 40% of the IoT’s potential benefits cannot be realized.
It is a real challenge. We can work on technologies, but cooperation relies on collaboration. There are a number of consortia working on developing such standards or best practices. To name a few:
Open Mobile Alliance
OASIS
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Industrial Internet Consortium
IPSO Alliance
Open Connectivity Foundation
OpenFog Consortium
Eclipse Foundation
OPC Foundation
And there are many more.
Devices need maturity
Along with standards and interoperability, there are several areas of device technology that need to mature. To achieve economies of scale in the IoT, a profitable and sustainable return on investment (ROI) is required.
Sensor technology is among the leading recent evolutions enabling the IoT concept.
But sensors are also one of the many technologies considered today as a challenge to IoT growth. Turning again to James Turino’s IoT Slam 2016 presentation, the cost of certain sensors need to drop further still. Development work in sensors needs to happen to increase the quality, reliability and economic efficiency of products.
In addition to the sensors and actuators, processors need to evolve. IoT end devices—or what IDC refers to as a “uniquely identifiable endpoint” or “thing,”—are electronic-based products that also include processing. The processors in these devices need excellent power management so that they can, when required, run on batteries for years. Such solutions are beginning to reach the marketplace
Additional requirements are thus imposed on the design of these processor-based devices, including:
Device anti-tampering (so that crypto keys can not be tampered with)
Device secure storage (for the crypto keys and possibly application data)
Device secure boot
Device secure firmware upgrade
Device authentication
Device function authorization
Device registration
Device commissioning/decommissioning
Device provisioning
And more.
To address the issues, information technology (IT) is pushing its systems and processes down to operation technology (OT, or, embedded and deeply embedded systems) systems. But OT devices generally have fewer resources than IT devices, because the cost objectives for OT device design are always lower then consumer or IT devices due to the number of units generally involved. The clock speed of typical microcontrollers used in embedded systems, for instance, spans the range between 50Mhz to 400Mhz, far from the usual clock speed of PCs, tablets, and smartphones of 1Ghz and above. Similarly, a typical microcontroller only has between 4KB to 512KB of RAM and between about 64KB to 4MB of flash for program storage, compared to megabytes of RAM and Gigabytes of storage in IT devices.
As a result, the hardware and software resources needed to implement all of the IT-driven requirements on an end-device make it impossible to use the currently available integrated microcontrollers. Even with hardware crypto acceleration on chip, the sum of the software required to implement all the functions described above well surpasses the available hardware resources of a typical microcontroller. This is why we see more IoT devices using an application processor instead of a microcontroller. The problem is that it raises the cost of the end-device in terms of hardware, software, and professional services to put it all together.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building the IoT: connectivity and security
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-iot-/4442411/Building-the-IoT—connectivity-and-security?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160727&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160727&elqTrackId=e838a7375dde4fe18fa56767a823306e&elq=d8b6d0ceca084a22891f171e054fda37&elqaid=33193&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29022
In my prior blog, Building the IoT: standards and hardware needs, I discussed how the “things,” device hardware and their interoperability, needed to evolve in order for the IoT to grow and reach its full potential. The other IoT elements still under construction relate to the Internet. Both connectivity and security still need to mature.
Short-range wireless networking, for instance, is another major IoT building block that needs work. It is used in local networks, such as:
Bluetooth
Zigbee
6LoWPAN
Thread
industrial protocols like WirelessHART
With the latest versions of Bluetooth and Zigbee, both protocols can now transport an IP packet, allowing, as IDC represents it, a uniquely identifiable endpoint. A gateway/hub/concentrator is still required to move from the short-range wireless domain to the internet domain. For example, with Bluetooth, a smartphone or tablet can be this gateway.
The main R&D efforts for local area networking are focused on radio hardware and power consumption so that we can avoid needing a power cable or batteries for wireless devices, network topologies and software stacks. 6LoWPAN and its latest evolution under Google’s direction, Thread, are pushing the limits in this area.
There is also a need for long-range wireless networking in the IoT to mature. Connectivity for things relies on existing IP networks. For mobile IoT devices and difficult-to-reach areas, IP networking is mainly achieved via cellular systems. However, there are multiple locations where there is no cellular coverage.
For end-devices without a stable power supply—such as in farming applications or pipeline monitoring and control—the use of cellular is also not a good option. A cellular modem is fairly power-hungry.
Accordingly, we are beginning to see new contenders for IoT device traffic in long-range wireless connections. A new class of wireless, called low-power wide-area networks (LPWAN), has begun to emerge. Whereas previously you could choose low power with limited distance (802.15.4), or greater distance with high power, LPWAN provide a good compromise: battery-powered operation with distances up to 30KM.
There are a number of competing technologies for LPWAN, but two approaches are of particular significance are LoRa and SIGFOX.
oRa provides an open specification for the protocol, and most importantly, an open business model. The latter means that anyone can build a LoRa network—from an individual or a private company to a network operator.
SIGFOX is an ultra-narrowband technology. It requires an inexpensive endpoint radio and a more sophisticated base station to manage the network. Telecommunication operators usually carry the largest amount of data; usually high frequencies (such as 5G), whereas SIGFOX intends to do the opposite by using the lower frequencies. SIGFOX advertises that its messages can travel up to 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), and each base station can handle up to 1 million objects, consuming 1/1000th the energy of a standard cellular system.
The advantage of LPWAN is well-understood by the cellular operators; so well, in fact, that Nokia, Ericsson and Intel are collaborating on narrowband-LTE (NB-LTE). They argue it is the best path forward for using LTE to power IoT devices. NB-LTE represents an optimized variant of LTE. According to them, it is well-suited for the IoT market segment because it is cheap to deploy, easy to use and delivers strong power efficiency.
These technologies are part of the solution to solve some of the cloud-centric network challenges. It is happening, but we can’t say this is mainstream technology today.
Internet concerns
Beyond the issue of wireless connectivity to the internet lie questions about the internet itself. There is no doubt that IoT devices use the Internet Protocol (IP). The IPSO Alliance was founded in 2008 to promote IP adoption. Last year, the Alliance publicly declared that the use of IP in IoT devices was now well understood by all industries. The question now is, “How to best use IP?”
For example, is the current IP networking topology and hierarchy the right one to meet IoT requirements? When we start thinking of using gateways/hubs/concentrators in a network, it also raises the question of network equipment usage and data processing locations.
Global-industry thinking right now is that distributed processing is a better solution, but the internet was not built that way. The predicted sheer breadth and scale of IoT systems requires collaboration at a number of levels, including hardware, software across edge and cloud, plus the protocols and data model standards that enable all of the “things” to communicate and interoperate.
The main challenges of the existing cloud-centric network for broad IoT application are:
Connectivity (one connection for each device)
Bandwidth (high number of devices will exceed number of humans communicating)
Latency (the reaction time must be compatible with the dynamics of the physical entity or process with which the application interacts)
Cost (for an system owner, the cost of each connection multiplied by the number of devices can sour the ROI on a system)
These issues led to the creation of the OpenFog Consortium (OFC). OFC was created to define a composability architecture and approach to fog/edge/distributed computing, including creating a reference design that delivers interoperability close to the end-devices.
Yet the majority of media coverage about the IoT is still very cloud-centric, sharing the IT viewpoint. In my opinion, IT-driven cloud initiatives make one significant mistake. For many of the IoT building blocks, IT is trying to push its technologies to the other end of the spectrum—the devices. Applying IT know-how to embedded devices requires more hardware and software, which currently inflates the cost of IoT devices. For the IoT to become a reality, the edge device unit cost needs to be a lot lower than what we can achieve today. If we try to apply IT technologies and processes to OT devices, we are missing the point.
Securing the IoT
The existing internet architecture compounds another impediment to IoT growth: security. Not a single day goes by that I don’t read an article about IoT security requirements. The industry is still analyzing what it means. We understand IT security, but IT is just a part of the IoT. The IoT brings new challenges, especially in terms of networking architecture and device variety.
For example, recent studies are demonstrating that device-to-device interaction complexity doesn’t scale when we include security. With a highly diverse vendor community, it is clear the IoT requires interoperability. We also understand that device trust, which includes device authentication and attestation, is essential to securing the IoT. But device manufacturer-issued attestation keys compromise user privacy. Proprietary solutions may exist for third-party attestation, but again, they do not scale. Security in an IoT system must start with the end-device. The device must have an immutable identity.
Unfortunately, today this situation does not have an answer. Some chip vendors do have solutions for it. However, they are proprietary solutions, which means the software running on the device must be customized for each silicon vendor.
Security in a closed proprietary system is achievable, especially as the attack surface is smaller. As soon as we open the systems to public networking technologies, however, and are looking at the exponential gain of data correlation from multiple sources, security becomes a combinatory problem that will not soon be solved. With semantic interoperability and application layer protocol interoperability required to exchange data between systems, translation gateways introduce trusted third parties and new/different data model/serialization formats that further complicate the combined systems’ complexity.
The IT realm has had the benefit of running on Intel or similar architectures, and having Windows or Linux as the main operating system. In the embedded realm there is no such thing as a common architecture
Fortunately, the technology community has identified several IoT design patterns. A design pattern is a general reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem
These IoT design patterns are described in IETF RFC 7452 and in a recent Internet Society IoT white paper. In general, we recognize five classes of patterns:
Device-to-Device
Device-to-Cloud
Gateway
Back-end Data Portability
IP-based Device-to-Device
Security solutions for each of these design patterns are under development. But considerable work remains.
Finally, all of this work leads to data privacy, which, unfortunately, is not only a technical question, but also a legal one. Who owns the data, and what can the owner do with it? Can it be sold? Can it be made public?
As you can see, there are years of work ahead of us before we can provide solutions to these security questions. But the questions are being asked and, according to the saying, asking the question is already 50% of the answer!
My goal here is not to discourage anyone from developing and deploying an IoT system—quite the contrary, in fact. The building blocks to develop IoT systems exist. These blocks may be too expensive, too bulky, may not achieve an acceptable performance level, and may not be secured, but they exist.
Our position today is similar to that at the beginning of the automobile era. The first cars did not move that fast, and had myriad security issues! A century later, we are contemplating the advent of the self-driving car. For IoT, it will not take a century. As noted before, Gartner believes IoT will take five to ten years to reach mainstream adoption.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Advanced analytics will put big data to good use
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/from-the-edge-/4442379/Advanced-analytics-will-put-big-data-to-good-use?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160720&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160720&elqTrackId=16661d6dea0540ab83e2adc544e0808b&elq=22f8fabdd1444e8f9a456968c48d4226&elqaid=33125&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28955
According to Technavio, there are four emerging trends that are impacting the global big data enabled market. In a recent report on the topic, they outlined the impact of enterprise mobility, big data and cloud computing, social media, and analytics in the 2015-2019 timeframe.
By 2019, the global big data enabled segment is forecast to exceed $209 billion, representing a CAGR in excess of 23% during the period. Amit Sharma, lead IT professional services research analyst at Technavio, indicates the rate of growth mirrors the increased data volume across all sectors, as well as the need to enhance productivity and efficiency.
The report stresses that mobile devices, applications and, services are reshaping enterprise business strategies, revenue models, and relationships with customers and partners.
Cloud-based solutions are increasing efficiency and reducing cost associated with big data solution deployment. Big data analysis takes place via cloud-based solutions. Data is available “anywhere, anytime” and stored anywhere in the world.
Becoming a major data source, social media enables instant feedback on products and services.
Making strategic decisions based on big data now at its fingertips
Tomi Engdahl says:
M2.COM delivers IoT sensor platform specs
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/sensor-ee-perception/4441705/M2-COM-delivers-IoT-sensor-platform-specs
In the lead-up to last month’s Embedded World event in Germany, ARM, Advantech, Bosch Sensortec, Sensirion, and Texas Instruments teased a new Internet of Things (IoT) sensor platform called M2.COM, and now the group has delivered the specifications as promised.
The genesis of M2.COM is the burning need to standardize, in some way, how data-gathering devices are architected. This will save developers from constantly having to reinvent the wheel given that the true value of IoT is not so much in the hardware, but in the data that the hardware gathers. The easier it is to deploy the data gatherers, the sooner the IoT will achieve its potential, or so the thinking goes.
To that end, the six companies kicked off the M2.COM launch in February with its new platform that adopts the popular M.2 form factor. The module combines general wireless connectivity with an MCU, specifically, TI’s SimpleLink Wi-Fi CC3200 wireless MCU. Around that, ARM ads its mbed OS support, Bosch adds its MEMS and sensor technologies, Sensirion brings its own wide range of sensors to the party, while Advantech adds its embedded systems design expertise.
M2.COM
http://www.m2com-standard.org/
M2.COM is a brand new platform form factor for sensors. It adopts the standardized, frequently used M.2 form factor and is defined as an evolutionary module that combines general wireless connectivity with additional built-in computing ability powered by MCU.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Week In Review: IoT
http://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-iot-9/
IBM and AT&T merge their IoT platforms; Synopsys targets IoT edge applications with IP; China’s IoT market projected to be worth $121B in 2022.
IBM and AT&T announced that they will collaborate on computing and connectivity to offer open, standards-based tools on the IBM Cloud for Internet of Things developers to use. Almost 10 million developers will be active in IoT by 2020, the VisionMobile 2016 Internet of Things Megatrends reports forecasts, compared with an estimated 5 million IoT developers at present. “We have heard the call from developers and businesses for more tools to make IoT a reality and together with AT&T, we are bringing together powerful platforms and services to drive collaborative innovation,” Harriet Green, general manager of IBM Watson IoT, Commerce & Education, said in a statement.
AT&T and Avnet will provide developers with the AT&T IoT Starter Kit, which includes application services, cloud-based data storage, connectivity, and a Long-Term Evolution modem running on AT&T’s LTE network. Cisco Systems is also involved in the effort, enabling access to the AT&T Control Center, Cisco’s IoT service platform.
MarketsandMarkets forecasts China’s IoT market will enjoy a compound annual growth rate of 41.1%, hitting $121 billion by 2022. Agricultural IoT applications will enjoy the highest growth rate,
The 2016 Vodafone IoT Barometer report makes the case that the Internet of Things has become a mainstream technology. Among businesses surveyed, 76% said the IoT will be “critical” to their success, while 37% state they are running their entire business on the IoT. More than 90% of respondents say they are integrating IoT data with analytics, cloud, enterprise resource planning, and mobile; 63% say they are getting “significant” return on investment from IoT technology.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SoftBank’s ARM Buy Sends Ripples Through IoT, Semiconductor Industries
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=281010&cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20160720.tst004c
In a move that caught many of guard and is sure to have ripples across the technology sector – particularly the Internet of Things (IoT) – Japanese telecom and Internet company SoftBank Group has made a deal to purchase UK-based semiconductor IP giant ARM Holdings for about $32 billion in cash. The deal, made in the span of two weeks and announced on July 18, will make ARM a wholly owned subsidiary of SoftBank and has the potential to make the Japanese company the most powerful player in the global IoT market in the coming decades.
“This is one of the most important acquisitions we have ever made, and I expect ARM to be a key pillar of SoftBank’s growth strategy going forward,” Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank said in a press conference.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Every Connection Counts
what our sensors see
Our comprehensive portfolio of sensors provides insights that drive innovation across applications and industries.
http://www.te.com/usa-en/campaigns/corporate/what-a-sensor-sees.html?te_bu=Cor&te_type=disp&te_campaign=dsn_usa_sensors-space&elqCampaignId=7183
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://www.kaaproject.org/
Crafted by a broad community of IoT experts, Kaa is the world-leading initiative for the open and efficient Internet of Things cloud platform — using which any IoT company, IoT system integrator, or aspiring individual has a free way to materialize their smart product concepts.
As the leading IoT cloud platform, Kaa provides the key software technology to enable your company’s products and services with success-proven IoT capabilities. Addressing a large majority of IoT use cases out of the box, the Kaa IoT Platform is the best choice for rapid IoT product development.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT compact radio circuits
Europe short-range wireless networks are the most popular frequency ranges of 2.4 GHz and 868 MHz. Silicon Labs’ Wireless gecko category, there are three IC families, all of which is used for the IEEE radio interface and a variety of in accordance with the 802.15.4 standard, built on top of this protocol layers.
The most powerful and most versatile circuit family is the Mighty gecko, which can be used to operate in the 2.4 GHz band, or a ZigBee protocol-based Thread-mesh network, as well as their own protocols for less than one gigahertz frequencies.
Blue Gecko-circuit family is targeted as the name suggests Bluetooth Low Energy applications 2.4 GHz band, and flex the Gecko family again is intended for their own protocols for both the 2.4 GHz and 868 MHz frequency bands.
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/08/09/kompakteja-iot-radiopiireja/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Digitization of factories grinding away at – know-how is missing
Shortcomings digital literacy slow down the development of digital factories, assesses the IT industry consulting firm Accenture in its report. Industrial digitalisation is not according to the report slow technology, but the ability to use it.
Although the majority of manufacturing companies to take advantage of digital platforms factories, over half (51 percent) lack adequate skills development and management of digital factories. Accenture’s study shows that the skills gap has grown significantly over the years 2013-2015.
“The manufacturing industry, companies must ensure that the personnel have sufficient new digital skills, so that they can take advantage of digital factories full potential,”
The most successful manufacturers have created advanced expert strategies to ensure the future of the digital literacy of the labor force.
Accenture reports that a growing lack of digital skills is one of the largest manufacturing industry concerns. Accenture’s study, 55 percent of manufacturing companies estimate their work of sophisticated digital devices and machines, such as 3D-printers or modeling and simulation equipment, personnel using the digital skills deficient. In 2013, the lack of digital skills, reported only 38 percent of respondents.
Of the respondents, 60 percent of manufacturers reported that their companies have a shortage of staff, who know how to use predictive, M2M sensor technology utilizing analytics.
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/08/08/tehtaiden-digitalisointi-junnaa-osaamista-puuttuu/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Week in Review: IoT
http://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-iot-10/
The big news of the week, of course, is SoftBank Group’s proposed acquisition of ARM Holdings for a breathtaking $32.2 billion in cash.
General Electric reached a partnership agreement with Huawei Technologies to cooperate on developing Internet-connected machines. GE also opened a software development incubator in Shanghai at a cost of $11 million and said it would add more than 200 jobs at the GE Digital Foundry in Shanghai. Huawei will adopt GE’s Predix operating system for its preferred Internet of Things platform.
ARM, Intercede, Solacia, Sprint, Symantec, and five other companies collaborated on development of the Open Trust Protocol, an industry standard for securing connected devices. The protocol combines a secure architecture with trusted code management, according to the initiative’s stakeholders. “In an Internet-connected world, it is imperative to establish trust between all devices and service providers,”
Need a $5 computer for IoT hardware development? Here you go. The Linux-based Omega2 mini-PC from Onion (not The Onion) is priced at five bucks. The Omega2 Plus computer, with more data storage and memory, is merely $9.
NXP Semiconductors has become a member of the Fairhair Alliance, an industry group that advocates the use of IPv6 in buildings for Internet of Things applications
Tomi Engdahl says:
Connected Devices Need E-commerce Standard Security say Cyber Security Experts
http://businesswireindia.com/news/news-details/connected-devices-need-e-commerce-standard-security-say-cyber-security-experts/49447
Billions of connected devices are potentially at risk unless security sensitive software can be managed to an e-commerce standard, according to a group of leading technology security experts.
The companies, including ARM, Intercede, Solacia and Symantec worked together to assess the security challenges of connecting billions of devices across multiple sectors; including industrial, home, health services and transportation. Their conclusion was that any system could be compromised unless a system-level root of trust was established.
To deal with the risk, the companies collaborated on the Open Trust Protocol (OTrP) to combine a secure architecture with trusted code management, using technologies proven in large scale banking and sensitive data applications on mass-market devices such as smartphones and tablets.
“In an internet-connected world, it is imperative to establish trust between all devices and service providers,” said Marc Canel, vice president of security systems, ARM. “Operators need to trust devices their systems interact with and OTrP achieves this in a simple way. It brings e-commerce trust architectures together with a high-level protocol that can be easily integrated with any existing platform.”
The threat
Symantec estimates that one million internet attacks were carried out every day during 2015. The Internet of Things (IoT) expands the attack surface and according to Gartner, the analyst firm, security is now the number one priority when building any connected product.
OTrP in more detail
OTrP is a high-level management protocol that works with security solutions such as ARM® TrustZone®-based Trusted Execution Environments that are designed to protect mobile computing devices from malicious attack. The protocol is available for download from the IETF website today for prototyping and testing.
The protocol paves the way for an open interoperable standard to enable the management of trusted software without the need for a centralized database by reusing the established security architecture of e-commerce. The management protocol is used with Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Certificate Authority-based trust architectures, enabling service providers, app developers and OEMs to use their own keys to authenticate and manage trusted software and assets. OTrP is a high level and simple protocol that can be easily added to existing Trusted Execution Environments or to microcontroller-based platforms capable of RSA cryptography.
OTrP is available as an IETF informational and it is planned that it will be further developed by a standards defining organization that can encourage its mass adoption as an interoperable standard.
“The chain of trust for connected services must be based on strong digital identities for people and devices to ensure the integrity of data and applications in an open and interoperable way,” said Lubna Dajani, OTPA Secretary and Futurist. “The release of OTrP is a significant step forward and it will enable the industry to operate more efficiently by collaborating on the basics and only competing where individual value can be added.”
“Posting OTrP as an IETF informational for public review is an important step in providing universal digital trust from silicon to services for mobile and IoT connected devices, said Richard Parris, CEO of digital trust specialists, Intercede. “It provides network operators and app developers the control they need over their selection of hardware security module and cryptographic key provider for reasons of interoperability, policy and cost while maintaining a common management platform across mixed fleets of devices.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Enabling IoT capabilities through a single converged IP network
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-24/issue-7/features/technology/enabling-iot-capabilities-through-a-single-converged-ip-network.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_CablingNews_July182016&eid=289644432&bid=1466869
Cisco Systems Inc. designs and sells broad lines of products, provides services, and delivers converged solutions to develop and connect networks globally. As the leader in communications and internet solutions and services, Cisco supplies the networking foundation for some of the largest service providers, commercial businesses, and enterprise customers in the world, including corporations, government agencies, utilities, and educational institutions.
The company is dedicated to changing Canada’s innovation path by supporting research efforts with Canadian universities, investments in primary research, and establishing a world-class facility in Toronto to promote Internet of Things (IoT) innovation.
The IoT connects people, processes, data, and things. It helps deliver better customer experiences and create new revenue streams and operating models to drive efficiency and produce value
Cisco understands the importance of the Internet of Things (IoT) and shares a collective vision with many of its technology partners, focusing on solutions and outcomes when constructing a smart and connected and digitized building.
The Cisco teams developed a plan to incorporate traditional and non-traditional technologies to greatly enhance the workplace experience for employees. Non-traditional technologies included IP Power over Ethernet (PoE) lighting; environmental monitoring; IP PoE heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) controls; automation; and energy management. Traditional technologies included Voice over IP (VoIP), IP security, IP door access control, and wireless access points (WAPs).
Cisco required a robust physical infrastructure that enables all of these technologies and lowers capital expenses. In addition, Cisco required adequate space to keep pace with future growth of the company.
In addition, Cisco needed to gain more visibility to its operations to streamline in-building and IT processes while controlling most IP-related utilities on each of the four floors.
Another important goal for Cisco was to apply an expansive PoE system to deliver power to various devices in the space, including climate control and lighting.
Panduit was instrumental in helping Cisco decide which technology components should be a part of the converged backbone.
The company implemented several thousand Om4 and OS1/OS2 singlemode fiber connections for the converged backbone, including support for 40-Gbit applications. There are 2,500-plus PoE ports running on Category 6 cabling with some Category 6A copper cabling connecting several of Cisco’s higher band switches internally.
The PanMPO connector attaches the connecting switch gear with fiber-optic transceivers to the server equipment. It easily converts between male and female gender, and polarity of the fiber connector in the field, improving operational efficiency, and saving time and costs. The small interconnect cables minimize waste, optimize cable management, speed deployment, and improve flexibility and manageability.
The secure converged IP network also allows real-time monitoring of external daylight levels, temperature, and occupancy. All equipment operates on one network, allowing building tenants to easily connect devices such as lighting to access control to heating, which provides personal comfort control. This empowers tenants to be more innovative and achieve next-generation experiences within a comfortable setting.
Tomi Engdahl says:
5 Things to Know about Machine Diagnostics and the IIoT
http://www.belden.com/blog/industrialethernet/5-things-to-know-about-machine-diagnostics-and-the-iiot.cfm
1. How can sensing technologies contribute to better machine diagnostics, in particular, troubleshooting issues?
2. What impact does remote connectivity have on detecting, diagnosing and correcting machine problems?
3. Do things like augmented reality or virtual reality play a role in machine diagnostics?
4. How has technology evolved to enhance a devices’ ability to collect and monitor information on environmental factors?
5. What’s happening with machine diagnostic tools today?
In order to compete in the world economy, systems must be highly automated and able to function with little human input, or ideally, none at all.
Diagnostic systems are critical to reducing downtime and allowing systems to run “lights out.” Today’s manufacturing environment has accelerated the development of diagnostic tools, making them a must-have.
Tomi Engdahl says:
DNS Tunneling: Getting The Data Out Over Other Peoples’ WiFi
http://hackaday.com/2016/08/07/getting-the-data-out-over-other-peoples-wifi/
[KC Budd] wanted to make a car-tracking GPS unit, and he wanted it to be able to phone home. Adding in a GSM phone with a data plan would be too easy (and more expensive), so he opted for the hacker’s way: tunneling the data over DNS queries every time the device found an open WiFi hotspot. The result is a device that sends very little data, and sends it sporadically, but gets the messages out.
This system isn’t going to be reliable — you’re at the mercy of the open WiFi spots that are in the area. This certainly falls into an ethical grey zone, but there’s very little harm done. He’s sending a 16-byte payload, plus the DNS call overhead.
TOWL – Telemetry over Opportunistic WiFi Links
http://www.phreakmonkey.com/2016/08/towl-telemetry-over-opportunistic-wifi.html
Can you build a “LoJack” style asset tracking capability using open WiFi hotspots?
The proliferation of cheap, lightweight WiFi embedded (“IoT”) devices made me wonder. The WiFi association stack, DHCP client stack, et al. has to be incredibly lightweight and simple to fit in the firmware on, say, an ESP8266. If you programmed one to scan, find an AP, associate, get an address, and send a single packet – would it be able to do it fast enough to report its location from a moving vehicle?
“But wait,” you say, “there really aren’t that many open APs these days. Most of them are captive or paywall portals, or at least make you agree to some goofy ToS.”
Right, but as has been pointed out multiple times by multiple people all the way back to Dan Kaminsky’s DNS tunneling talk in 2004 – hotspots diligently resolve DNS queries. All you have to do is base32 encode the data you want to send in the hostname of a valid DNS record request, and set up a DNS server for a subdomain (under a domain you own) to catch the queries.
If it works, you get near real-time telemetry over opportunistic WiFi links using DNS recursion! Think: “low cost LoJack with no data subscriptions”.
I used the Digistump Oak variant of the ESP8266 prototype boards. I like the fact that it can be flashed OTA, which proves to be useful once the device is deployed in something like an automobile.
Digistump Oak – Telemetry over Opportunistic WiFi Links (ESP8266)
https://github.com/phreakmonkey/towl
Server
You’ll need to add an NS record to the DNS table of a domain you control, designating a subdomain namesrever for the TOWL telemetry query catcher.
E.g. if you own the domain “MyDomain.com”, you could designate a server to receive the TOWL queries by creating a NS record for “TOWL.MyDomain.com”, pointing at the server you intend to run the catcher on. If said server is at IP address 1.2.3.4, then that record looks something akin to:
TOWL IN NS 1.2.3.4
Run the PoC code on the designated server. Be sure to configure both the TOWL devices and the server code for the “TOWL.MyDomain.com” domain name. (See README under each directory for instructions.)
Tomi Engdahl says:
Industrial Internet of Things Platform
Kaa delivers essential middleware for the Industrial Internet of Things
http://www.kaaproject.org/industrial-automation/
The highly anticipated Industry 4.0 revolution is already underway reshaping manufacturing processes and the Industrial Internet of Things is a primary catalyst for this transformation. With the industrial automation solutions empowered by the Internet of Things, manufacturing production facilities and products themselves can be outfitted with computing hardware and connected using standard networking means. This allows separate parts of a production line communicate with each other in near real time and makes the entire manufacturing process much easier to monitor and control.
Kaa is an open-source IoT platform which serves as a control hub for such connected production facilities. Being hardware- and transport-agnostic, Kaa is easily integrated with a broad variety of sensors, controllers, machines, and device gateways, enabling many-to-many interoperability between them.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT in Retail: Engaging the Connected Customer
http://www.allanalytics.com/lg_redirect.asp?piddl_lgid_docid=280582&cid=A2CSINT_080916&_mc=A2CSINT_080916&gateway_return=true&token=d2710296a816231eb405e1ee6d738f62
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a collection of network-connected physical objects and machines. They have embedded identifications, sensors, and software that can provide an understanding of where they are, what they’re doing, and what’s going on around them. These devices can communicate with each other and share their data via a network or a cloud-based platform. Examples we hear about most often include a power company’s “smart grid” with sensors collectively managing the flow of and demand for electricity, and an individual’s “smart home” with climate control, lighting, and security adjusted automatically and remotely.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IIoT Advantage: Visual Management for Process Visibility
http://info.redlion.net/MOREads-ProcessVisibility-20160427.html?Advertising%20Info=CE-EN-MM-AMER-20160809-EN&Source=Ad(Enews)
Strategic practices such as Kaizen and Lean Manufacturing are used by many organizations to improve processes and maintain a competitive edge in today’s global economy. Each practice uses Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to assess, analyze and track manufacturing processes.