Here is a list f IoT predictions for year 2018. With the number of connected devices set to top 11 billion – and that’s not including computers and phones – in 2018, Internet of Things will clearly continue to be a hot topic. Here is my prediction list:
1. Artifical Intelligence – it will be talked a lot
2. Blockchain – blockchain will be hyped to be a solution for many IoT problems, and it will turn out that it is not the best solution for most of problems it is hyped for – and maybe it will find few sensible uses for it in IoT. Blockchain can add immutability and integrity to some IoT transactions.
3. 4G mobile for IoT: NB-IoT and LTE-M are ready to be tested or used in many markets
4. 5G will be hyped a lot for IoT applications but it is nowhere near for any real big IoT use cases
6. Security issues will be talked a lot. IoT security is far from solved issue.
7. Privacy issues of IoT will be talked a lot when our homes and pockets are starting to be filled with ever listening digital assistants.
8. Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will be massive
9. More CPU power will be added or used in the edge. Pushing processing power to the “edge” brings a number of benefits and opportunities.
10. Hardware based security: Hardware based security on microprocessors will be talked a lot after “Meltdown” and “Spectre” disaster
Links to more predictions:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2017/12/19/the-top-8-iot-trends-for-2018/#17a9943267f7
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/internet-of-things/top-5-iot-trends-in-2018/
https://www.inc.com/james-paine/3-internet-of-things-trends-to-watch-in-2018.html
https://www.i-scoop.eu/iot-2018-1/
https://dzone.com/articles/iot-trends-for-2018
1,393 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2018/11/06/digitekniikka-avuksi-bio-ja-kiertotalouteen/
Business Finland on käynnistänyt uuden Bio and Circular Finland -ohjelman, jonka tavoitteena on tehdä Suomesta kiertotalouden edelläkävijä. Ohjelma pyrkii vahvistamaan teollisuuden kykyä ottaa digitaaliset teknologiat käyttöön.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/ovet-aukeavat-pian-alypuhelimella-uskoo-suomalaisyritys-tavoitteena-f-securen-leima-6748137
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2018/11/07/uusi-verkkotekniikka-alysovelluksiin/
Wi-SUN FAN
Euroopassa Wi-SUN FAN –verkolle on osoitettu neljä kanavaa 865-868 MHz taajuusalueella. Lisäksi se tukee myös 870-876 MHz ja 915-921 MHz taajuusalueita, joita voidaan käyttää niissä maissa, joissa alkuperäiset 865-868 megahertsiä ei voida käyttää.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2018/11/08/nokia-panostaa-enemman-teollisuusratkaisuihin/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia unveils ‘Future X for industries’ strategy and architecture to catalyze productivity and economic growth in the Industry 4.0 era
https://www.nokia.com/news/releases/2018/11/07/nokia-unveils-future-x-for-industries-strategy-and-architecture-to-catalyze-productivity-and-economic-growth-in-the-industry-40-era/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.telecomtv.com/content/transformation/nokia-brings-its-future-x-network-vision-to-the-industrial-sector-33085/
Tomi Engdahl says:
How recent IIoT developments are shaping 5G wireless
https://www.controleng.com/single-article/how-recent-iiot-developments-are-shaping-5g-wireless/9c6c2931f49379ca85b09d21a04578cc.html
Addressing the issues behind Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices to help with mobile industrial computing applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Book Review: IoT and Low-Power Wireless Circuits, Architectures, and Techniques
https://www.powerelectronics.com/power-management/book-review-iot-and-low-power-wireless-circuits-architectures-and-techniques?NL=ED-003&Issue=ED-003_20181108_ED-003_270&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_2_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=21305&utm_medium=email&elq2=4407be30ddb04b679189a20dfcaea512
Power management is a major design consideration in wearable and wireless-sensor technologies employed in healthcare monitoring.
Tomi Engdahl says:
INTERVIEW
How do we feed the world? The internet of things can help
https://horizon-magazine.eu/article/how-do-we-feed-world-internet-things-can-help.html?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=share
Connecting objects and devices through the Internet of Things (IoT) can help solve the greatest challenges of our time, from cutting emissions to feeding a growing population, believes Alicia Asín, CEO and co-founder of Spanish technology company Libelium which makes IoT hardware. Asín was the second-place winner of the 2018 EU Prize for Women Innovators.
This technology can help to solve global sustainable development challenges. For instance, given the growth in global population (predicted to reach nine or 10 billion people by 2050), we need to increase crop production by 70% or we will be unable to feed the whole planet.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bruce Schneier: You want real IoT security? Have Uncle Sam start putting boots to asses
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/09/bruce_schneier_want_real_iot_security_get_the_government_to_put_boots_to_asses/
Infosec’s cool uncle says to hell with the carrot
Any sort of lasting security standard in IoT devices may only happen if governments start doling out stiff penalties.
So said author and security guru Bruce Schneier
“Looking at every other industry, we don’t get security unless it is done by the government,” Schneier said.
“I challenge you to find an industry in the last 100 years that has improved security without being told [to do so] by the government.”
simply trying to port over the data security policies and practices from the IT sector won’t work
“Manufacturers do not change all the IT out every five years,” Allison noted. “You are looking at a factory having a 25- to 45-year lifespan.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.telia.fi/yrityksille/onehub/iot-sisaltosivu
Tomi Engdahl says:
Batteryless smart devices closer to reality
https://uwaterloo.ca/news/news/batteryless-smart-devices-closer-reality
If an IoT device can operate without a battery it lowers maintenance costs and allows the device to be placed in areas that are off the grid.
Ju Wang and Professor Srinivasan Keshav from Waterloo’s Cheriton School of Computer Science have found a way to hack radio frequency identification (RFID) tags
In their stock form, RFID tags provide only identification and location. It’s the hack the research team has done — cutting the tag’s antenna and placing a sensing device across it — that gives the tag the ability to sense its environment.
“Our main contribution is showing how simple it is to hack an RFID tag to create an IoT device. It’s so easy a novice could do it.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
An opportunistic resource management model to overcome resource‐constraint in the Internet of Things
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cpe.5014
Tomi Engdahl says:
These 3D-Printed Gizmos Store and Transmit Usage Data Without Electronics
https://blog.hackster.io/these-3d-printed-gizmos-store-and-transmit-usage-data-without-electronics-dc97d27719f1
These new 3D-printed objects, however, are designed to collect, store, and transmit usage data without any electronics at all.
https://www.washington.edu/news/2018/10/09/3-d-printed-analytics/
Tomi Engdahl says:
To comply with GDPR, most data should remain at the edge
https://iot.eetimes.com/to-comply-with-gdpr-most-data-should-remain-at-the-edge/
Companies using IoT devices are struggling to comply with the requirements of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). To avoid breaking the new law and thus being fined, companies should keep most of the data collected out of the cloud and process it at the edge.
If there has been a theme capturing the attention of technology conferences’ attendees over the past two years, it would be GDPR.
It doesn’t matter if the conversation is about wearables, 5G networks, Edge computing, payment systems, CCTV, or transit cards, at some point in the discussion the renowned four-letter acronym pops up.
The recent IoT Solutions World Congress was no exception. During the session IoT, data and AI as key levers of digital transformation, Patrice Slupowski. Senior Vice-President Digital Innovation at Orange, argued that GDPR compliance is one the most challenging issues companies are facing when implementing IoT technologies.
During his recent speech at the European Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook praised the GDPR as an example that other governments should follow.
“This year, you’ve shown the world that good policy and political will can come together to protect the rights of everyone. We should celebrate the transformative work of the European institutions tasked with the successful implementation of the GDPR…. It is time for the rest of the world, including my home country, to follow your lead.” Cook said.
IoT devices are designed to collect data, lots of it!
Worldwide, close to 8,000 new devices connect to the Internet every minute, 345 million per month, which will grow to an expected 50 billion by 2020. All these devices are designed to collect and transmit data.
For example, most households in Europe and the US already have one connected device (wanted or not): the smart meter. Whether for electricity, gas, or water, smart meters collect thousands of data points per month, and sometimes every day.
That data, attached to the resident’s account number, can be used to help the user choose a better service plan, adjust consumption, and improve the utility company’s forecast of the area demands. The same data, however, can also be used to determine the resident’s behavior, when the house or apartment is empty, what appliances are in use and, in some cases, how many people are on the premises. All of that without WiFi or any other internet connection service present in the house.
Smart devices can help, but most usage data should remain at the edge
The GDPR is explicit: Data collected should be used only to provide the service or services that users signed up for. The only exception that doesn’t require explicit user consent is data needed to comply with government regulations.
Otherwise, any company collecting data requires opt-in consent from the user or customer. And a customer’s refusal to opt-in cannot be used to deny access to the product or service.
That’s why it is essential to implement privacy-by-design and keep raw collected data at the edge.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT-markkinaa hallitsevat tällä hetkellä LoRa vapailla ja kovassa nousussa oleva NB-IoT lisensoiduilla taajuuksilla, mutta ehkäpä todellinen kisa on vasta käynnistymässä. Wi-SUN Alliance on ilmoittanut käynnistävänsä vihdoin päätelaitteiden sertifiointiohjelman.
http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8689&via=n&datum=2018-11-08_15:45:22&mottagare=31202
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wi-SUN-verkossa data liikkuu 300 kilobitin sekuntinopeudella ja erittäin lyhyellä 0,2 sekunnin viiveellä. Esimerkiksi LoRassa vastaavat lukemat ovat 50 kilobittiä ja 1-2 sekuntia. NB-IoT:ssä päästään noin 60 kilobittiin sekunnissa, mutta viive on 2-8 sekuntia.
http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8689&via=n&datum=2018-11-08_15:45:22&mottagare=31202
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/8682-kuinka-navigoida-ilman-gps-signaalia
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2018/11/12/navigointi-onnistuu-ilman-gps-signaaliakin-ei-voi-hairita/
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/8698-navigointia-ilman-satelliitteja
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rani Molla / Recode:
Smart speakers changed audio consumption habits and boosted sales of smart home devices, but hopes for adoption in areas like shopping have not panned out yet — Until we invent something that wouldn’t be possible without voice, we’re just repurposing online content for our ears.
Voice tech like Alexa and Siri hasn’t found its true calling yet: Inside the voice assistant ‘revolution’
https://www.recode.net/2018/11/12/17765390/voice-alexa-siri-assistant-amazon-echo-google-assistant?fbclid=IwAR078gy1s5dzoPY87-OURH1Qk9rsdwRxoa3MPRdH2FcslquOrGeL19hNLPk
Until we invent something that wouldn’t be possible without voice, we’re just repurposing online content for our ears.
Amazon recently announced a $60 voice-activated microwave, along with 10 other new products using its Alexa voice assistant. Roll your eyes if you’d like, but it’s the latest example of Amazon’s obsession with making Alexa — which first launched four years ago — ubiquitous, from the kitchen to the car.
And Amazon is hardly alone. Google has been ramping up its Assistant voice-powered gadget lineup, recently announcing the Google Home Hub, a smart speaker with a screen. Facebook just unveiled Portal, a device that specializes in video calls in addition to its smart speaker responsibilities. Apple has its HomePod, plus Siri
Tomi Engdahl says:
Voice assistants at home to grow 1,000 percent
https://iot.eetimes.com/voice-assistants-at-home-to-grow-1000-percent/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=ad&utm_medium=EDNFunFriday-20181109
Google Home and Amazon Echo are popping up in millions of households, changing the way we shop, controlling our appliances and organizing our lives
A recent study from Juniper Research has found that the adoption of voice assistants such as Alexa and Google Assistant will be a crucial factor behind smart home growth, with 275 million voice-assistant devices used to control smart homes by 2023.
“Alexa, how can we kill brands?”
Amazon’s loss-leading strategy has put the company out ahead in the smart home, with hardware products tied to a comprehensive ecosystem of products and services.
The Echo Dot smart home device was the top-selling item on Amazon.com during last year’s holiday shopping season.
The company doesn’t share Echo sales numbers, but it looks like Amazon can’t manufacture enough devices. Echo sales and extra revenue from orders via Alexa could generate $10 billion for Amazon by 2020, said RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney in a recent note. And that does not include potential revenue from others using Alexa as a platform.
Google Home
Today, the search industry is worth $500 billion, and if there is a company that “owns” search, it’s Google.
Moreover, Google Home is designed to control several devices, including Nest, its popular brand of thermostats and security systems.
Smart home integration
According to IDC, the worldwide market for smart home devices—inclusive of connected lights, smart speakers, connected thermostats, smart TVs, home monitoring/security products, digital media adapters and more—grew 38.5 percent to 130.1 million shipments in the second quarter of 2018.
Connected appliances will have greater integration with voice assistants, which will be crucial for manufacturers to position connected machines as a central hub for the smart home.
According to Juniper, “These integrations will allow shipments of connected appliances to increase by 80 percent per annum on average until 2023. This growth will be further helped by dramatic falls in the average cost of connected appliances, set to fall by 52 percent between 2018 and 2023, to $280 globally.”
Fragmentation, however, is a problem for sustainable growth and customer choice. Each vendor—Amazon, Google and Apple with Siri—pushes its own ecosystem, and many devices are only talking to a specific voice operating system.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto
Private 5G; cybersecurity M&A; Tencent jobs.
https://semiengineering.com/week-in-review-iot-security-auto-18/
Internet of Things
What’s better than a 5G network? How about a local, private 5G network? The Industrial Internet of Things may drive the development of such networks. Of course, 5G cellular communications technology is still being worked out worldwide. BMW, Daimler, and Volkswagen are looking ahead to the future; those automotive manufacturers notified Germany’s Federal Network Agency that they are interested in operating local 5G networks to enhance the cybersecurity of their facilities. Meanwhile, Qualcomm is developing 5G New Radio tech for private Industrial IoT networks. “We’re inventing new 5G technologies that will bring new capabilities and opportunities for private industrial networks, such as replacing wired industrial Ethernet for reconfigurable factories with our ultra-reliable, ultra-low-latency 5G NR link,” the chip company says on its website.
Gemalto this week debuted its Cinterion narrowband-IoT wireless module platform. The company has been using the product in China and touts how it could provide energy-efficient 5G connectivity to other markets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Expanding 5G NR to industrial IoT.
https://www.qualcomm.com/invention/5g/private-industrial-networks
The next industrial revolution is upon us, and the ability to deliver local and customized services with secure and reliable wireless connectivity is essential to this transformation. At Qualcomm, we are optimizing LTE today and inventing new 5G NR technologies to deliver high-performance, private industrial networks that will power this revolution.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Survey Reveals Rampant Adoption of Industry 4.0
https://www.designnews.com/automation-motion-control/survey-reveals-rampant-adoption-industry-40/66387212459801?ADTRK=UBM&elq_mid=6471&elq_cid=876648
A survey revealed that a major gap in confidence exists between the number of companies globally that try digital manufacturing strategies and those that succeed in applying them.
Since the advent of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0, the manufacturing world has been carefully monitoring their adoption. Initial rollouts, small to large, served as proving grounds, allowing other companies to decide if they should adopt manufacturing technologies including automation, data exchange, cyber-physical systems, IoT, cloud computing, and cognitive computing. To monitor trends in adoption, McKinsey & Co. has been doing an annual survey focused on the aforementioned technologies. This year, the firm’s finding was a bit unusual, in that McKinsey concluded that everyone in manufacturing is leading the adoption of digital manufacturing.
“This space of industrial IoT/Industry 4.0/digital manufacturing is one that we’ve been monitoring pretty closely for the last four years or so,”
According to respondents to the McKinsey survey, 92 percent of companies in seven countries think they lead or are on par with their competition. Two-thirds of the companies surveyed rank digitizing the production value chain as a top priority, with companies piloting an average of eight different Industry 4.0 solutions. While solutions spanning connectivity, intelligence, and flexible automation resonated across business sectors, however, pilots underway in those areas trailed that sentiment by 16 to 19 points. After an all-time high in optimism toward digital manufacturing in 2017, that sentiment saw a correction in Germany, the U.S., Japan and China.
Adoption Roadblocks
When asked about the biggest challenges remaining to adoption and whether they varied by region or culture, Kelly responded, “I think there’s a little bit of regional variation based on culture, but actually we’re seeing a lot of similarity across regions. I think they fall into three main areas. There certainly are technological challenges, but we would say those are not the greatest right now. I think for most of these technologies, the proof of concepts have been demonstrated. So while there are definitely technology integration challenges—how do I take, for example, augmented reality and smart glasses and think about how to integrate them into my existing workplace and system? How do I take some new forms of IoT platforms for sharing data across functions and organization and how do I wire those back in? Those are more of the technology platforms; it’s more the underlying—what we would call IT/OT operational technology architecture—challenges as opposed to specific disruptive technologies. So that’s challenge number one, more on the technology side.”
“Challenge number two is probably around actually structuring the approach roadmap to optimize value,” he continued. “One of the things we found was done by companies that have been more successful is to really approach this from the C-suite level and see this as an organizational transformation and opportunity to raise the level of competitiveness—not only in terms of productivity, but also time to market and new levels of customer service. They’ve linked it more up to their corporate strategy—if you will, the business unit strategy—rather than just seeing it as a new technology to inject to raise product opportunity. So there’s an area there which is around how do we organize ourselves to capture this. One of the things we always like to see as a good indicator of trajectory is a clear link to business strategy, a clear roadmap of which use cases to pursue, and then a link of that into a business case where the value will come from. That would be my second bucket.”
usiness case where the value will come from. That would be my second bucket.”
Company Culture
Across business sectors, connectivity, intelligence, and flexible automation solutions resonated. When comparing pilot programs in those three areas with those that made it to scale, only 30 percent rolled out companywide. Industrial automation, software, and semiconductors fared best. Healthcare, automotive components, and paper and packaging trailed.
In summary, Kelly told us: “If you think about the prior wave of operation improvement in manufacturing sectors, a lot of that was driven through things like lean and six sigma.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Using Switching Technology to Overcome Automation Protocol Clash
https://www.designnews.com/automation-motion-control/using-switching-technology-overcome-automation-protocol-clash/210360408759738?ADTRK=UBM&elq_mid=6471&elq_cid=876648
Analog Devices has developed a Deterministic Ethernet switching technology that is designed to relieve the bottleneck of multiple equipment protocols.
Ethernet does not inherently have the deterministic response of field bus systems.
To overcome this limitation, the major industrial OEMs each defined their own Ethernet protocols, which have since become widely deployed open standards: PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, EtherCAT, ModbusTCP, and several others. Some of these protocols are fully compatible with standard TCP/IP Ethernet networks. Others have modified the data link, network, and/or transport layers (layers 2-4 in the OSI model) to achieve deterministic performance. Although these protocols can coexist with standard Ethernet, they are not interoperable with each other in a deterministic way.
The challenge when designing a network to support industrial Ethernet is to select a reference design that is compatible with a variety of different standards. The introduction of Industrial (or Deterministic) Ethernet partially addresses this problem, but the protocol incompatibility remains an issue. The protocols are simply not designed to interoperate, and they are prone to breaking down. This is especially problematic for companies that buy manufacturing equipment from multiple vendors.
Deterministic Ethernet Switching Technology
As the industry searches for an answer under the emerging set of IEEE standards known as time-sensitive networking (TSN), Analog Devices has developed a Deterministic Ethernet switching technology that is designed to break this bottleneck by allowing disparate, legacy Ethernet protocols to interoperate. “Ethernet for industrial networks has its challenges. They include latency, time synchronization, and the different protocols for different pieces of equipment,”
O’Dowd noted that the switching technology provides manufacturers with a path toward TSN readiness without the need for expensive equipment upgrades. “It makes it easier for companies to choose the equipment that best suits their manufacturing needs, regardless of vendor,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon says it has more than 10,000 employees working on its Alexa virtual assistant and Echo devices, up from 5,000 in September 2017
Amazon Says It Has Over 10,000 Employees Working on Alexa, Echo
Number of employees doubles the staff in that division a little more than a year ago
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-says-it-has-over-10-000-employees-working-on-alexa-echo-1542138284
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ava Kofman / The Intercept:
Google’s plan for a smart city in Toronto is facing resistance from privacy activists, who are fighting against the commodification of their city’s data — The world’s most ambitious “smart city,” known as Quayside, in Toronto, has faced fierce public criticism since last fall
Google’s “Smart City of Surveillance” Faces New Resistance in Toronto
https://theintercept.com/2018/11/13/google-quayside-toronto-smart-city/
The world’s most ambitious “smart city,” known as Quayside, in Toronto, has faced fierce public criticism since last fall, when the plans to build a neighborhood “from the internet up” were first revealed. Quayside represents a joint effort by the Canadian government agency Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk Labs, which is owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc., to develop 12 acres of the valuable waterfront just southeast of downtown Toronto.
In keeping with the utopian rhetoric that fuels the development of so much digital infrastructure, Sidewalk Labs has pitched Quayside as the solution to everything from traffic congestion and rising housing prices to environmental pollution. The proposal for Quayside includes a centralized identity management system, through which “each resident accesses public services” such as library cards and health care. An applicant for a position at Sidewalk Labs in Toronto was shocked when he was asked in an interview to imagine how, in a smart city, “voting might be different in the future.”
Other, comparatively quaint plans include driverless cars, “mixed-use” spaces that change according to the market’s demands, heated streets, and “sensor-enabled waste separation.” The eventual aim of Sidewalk Labs’s estimated billion-dollar investment is to bring these innovations to scale
Tomi Engdahl says:
Consumers want everything they have on their phone in their car
https://iot.eetimes.com/consumers-want-everything-they-have-on-their-phone-in-their-car/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=ad&utm_medium=EDNConsumerElectronics-20181114
AT&T sees connected cars as the operator’s most important IoT market. America’s biggest cellular carrier is currently adding 1.5 million new cars per quarter to its network.
Talking about connected vehicles he noted that, “Automobile manufacturers have really seen the value of having connectivity for their purposes – being able to update … and make that car better.”
Consumers are also looking for more smartphone-like features in their cars. “The consumer is also seeing the benefit of having everything they have on their phone in their car,” Penrose said.
According to the GSMA, there are over 5 billion unique mobile subscribers worldwide, and nearly 9 billion active mobile connections, including M2M.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IIC Track and Trace Testbed Forges Requirements for IIoT Standard
https://www.designnews.com/automation-motion-control/iic-track-and-trace-testbed-forges-requirements-iiot-standard/8986487459766?ADTRK=UBM&elq_mid=6493&elq_cid=876648
The new sensor-based IoT standard is designed to improve the sharing of data from connected sensors.
The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) has developed a Track & Trace Testbed that has generated the requirements for a new IoT standard for tracking and tracing assets. These requirements have been used by standards development organization Object Management Group (OMG), which creates and maintains IT standards. OMG has started the process to develop this as a new IoT standard.
https://www.iiconsortium.org/track-and-trace.htm
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/tekniset-artikkelit/8703-mita-iot-rauta-vaatii
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Displays: Striking the Right Balance Between Functionality and Power
https://www.electronicdesign.com/industrial-automation/iot-displays-striking-right-balance-between-functionality-and-power?NL=ED-005&Issue=ED-005_20181010_ED-005_960&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_2_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=20552&utm_medium=email&elq2=d377f14133be4428bd2dca77e29475c2
Two key factors for a successful IoT application are that it be low power and low cost, and in terms of displays, more designers are turning to e-paper to maintain those goals.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is vast and ever-expanding, in terms of its infrastructure and connected devices. Leading research and advisory company Gartner has estimated some 8.3 billion devices would be connected by the end of 2017, increasing to 11.2 billion by the end of 2018, then nearly doubling to 20.4 billion by 2020. Approximately two-thirds of these projected figures are apportioned to consumer applications.
Interestingly, while spending is predicted to increase from US$2.1 billion in 2018 to US$2.9 billion in 2020, it isn’t rising as fast as the unit count. That seems to indicate prices are set to fall—partly through price erosion and due to increasing numbers of smaller, simpler devices becoming connected.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News:
AmazonBasics Microwave review: looks and works pretty much like a regular microwave, with some Alexa integration via Echo, and is good value at $60
Amazon’s Microwave With Alexa Makes Life Marginally Better
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/amazonbasics-microwave-with-alexa-review
Instead of pushing buttons, you can control Amazon’s new microwave with your voice.
Tomi Engdahl says:
From power plants that regulate their power output, to the coordination of centralized and decentralized energy supplies and fluctuations in power needs – Smart Grid is gaining importance and is expected to provide on-demand management.
integration of sensors, switches and relays in such devices, to be safe, communicant, reliable, easily integrated and compatible with other equipment already in place
Tomi Engdahl says:
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Home > News
This article was posted on 11/08/2018
Electronica spotlights ‘connecting everything’
https://www.electronicproducts.com/News/Electronica_spotlights_connecting_everything.aspx
The trade fair will showcase new electronic components, from passives and connectors to sensors and power devices, from dozens of component manufacturers
With foot traffic in the tens of thousands and dozens of exhibitors, electronica 2018, held in November, promises to showcase some of the most innovative electronic components. This year, the show will host four conferences: automotive, embedded platform, medical electronics, and a Wireless Congress. This year’s slogan is “Connecting Everything — smart, safe, and secure,” which can be applied across all industry segments.
The Medical Electronics Conference is a first this year and will cover a host of topics, such as medical devices, cloud computing, data security, blockchain technology, collaborative robots, smart contracts, usability, artificial intelligence, telemedicine, regulatory requirements, and Medicine 4.0. A forum will focus on wearables.
Components covered in the embedded space range from chips, components, and modules to boards, services, tools, and software. Expect to see chips from companies like Infineon, Samsung, Semtech, and STMicroelectronics that target IoT connectivity and autonomous/networked automotive applications.
One of the technologies that spans across all embedded applications is sensors — a key enabler for IoT, autonomous driving, Industry 4.0, and any application starting with “smart.” You’ll find sensor manufacturers spread across exhibition areas. Solutions on display include Sensiron’s sensors for monitoring air quality, Bosch’s MEMS lineup for automotive and consumer electronics, and TE Connectivity’s sensor portfolio for medical applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Canalys: 19.7M smart speakers were sold globally in Q3, up 137% from 8.3M in Q3 2017; US and China now account for 70% of the global market — Market momentum for smart speakers shows no sign of slowing — quite the opposite, in fact. A new report published by research firm Canalys shows …
Canalys: Amazon retook smart speaker crown from Google in Q3 2018
https://venturebeat.com/2018/11/15/canalys-amazon-retook-smart-speaker-crown-from-google-in-q3-2018/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart Manufacturing
https://semiengineering.com/smart-manufacturing/
How to utilize manufacturing data and AI/ML to improve efficiency and yield.
Tom Salmon, vice president of collaborative technology platforms at SEMI, talks about smart manufacturing, and the role of AI, smart gateways, and digital twins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9DQ_Xfc2K0
Tomi Engdahl says:
LEDs and Wireless Tech Combine to Build Intelligent Lighting
https://iconsofinfrastructure.com/led-wireless-intelligent-lighting/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Role of Sensors in the IIoT
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333978
Editor’s note: In this Special Project, we take a broad view of the role of sensors in the overall Industrial IoT system architecture, including their role in Industry 4.0 and the Smart Factory of the future.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://aspencore.uberflip.com/i/1047011-on-semi-industrial-automoation?acctid=6006
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/8719-suomalainen-alysormus-herattaa-kiinnostusta
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart Meters and Super Smart Babies
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333962
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jumping into Industry 4.0 with Predictive Maintenance Solutions
https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1333963
To ensure the high level of automation required in today’s industrial applications, equipment must be more efficient, intelligent, aware of context and more connected; it must also be more robust and ensure greater safety for the humans interacting with them.
The world of manufacturing is changing. Call it Industry 4.0, the 4th industrial revolution, or the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), it’s all about doing things just in time, concurrently, more efficiently, with greater flexibility, and in a safer and more environmentally friendly manner.
The introduction of new technologies and services associated with the Internet of Things is revolutionizing many industrial applications.
1. What is Predictive Maintenance and what are its benefits?
Anyone running a factory wants to keep it running at optimal speed with minimal downtime. They are also aware that any machine with moving parts suffers wear and tear and inevitably requires servicing and repair.
One approach is to simply schedule maintenance tasks at fixed intervals
A smarter approach is Condition-based Maintenance. This approach drives maintenance actions based on the observed condition of the machine. Maintenance is therefore performed before failures and only when necessary. The drawback is that not implementing maintenance until a machine shows signs of failure is often risky and may interrupt production runs at highly inconvenient times.
An even better approach is Predictive Maintenance, where maintenance requirements are predicted well in advance. Predictive Maintenance combines condition monitoring with a dynamic predictive model for failure modes. This approach promises maximum protection of machinery and minimum productivity impact, without necessarily increasing overall system complexity.
These compact smart sensor nodes consisting of sensors, a microcontroller, power management circuitry and wired or wireless connectivity offer many advantages over traditional condition monitoring equipment:
Cost: smart sensor nodes with autonomous operation cost much less than portable piezoelectric probes and the skilled technicians required to operate them.
Repeatable, reliable and timely data: with continuous measurement and analysis during machine operation, and not according to maintenance schedules that may miss early or critical failure signs.
Ability to trigger immediate local action: intelligent algorithms can analyze data locally on the node and trigger immediate actions to protect the equipment and ensure worker safety
Adjust monitoring parameters over time: The sensor node can be configured to account for increasing tolerances of aging equipmen
In addition to the local advantages sensor nodes offer for single machines, they can also be used in cloud networks to gather large amounts of data for deeper predictive maintenance analyses.
2. Predictive Maintenance Architecture and Technologies
Condition Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance systems include a number of smart sensor nodes connected in a network via a gateway to an Edge server or to a cloud service
Depending on the Enterprise Resource Management architecture, data can be processed immediately on sensor nodes using embedded analytics, and on remote servers or cloud infrastructure which can process and correlate many data sets over time. Predictive Maintenance systems are usually connected to the Maintenance and Procurement component of ERP systems for timely ordering of spare parts.
Sensors of various types can be used, including temperature, pressure, and humidity sensors for environmental data, accelerometers for vibration measurement, current sensing devices, and microphones for ultrasound.
Accelerometers are particularly suitable for failure detection in rotating machines where acceleration, velocity and amplitude of a vibration can provide warning signs for imminent failures. Another warning parameter is ultrasound emission
Capacitive MEMS technology, widely deployed in smartphones and other consumer devices, is gaining traction in industrial applications.
For sound emissions, analysis can be performed in both the acoustic and ultrasonic spectra (above 20 kHz)
One of the key processing tasks of the microcontroller is to perform Embedded Analytics: usually both time domain and frequency spectrum analysis (FFT), as well as other embedded analytics.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the form of machine learning and deep learning is a technological breakthrough made possible by sheer quantities of available data (necessary for machine learning), modern programming techniques and open-source tools for neural-network training, powerful (cloud) computing centers and ever-improving embedded-processing systems.
Power Management in a battery-operated sensor is critical and power management systems must be designed to allow Condition Monitoring sensors to operate for long periods (in terms of years) without intervention.
3. Expediting system design and field test for Predictive Maintenance solutions
Setting up a predictive maintenance solution based on a smart sensor system may take 1 to 2 years, involving several important steps:
Defining the system architecture
Finding sensors with the right accuracy and stability, at the right cost and availability,
Defining the required specification for the microcontroller including computational power, memory and interfaces
Choosing the connectivity technologies
Designing the power management stage and suitable form factor
Implementing the required analytics as well as characterizing the system
Validating everything in a real application scenario
Conclusions
Predictive Maintenance is one of the key enablers of Smart Factories and the technologies to implement make it happen are already here: sensing, connectivity, security, power management and embedded processing with Artificial Intelligence capabilities. Add cloud computing and connectivity and you have all the ingredients
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Era of Smarter Systems Demands Functionally Accurate Digital Twins
https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1333971
Smarter systems will need to be designed and tested working together as digital twins of end products before they are manufactured and deployed.
As these systems become smarter, autonomous, and more connected, there’s a growing imperative, even a moral imperative, to ensure that these systems work as safely and as securely as possible or at least return to a safe state if a fault or tampering does occur. And to reach these goals, smarter systems will need to be designed and tested working together as digital twins of end products before they are manufactured and deployed.
Furthermore, a given digital twin of a smarter system will need to become an accurate model of the functionality of a given smart system rather than simply a superficial 3D rendering of the exterior of a system so that the companies of the world can deliver smarter systems not only faster but safer. This new era of smarter systems means that the tools that electrical engineers use to design all electronic systems — from IP cores, ICs, PCBs, and ultimately to entire electronic systems — must also become more sophisticated and improve in quality and communicate with the tools that other engineering disciplines use to build digital twins so that we can all build new generations of products smarter and safer than the last.
The second axis of rapid expansion is “the democratization of electronics” — the low rate of cost and spread of technology so that ever more sophisticated technology can become more ubiquitously available from the data center to the personal computer to handheld communication devices to now tiny computer and sensor systems that sit inside of light bulbs.
Functional digital twin starts with ICs
As an EDA company, Mentor has always been unique in the industry in that it not only has focused on building design tools over the last four decades for the remarkable people who have designed generations of ever more sophisticated ICs but has always held a vision of the future that the IC is part of a bigger system and, ultimately, the end product. Mentor offers tools for IC functional design but also functional design of the PCBs that those chips run on, the wire harnesses that connect those PCBs in cars, airplanes, and factory equipment, and thermal analysis tools for measuring how heat affects all of those sub-systems and systems and the embedded software to program these systems. The EDA space is unique from other tool disciplines such as the MCAD space in that EDA has primarily focused on creating digital twins of the functionality of the products that it produces to ensure that the chips work as designed before incurring the cost of manufacturing and to avoid costly re-spins of chips. Tools for other engineering disciplines have primarily focused on helping customers more accurately model the physical appearance of structures/products and, to some degree, the physical wear and tear of those products.
Tomi Engdahl says:
5G rollout may give utility companies technical benefits and revenue gains
https://iconsofinfrastructure.com/5g-rollout-utility-companies/
Advanced cellular technology is expected to start making an impact in around five years, providing both smart grid communications and revenue sources.
The build-out of America’s smart grid will utilize a number of wireless communication technologies to gather data from smart meters and monitor remote equipment. The coming rollout of 5G cellular communications will give utility companies another connectivity option, as well as a potential revenue source.
Communications are a mainstay in utility infrastructures that include smart meters and a growing number of distributed energy resources (DERs) like solar arrays and wind turbines. Both often multidirectional transmissions. Wireless links are also used to monitor remote stations and power transmission networks.
A broad range of technologies are used for these short- and long-range links. ZigBee, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, cellular communications and proprietary mesh networks are among the items in designers’ tool kits.
Most of these technologies have found applications where they dominate, with some areas where communication schemes vie for market share.
The emergence of 5G cellular networks, expected to start in earnest around 2020, will shake up the market. Interest is not just in the U.S. A 5G monitoring system for wind farms is among the European Union’s 5G Public Private Partnership programs.
The rollout of 5G networks comes as two global movements increase demand for high-speed communications. The Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Cities movements both rely on networking to improve efficiency.
“For the utility sector, 5G technology will help unleash the next wave of smart grid features and efficiency through low-cost connections, improved monitoring capabilities and better forecasting of energy needs.”
“As 5G networks come to market, that fiber may present a revenue opportunity, as 5G will require fiber not only for backhaul but also fronthaul,”
“Meanwhile, 5G networks may also present an attractive alternative to fiber given its very high performance profile and (purported) lower total cost of ownership. Another opportunity for utilities will come from its use of mmWave spectrum bands”
Qualcomm Technologies’ Jeffery Torrance noted that companies can start gaining some benefits of cellular connectivity without waiting for 5G to hit critical mass. Existing 4G technologies are being adapted to provide the features and functions needed for the Internet of Things. A variant called 4G LTE IoT uses narrowband technologies to reduce power consumption and cost, two big factors for utility providers, he explained.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Assistive Objects Can Track Their Own Use
https://www.designnews.com/materials-assembly/assistive-objects-can-track-their-own-use/21958452259713?ADTRK=UBM&elq_mid=6534&elq_cid=876648
Prosthetics and smart-pill bottles can be more useful if they can track their use, which is what new technology out of the University of Washington allows them to do.
Researchers have developed 3D-printed objects that can actually track and store information about how they are used. This capability creates useful feedback for devices like prosthetics that are fabricated in this way.
A team at the University of Washington developed the devices without the need for batteries or electronics. Instead, they use what’s called backscatter to transmit information—technology that communicates using an antenna that the research team had previously developed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/8727-lisatty-todellisuus-mukaan-kunnossapitoon-ja-huoltoon
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/8722-rfid-tunniste-on-helppo-hakkeroida
Varastomuodossa RFID-tunnisteet tuottavat vain identifioinnin ja paikannuksen. Kuvaamillaan helpoilla muutoksilla tutkimusryhmä antoi hakkeroidulle tagille myös kyvyn seurata ympäristöään.
- Näemme tämän hyvänä esimerkkinä kattavasta ohjelmisto-laitteistojärjestelmästä IoT-laitteille. Me hakkeroimme yksinkertaisia laitteita – leikkaamme RFID-tunnisteita ja asetimme niihin anturin. Sitten suunnittelimme uusia algoritmeja ja yhdistimme ohjelmiston ja laitteiston uusien sovellusten ja ominaisuuksien käyttöön, kuvailee Omid Abari.
- Tärkein panos on osoittaa, kuinka helppoa on hakkeroida RFID-tunniste, jolla luodaan IoT-laite. Se on niin helppoa, että aloittelija voisi tehdä sen.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The unrelenting drive to add more sensor-based features at a lower cost in smartphones has opened up opportunities to create innovative IoT edge products.
For example, advanced technology drones, created by DIY experimenters can take full advantage of cheap smartphone sensors to create flight control, autopilot, navigation, and imaging systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto
Top IoT trends; Kaspersky moves; EU and 5G.
https://semiengineering.com/week-in-review-iot-security-auto-19/
Gartner identified what it says are the top 10 strategic Internet of Things technologies and trends. Number one, no surprise, is artificial intelligence. Nick Jones, research vice president at Gartner, said in a statement, “AI will be applied to a wide range of IoT information, including video, still images, speech, network traffic activity, and sensor data.” Other top trends include ethical, legal, and social issues in IoT; infonomics and the monetization of data; the shift to edge architectures will be succeeded by a dynamic, intelligent mesh architecture; sensor innovation; trusted hardware and operating systems; silicon chip innovation; and new wireless networking technologies.
Gartner Identifies Top 10 Strategic IoT Technologies and Trends
https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2018-11-07-gartner-identifies-top-10-strategic-iot-technologies-and-trends
Trend No. 1: Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Gartner forecasts that 14.2 billion connected things will be in use in 2019, and that the total will reach 25 billion by 2021, producing immense volume of data. “Data is the fuel that powers the IoT and the organization’s ability to derive meaning from it will define their long term success,” said Mr. Jones. “AI will be applied to a wide range of IoT information, including video, still images, speech, network traffic activity and sensor data.”
Trend No. 2: Social, Legal and Ethical IoT
“Successful deployment of an IoT solution demands that it’s not just technically effective but also socially acceptable,”
Trend No. 3: Infonomics and Data Broking
Last year’s Gartner survey of IoT projects showed 35 percent of respondents were selling or planning to sell data collected by their products and services. The theory of infonomics takes this monetization of data further
Trend No. 4: The Shift from Intelligent Edge to Intelligent Mesh
The shift from centralized and cloud to edge architectures is well under way in the IoT space. However, this is not the end point because the neat set of layers associated with edge architecture will evolve to a more unstructured architecture comprising of a wide range of “things” and services connected in a dynamic mesh. These mesh architectures will enable more flexible, intelligent and responsive IoT systems
Trend No. 5: IoT Governance
As the IoT continues to expand, the need for a governance framework that ensures appropriate behavior in the creation, storage, use and deletion of information related to IoT projects will become increasingly important.
Trend No. 6: Sensor Innovation
The sensor market will evolve continuously through 2023. New sensors will enable a wider range of situations and events to be detected, current sensors will fall in price to become more affordable or will be packaged in new ways to support new applications, and new algorithms will emerge to deduce more information from current sensor technologies.
Trend No. 7: Trusted Hardware and Operating System
Gartner surveys invariably show that security is the most significant area of technical concern for organizations deploying IoT systems. This is because organizations often don’t have control over the source and nature of the software and hardware being utilised in IoT initiatives. “However, by 2023, we expect to see the deployment of hardware and software combinations that together create more trustworthy and secure IoT systems,”
Trend 8: Novel IoT User Experiences
The IoT user experience (UX) covers a wide range of technologies and design techniques. It will be driven by four factors: new sensors, new algorithms, new experience architectures and context, and socially aware experiences.
Trend No. 9: Silicon Chip Innovation
“Currently, most IoT endpoint devices use conventional processor chips, with low-power ARM architectures being particularly popular. However, traditional instruction sets and memory architectures aren’t well-suited to all the tasks that endpoints need to perform,” said Mr. Jones. “For example, the performance of deep neural networks (DNNs) is often limited by memory bandwidth, rather than processing power.”
By 2023, it’s expected that new special-purpose chips will reduce the power consumption required to run a DNN, enabling new edge architectures and embedded DNN functions in low-power IoT endpoints.
Trend No. 10: New Wireless Networking Technologies for IoT
IoT networking involves balancing a set of competing requirements, such as endpoint cost, power consumption, bandwidth, latency, connection density, operating cost, quality of service, and range. No single networking technology optimizes all of these
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wireless Sensors Dominate Most IoT Applications
https://www.electronicdesign.com/industrial-automation/wireless-sensors-dominate-most-iot-applications?NL=ED-003&Issue=ED-003_20181116_ED-003_57&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_2_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=21483&utm_medium=email&elq2=4daba425e9ec4332a40273f0c749f8e4
Sponsored by Digi-Key and TE Connectivity: Available in an extensive array of shapes, sizes, and functionality, sensors are perhaps the most essential ingredients to any IoT product or platform.
Without good sensors, most IoT applications would not exist. That fact alone makes sensors the critical design component when developing most new IoT applications. Attention to sensor qualities and specifications should be a first consideration when designing nodes for data collection.
Types of Sensors
Literally dozens, if not hundreds, of different sensors exist, and you probably know most of them. Temperature is the most often sensed characteristic, and not surprisingly, multiple sensor types are available, such a RTD, thermistor, thermocouple, solid state, and others.
Other measurable physical characteristics include pressure, humidity, moisture, flow, and wind speed. There are proximity sensors, rotary position sensors, and limit switches. Microphone sound sensors are common. And then there are sensors for ultrasonics, liquid level, rotary speed (rpm), torque, and vibration.
One special category is light sensors. Visible light and infrared (IR) light sensors are most often employed. Video camera sensors represent more complex sensor types but widely used. LiDAR sensors developed for self-driving cars are also sophisticated types.
Other special sensors include accelerometers, gyroscopes, and magnetometers. Gas and smoke detectors are also in the mix. Whatever physical characteristic you need to measure, you will find an appropriate sensor.
Sensor Interfacing
Many sensors, if not nearly all, are analog types that produce a continuously variable output in proportion to the physical characteristic being sensed. Furthermore, that output is often very small and subject to noise. Since most IoT nodes transmit digital data only, these analog sensor outputs must be digitized. As a result, some signal conditioning is needed to make the outputs suitable for use.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Electronica spotlights ‘connecting everything’
https://www.electronicproducts.com/News/Electronica_spotlights_connecting_everything.aspx
The trade fair will showcase new electronic components, from passives and connectors to sensors and power devices, from dozens of component manufacturers
With foot traffic in the tens of thousands and dozens of exhibitors, electronica 2018, held in November, promises to showcase some of the most innovative electronic components. This year, the show will host four conferences: automotive, embedded platform, medical electronics, and a Wireless Congress. This year’s slogan is “Connecting Everything — smart, safe, and secure,” which can be applied across all industry segments.
One of the technologies that spans across all embedded applications is sensors — a key enabler for IoT, autonomous driving, Industry 4.0, and any application starting with “smart.” You’ll find sensor manufacturers spread across exhibition areas. Solutions on display include Sensiron’s sensors for monitoring air quality, Bosch’s MEMS lineup for automotive and consumer electronics, and TE Connectivity’s sensor portfolio for medical applications.
For designers of automotive electronics, components on display will range from capacitive and LiDAR sensors for autonomous vehicles and chipsets for vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication to display drivers for automotive displays and chips and cameras for advanced driver assistance system (ADAS).