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a b s t r a c t
Ubiquitous sensing enabled by Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technologies cuts across many areas of
modern day living. This offers the ability to measure, infer and understand environmental indicators, from
delicate ecologies and natural resources to urban environments. The proliferation of these devices in a
communicating–actuating network creates the Internet of Things (IoT), wherein sensors and actuators
blend seamlessly with the environment around us, and the information is shared across platforms in order
to develop a common operating picture (COP). Fueled by the recent adaptation of a variety of enabling
wireless technologies such as RFID tags and embedded sensor and actuator nodes, the IoT has stepped out
of its infancy and is the next revolutionary technology in transforming the Internet into a fully integrated
Future Internet. As we move from www (static pages web) to web2 (social networking web) to web3
(ubiquitous computing web), the need for data-on-demand using sophisticated intuitive queries increases
significantly. This paper presents a Cloud centric vision for worldwide implementation of Internet of
Things. The key enabling technologies and application domains that are likely to drive IoT research in the
near future are discussed. A Cloud implementation using Aneka, which is based on interaction of private
and public Clouds is presented. We conclude our IoT vision by expanding on the need for convergence of
WSN, the Internet and distributed computing directed at technological research community.
Introduction
The next wave in the era of computing will be outside the realm
of the traditional desktop. In the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm,
many of the objects that surround us will be on the network in one
form or another. Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) and sensor
network technologies will rise to meet this new challenge, in which
information and communication systems are invisibly embedded
in the environment around us. This results in the generation of
enormous amounts of data which have to be stored, processed
and presented in a seamless, efficient, and easily interpretable
form. This model will consist of services that are commodities and
delivered in a manner similar to traditional commodities. Cloud computing can provide the virtual infrastructure for such utility
computing which integrates monitoring devices, storage devices,
analytics tools, visualization platforms and client delivery. The cost
based model that Cloud computing offers will enable end-to-end
service provisioning for businesses and users to access applications
on demand from anywhere.
Smart connectivity with existing networks and context-aware
computation using network resources is an indispensable part of
IoT. With the growing presence of WiFi and 4G-LTE wireless Internet
access, the evolution towards ubiquitous information and communication
networks is already evident. However, for the Internet
of Things vision to successfully emerge, the computing paradigm
will need to go beyond traditional mobile computing scenarios
that use smart phones and portables, and evolve into connecting
everyday existing objects and embedding intelligence into our
environment. For technology to disappear from the consciousness
of the user, the Internet of Things demands: (1) a shared
understanding of the situation of its users and their appliances, (2) software architectures and pervasive communication networks
to process and convey the contextual information to where it is relevant,
and (3) the analytics tools in the Internet of Things that aim
for autonomous and smart behavior. With these three fundamental
grounds in place, smart connectivity and context-aware computation
can be accomplished.
The term Internet of Things was first coined by Kevin Ashton
in 1999 in the context of supply chain management [1]. However,
in the past decade, the definition has been more inclusive covering
wide range of applications like healthcare, utilities, transport,
etc. [2]. Although the definition of ‘Things’ has changed as technology
evolved, the main goal of making a computer sense information
without the aid of human intervention remains the same.
A radical evolution of the current Internet into a Network of interconnected
objects that not only harvests information from the
environment (sensing) and interacts with the physical world (actuation/command/control),
but also uses existing Internet standards
to provide services for information transfer, analytics, applications,
and communications. Fueled by the prevalence of devices enabled
by open wireless technology such as Bluetooth, radio frequency
identification (RFID), Wi-Fi, and telephonic data services as well as
embedded sensor and actuator nodes, IoT has stepped out of its infancy
and is on the verge of transforming the current static Internet
into a fully integrated Future Internet [3]. The Internet revolution
led to the interconnection between people at an unprecedented
scale and pace. The next revolution will be the interconnection between
objects to create a smart environment. Only in 2011 did the
number of interconnected devices on the planet overtake the actual
number of people. Currently there are 9 billion interconnected
devices and it is expected to reach 24 billion devices by 2020.
According to the GSMA, this amounts to $1.3 trillion revenue opportunities
for mobile network operators alone spanning vertical
segments such as health, automotive, utilities and consumer electronics.
A schematic of the interconnection of objects is depicted in
Fig. 1, where the application domains are chosen based on the scale
of the impact of the data generated. The users span from individual
to national level organizations addressing wide ranging issues.
This paper presents the current trends in IoT research
propelled by applications and the need for convergence in several
interdisciplinary technologies. Specifically, in Section 2, we present
the overall IoT vision and the technologies that will achieve it
followed by some common definitions in the area along with
some trends and taxonomy of IoT in Section 3. We discuss several
application domains in IoT with a new approach in defining them
in Section 4 and Section 5 provides our Cloud centric IoT vision.
A case study of data analytics on the Aneka/Azure cloud platform
is given in Section 6 and we conclude with discussions on open
challenges and future trends in Section 7.
2. Ubiquitous computing in the next decade
The effort by researchers to create a human-to-human interface
through technology in the late 1980s resulted in the creation
of the ubiquitous computing discipline, whose objective is to embed
technology into the background of everyday life. Currently, we
are in the post-PC era where smart phones and other handheld devices
are changing our environment by making it more interactive
as well as informative. Mark Weiser, the forefather of Ubiquitous
Computing (ubicomp), defined a smart environment [4] as ‘‘the
physical world that is richly and invisibly interwoven with sensors,
actuators, displays, and computational elements, embedded seamlessly
in the everyday objects of our lives, and connected through
a continuous network’’.
The creation of the Internet has marked a foremost milestone
towards achieving ubicomp’s vision which enables individual
devices to communicate with any other device in the world. The
inter-networking reveals the potential of a seemingly endless
amount of distributed computing resources and storage owned by
various owners.
In contrast to Weiser’s Calm computing approach, Rogers
proposes a human centric ubicomp which makes use of human
creativity in exploiting the environment and extending their capabilities
[5]. He proposes a domain specific ubicomp solution when
he says—‘‘In terms of who should benefit, it is useful to think of
how ubicomp technologies can be developed not for the Sal’s of
the world, but for particular domains that can be set up and customized
by an individual firm or organization, such as for agricultural
production, environmental restoration or retailing’’.
Caceres and Friday [6] discuss the progress, opportunities
and challenges during the 20 year anniversary of ubicomp. They
discuss the building blocks of ubicomp and the characteristics of
the system to adapt to the changing world. More importantly,
they identify two critical technologies for growing the ubicomp
infrastructure—Cloud Computing and the Internet of Things.
The advancements and convergence of micro-electro-mechanical
systems (MEMS) technology, wireless communications, and
digital electronics has resulted in the development of miniature
devices having the ability to sense, compute, and communicate
wirelessly in short distances. These miniature devices called nodes
interconnect to form a wireless sensor networks (WSN) and find
wide ranging applications in environmental monitoring, infrastructure
monitoring, traffic monitoring, retail, etc. [7]. This has the
ability to provide a ubiquitous sensing capability which is critical
in realizing the overall vision of ubicomp as outlined by Weiser [4].
For the realization of a complete IoT vision, efficient, secure, scalable
and market oriented computing and storage resourcing is essential.
Cloud computing [6] is the most recent paradigm to emerge
which promises reliable services delivered through next generation
data centers that are based on virtualized storage technologies.
This platform acts as a receiver of data from the ubiquitous
sensors; as a computer to analyze and interpret the data; as well
as providing the user with easy to understand web based visualization.
The ubiquitous sensing and processing works in the background,
hidden from the user.
This novel integrated Sensor–Actuator–Internet framework
shall form the core technology around which a smart environment
will be shaped: information generated will be shared across diverse
platforms and applications, to develop a common operating
picture (COP) of an environment, where control of certain unrestricted
‘Things’ is made possible. As we move from www (static
pages web) to web2 (social networking web) to web3 (ubiquitous
computing web), the need for data-on-demand using sophisticated
intuitive queries increases. To take full advantage of the available
Internet technology, there is a need to deploy large-scale, platformindependent,
wireless sensor network infrastructure that includes
data management and processing, actuation and analytics. Cloud
computing promises high reliability, scalability and autonomy to
provide ubiquitous access, dynamic resource discovery and composability
required for the next generation Internet of Things applications.
Consumers will be able to choose the service level by
changing the Quality of Service parameters.
3. Definitions, trends and elements
3.1. Definitions
As identified by Atzori et al. [8], Internet of Things can be realized
in three paradigms—internet-oriented (middleware), things
oriented (sensors) and semantic-oriented (knowledge). Although
this type of delineation is required due to the interdisciplinary nature
of the subject, the usefulness of IoT can be unleashed only in
an application domain where the three paradigms intersect.
The RFID group defines the Internet of Things as –
• The worldwide network of interconnected objects uniquely
addressable based on standard communication protocols.
According to Cluster of European research projects on the Internet
of Things [2] –
• ‘Things’ are active participants in business, information and
social processes where they are enabled to interact and communicate
among themselves and with the environment by exchanging
data and information sensed about the environment,
while reacting autonomously to the real/physical world events
and influencing it by running processes that trigger actions and
create services with or without direct human intervention.
According to Forrester [9], a smart environment –
• Uses information and communications technologies to make
the critical infrastructure components and services of a
city’s administration, education, healthcare, public safety, real
estate, transportation and utilities more aware, interactive and
efficient.
In our definition, we make the definition more user centric and do
not restrict it to any standard communication protocol. This will
allow long-lasting applications to be developed and deployed using
the available state-of-the-art protocols at any given point in time.
Our definition of the Internet of Things for smart environments is
–
• Interconnection of sensing and actuating devices providing the
ability to share information across platforms through a unified
framework, developing a common operating picture for
enabling innovative applications. This is achieved by seamless
ubiquitous sensing, data analytics and information representation
with Cloud computing as the unifying framework.