Hands-On Industrial Internet of Things
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IoT enabling factors

What has changed from the Walmart scenario to make companies support the advent of the IoT? There is no one specific new technology or invention, but rather a set of already existing technologies that have been developed. These have created an ecosystem and a technology environment which makes the connection of different things possible, efficient, and easy from a technical perspective, profitable from a market perspective, and attractive from a production-cost perspective.

The technologies that have led to the evolution of IoT ecosystems are as follows:

  • New sensors that are much more mature, have more capabilities, and offer high performance at a lower cost. These smart sensors are natively designed to hide the complexity of the signal processing, and they interact easily through a digital interface. The smart sensor is a system itself, with a dedicated chip for signal processing. The hardware for signal processing is embedded in each sensor and miniaturized to the point that it is part of the sensor package. Smart sensors are defined by the IEEE 1451 standard as sensors with a small memory and standardized physical connections to enable communication with the processor and the data network. As well as this, smart sensors are the combination of a normal sensor with signal conditioning, embedded algorithms, and a digital interface. The principal catalyst for the growth of smart-sensing technology has been the development of microelectronics at reduced cost. Many silicon manufacturing techniques are now being used to make not only sensor elements, but also multilayered sensors and sensor arrays that are able to provide internal compensation and increase reliability. The global smart sensor market was evaluated at between $22 and $25.96 billion in 2017. It is forecast to reach between $60 and $80 billion by the end of 2022.
  • New networks and wireless connectivity, such as personal area networks (PANs) or low power networks (LPNs), interconnect sensors and devices in order to optimize their bandwidth, power consumption, latency, and range. In PANs, a number of small devices connect directly or through a main device to a LAN, which has access to the internet. Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWANs) are wireless networks designed to allow long-range communications at a low bit rate among battery-operated devices. Their low power, low bit rate, and their intended use distinguish these types of network from the already existing wireless WAN, which is designed to connect users and businesses and carry more data, using more power. (More information can be found on WANs at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_WAN.)
  • New processors and microprocessors coming from the world of mobile devices. These are very powerful and very cheap. They have produced a new generation of sensors and devices based on standardized and cheap hardware that is driven by open and generic operating systems. These use common software frameworks as an interface, allowing you to transition from a legacy solution, with strictly coupled hardware and software, to a platform built on the COTS component and the adoption of an open software framework.
  • The battle of the real-time operating system (RTOS) to gain a larger slice of new markets between the big market players. This places more sophisticated and powerful integrated development platforms at the maker's disposal.
  • Virtualization technology, which divides naturally into the data center, big data and the cloud. This leads to the following features:
    • CPUs, memory, storage, infrastructures, platforms, and software frameworks available as services on demand, with flexible and tailored sizing. These are cheap and available without capital expenditure (CAPEX) investment.
    • Elastic repositories for storing and analyzing the onslaught of data.
    • The profitable and flexible operational expenditure (OPEX) model per CPU, memory, storage, and IT maintenance services. This creates a business case for migrating the legacy data, infrastructure, and applications to the cloud, and making the collection of big data and subsequent analytics possible.
  • The convergence of IT and operational technology (OT). This has led to the increasing adoption of COTS components in sectors in which hardware was traditionally developed with specific requirements such as is the case in industrial plants.
  • The diffusion of mobile devices and social networks has created a culture and a generic mindset with an embedded expectation for the market consumers to encounter the world through an app which shares related information.

The preceding factors are making it possible to transition from a vertical, legacy platform with an application organized hierarchically, with the data confined in silos, to a horizontal, modular, and cloud-based platform. This new platform uses a standardized API layer that provides high interoperability capabilities and the ability to share data and information between applications.

Let's consider what might happen if the Walmart project was carried out now. In 2003, the only RFID technology that existed was active RFID systems. Active RFID systems use battery-powered RFID tags that continuously broadcast their own signals. They provide a long-read range, but they are also expensive and consume a lot of power. Passive RFID systems, on the other hand, use tags with no internal power source, and are instead powered by the electromagnetic energy transmitted from an RFID reader. They have a shorter read range, but they are unembeddable, printable, and much cheaper, which makes them a better choice for many industries. Also, at the time of the Walmart project, there were no PANs or LPNs to capture and transmit the label data, meaning the developers had to adopt an expensive, wired connection to transfer the information. The data was then stored in a legacy database and processed by a custom application. If the Walmart project were to be carried out now, instead of in 2003, the tracking information could be carried out by passive RFIDs. The data could be captured by a PAN and transmitted via the cloud to be processed by an application built on top of a common API and framework. This means that all data and information could be easily shared between the project partners. According to Forbes and Gartner, the IoT market and connected devices is expected to grow strongly in the next year, as shown by the following statistics:

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