Sensors in the Age of the Internet of Things: Technologies and applications

2: University of Alabama, AL, USA
3: Macquarie University, NSW, Australia
The IoT is the inter-networking of connected and smart devices, buildings, vehicles and other items which are embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity that enable these objects to collect and exchange data. A sensor is a detection device that measures, records, or responds to a physical property. Sensors represent the front end of information processing. Progress in communication technologies is part of the multi-factorial advances in electronics, sensors, embedded computing, signal processing and machine learning methods that has led to the development of new capabilities in the IoT. This edited book focuses on the technologies constituting the IoT from a sensor perspective, for an audience of researchers, scientists, engineers and graduate students with an interest in the field. Applications covered include connected sensors for smart cities, energy infrastructure, emergency management, and smart ports.
Inspec keywords: logistics; local area networks; signalling protocols; sea ports; telecommunication congestion control; Internet of Things; production engineering computing; wireless sensor networks; data analysis; radio networks
Other keywords: logistics; signalling protocols; data analysis; wireless sensor networks; Internet of Things; sea ports; local area networks; radio networks; production engineering computing; telecommunication congestion control
Subjects: General electrical engineering topics; Computer communications; Goods distribution; Protocols; Local area networks; Wireless sensor networks; Protocols; General topics in manufacturing and production engineering; Sensing devices and transducers; General and management topics; Computer networks and techniques; Production engineering computing; Industrial applications of IT; Data handling techniques; Radio links and equipment
- Book DOI: 10.1049/PBCE122E
- Chapter DOI: 10.1049/PBCE122E
- ISBN: 9781785616341
- e-ISBN: 9781785616358
- Page count: 308
- Format: PDF
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Front Matter
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1 The Internet of things: a survey and outlook
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The recent history has witnessed disruptive advances in disciplines related to information and communication technologies that have laid a rich technological ecosystem for the growth and maturity of latent paradigms in this domain. Among them, sensor networks have evolved from the originally conceived set-up where hundreds of nodes with sensing and actuating functionalities were deployed to capture information from their environment and act accordingly (coining the so-called wireless sensor network concept) to the provision of such functionalities embedded in quotidian objects that communicate and work together to collaboratively accomplish complex tasks based on the information they acquire by sensing the environment. This is nowadays a reality, embracing the original idea of an Internet of things (IoT) forged in the late twentieth century, yet featuring unprecedented scales, capabilities and applications ignited by new radio interfaces, communication protocols and intelligent data-based models. This chapter examines the latest findings reported in the literature around these topics, with a clear focus on IoT communications, protocols and platforms, towards ultimately identifying opportunities and trends that will be at the forefront of IoT-related research in the near future.
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2 Sensors for the Internet of things
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This chapter is focused on the basic concepts of sensors for the Internet of things (IoT). There is a wide variety of sensors, so to better manage them some type of classification will first be necessary. Then, the main characteristics of the sensors will be defined. Understanding these features will undoubtedly help in selecting the most suitable sensor for IoT applications. Finally, examples of commercial sensors particularly suitable for IoT applications are provided.
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3 Sensor communication interfaces and standards
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The chapter talks about the interfaces used to communicate with sensors and the standards available to channel data to higher logical levels. These communication interfaces and standards aim at abstracting the sensor layer in order to achieve interoperability at the layers above. Two standards are covered in detail: the IEEE 1451 standard that defines a smart transducer interface for sensors and actuators, and the Open Process Control (OPC) platform. The first one is an ongoing work with academic roots, while the second one is an industry-born platform. Both solutions are described in terms of architecture and internal structure, and are criticized in terms of pros and cons.
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4 Multisensor IoT interface with Bluetooth Low Energy
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The article detailed the challenges in implementing a multisensor Android BLE application and a new methodology - SASC - was proposed to address these challenges. Benchmarking tests and free-living tests were conducted to validate the SASC implementation schemes. The benchmarking tests gave quantified results on metrics such as throughput, CPU loading on the smartphone and power consumption by the Android application for various number of sensors and varying connection intervals. The results of Android application throughput evaluation suggest that the maximum achievable throughput is ~20 kbps for a single sensor connection and ~70 kbps for a seven -sensor connection under SASC methodology. The results of the CPU loading and power consumption tests suggest that CPU loading and power consumption figures can be kept low by using a connection interval of 13.75 ms or greater. The proposed SASC methodology was also used in a real-life use case for gait data collection using SmartStep sensors, and a total of 19 days of human subject tests resulted in 100% data retrieval. These results suggest that the proposed methodology can serve as a foundation for applications that require managing multiple BLE connections in the world of IoT.
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5 Fog computing middleware for distributed cooperative data analytics
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The Internet of things (IoT) has experienced an exponential growth in the past few years with billions of devices connected to the Internet. At the same time, the storage and the computation capabilities of these devices approximately double every 18 months to support intensive data analytics, while the communication bandwidth does not grow at the same speed and is limited by the spectrum availability. In applications over distributed environments (such as sensor networks), bandwidth limitations make it infeasible to send all data to a central place (e.g., cloud) for post-processing. Furthermore, latency becomes an issue when IoT systems need to transfer data in real time. To overcome the bottlenecks of bandwidth and latency deficiencies and take full advantage of powerful computation of current sensor devices, the fog computing (also called fogging or edge computing) paradigm was introduced. This paradigm brings data processing, networking, storage and analytics closer to the devices and applications.
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6 IoT-enabled water monitoring and control for smart city
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In a world when resources of living are scarce, urban people are suffering from a crisis of potable drinking water. The massive increase and concentration of human population in urban areas are liable for consumption of the vast majority of resources. Therefore it is highly pertinent to make cities greener and more sustainable. Advanced systems developed to improve and automate processes within a city will play a leading role in smart cities. From the intelligent design of buildings, which capture and harvest rainwater for future use, to smart control systems, which can monitor infrastructures autonomously, the possible improvements enabled by sensing technologies are of utmost importance. Internet of things (IoT)-enabled sensing and control poses numerous challenges, which are of a technological and social nature. The IoT solutions of smart water can help water utilities to coordinate analysis of supply and demand to provide smooth control actions across large numbers of distributed smart assets to monitor and deliver optimized performance to entire water production and distribution network. This ensures minimum water loss, assured water quality and quantity to every consumer. It is an excellent challenge in technology, and IoT-enabled smart assets will play a vital role towards the solution. The plugin Internet interface modules are developed to convert existing sensor and actuator system for secure and speedier communication of data to the central decision system either situated in the plant or in a cloud. All smart devices for water monitoring systems are M2M enabled and can share information directly or through the central system. The smart water solution technology is applicable for improvement of overall performance, quality and reliability of water and wastewater treatment and distribution system. The topic includes remote-based pipe monitoring and leak detection system to minimize nonrevenue water and to restore water supply in 24×7 manners with active operational management in damaged assets.
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7 IoT for smart homes
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The usage of smart homes in real-time applications has been one of the state-of-the-art due to the quality of life they provide to the residing life. Internet of things (IoT)-based smart homes are booming in the market where a large number of IoT-connected daily used items are commercially available. These devices are used in the smart homes for ubiquitous monitoring of the different activities of the residing people. This chapter gives an overview of some of the smart devices available for IoT-based smart homes along with some of the research work done on IoT-based smart homes in the laboratory. This also showcases some of the sensors that have been used for biomedical applications and have the potential to be used in smart homes.
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8 Wireless sensor network for landslide early warning and monitoring
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In this chapter, a wireless sensor network (WSN) application aimed for monitoring and warning about imminent landslides is presented. It consists of multiple complex measurement nodes (MNs) connected in a radio communication network spread over the area to be monitored. Each node is able to measure two types of parameters: relative soil layers displacement and pore water pressure, each of them mounted at different soil depths. The sensors devoted to measure the above parameters are of original conception and feature very good metrological qualities, especially in terms of displacement sensing sensitivity, which is as low as 1 mm per year. The measurement node structure can be tailored according to the underground layer structure and can include several displacement and pore water pressure sensors that are connected together in a wired local network structure with serial communication. The WSN is coordinated by a gateway, which has the role of general administration of the network resources, data collection and storage and information transmission to the cloud, from where a central server accesses and downloads the data. The whole structure of such a network is detailed in this chapter, starting with sensors description, continuing with the network architecture, communication protocols, data structure, alarms generation, data analysis, power management and ending with the user interface and some results obtained by in-field deploying of the network.
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9 Industrial Internet of the things
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This chapter focuses on several topics related to the industrial Internet of the things (IIoT). Starting with current loop signalling in industrial plants and fmishing with wireless networks, the main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of IIoT are underlined. The first part of the chapter includes a summary of the main protocols that are still used in instrumentation and control (I&C) networks and the second part of the chapter presents topics related to industrial Ethernet, real-time demands, collision avoidance, synchronization and time -sensitive requirements in industrial networks.
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10 Internet of things for cargo ports
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Internet of Things (IoT) is a very large domain, with a great variety of technologies and applications involved, spanning across a variety of business sectors. The goal of the present work is to model an IoT architecture for cargo ports. In this chapter the main objects/things and their roles in a cargo port, different sensors and instrumentation that was used or might be used for sensing and control in a cargo port and some examples of IoT technologies that might contribute for improving the safety of processes and the security of the ports are presented. The analysis of the data on information and communication technologies that were implemented or having potential application to cargo port logistic suggests that IoTs might contribute to increase the efficiency and the quality of services in cargo ports, the operational safety and the security of the ports, by increasing the accessibility and accuracy of relevant information.
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Back Matter
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