APPLICATIONS OF IOT

The applications of IoT are many and varied and the field has witnessed rapid growth in recent
times. In order to ease the development process of IoT applications, developers should move
beyond low-level cloud programming models. In order to address this problem, [2] proposes a
framework that is mapped to cloud application program interfaces (APIs) provided by platforms like
Aneka. The framework not only reads data from both the sensors and online databases but also
passes messages in case an event of interest is observed. The design is summarized in Fig.1.

Fig. 1: Possible framework for developing future IoT applications

A. Intelligent Transportation
It is expected that soon the principle of IoT could be applied to vehicles to set up car
networks aimed at exchanging high rate multimedia information for entertainment purposes
[4]. Such networks are called Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks (VANETs). Device to-device (D2D)
communication is one of the promising applications of network control over communication
sessions, whereby the devices discover each other and directly communicate with minimal
involvement of the network. This strategy can help to overcome latency issues in scenarios
where vehicles communicate directly with one other, i.e., vehicle-to vehicle (V2V)
communication [5]. The resulting VANET converts the participating vehicle into a wireless
router or node, allowing other cars within a proximity of 100–300m of each other to connect
and create a network. This will be a very effective way of operating vehicles.
There have already been other major developments towards achieving “smartness” on the
road. Multi-national enterprises around the world have made locating the parking slots
easier through sensors (ParkSight [6]). This is allow the users to summon cabs through a
single tap of a smartphone (Uber [7]) and designed a mechanism for volunteers to collect
road traffic data for visualization (Streetbump[8]).
 Fig. 2: Communication techniques expected to be used in VANETs comprising vehicles
equipped with on-board sensors and electronic control unit (ECU); vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V),
vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), vehicle-to-road side unit (V2R) and vehicle to sensors
(V2S)(https://ece.uwaterloo.ca/~kan.yang/securit ybbcr/vanet.html)

IoT is expected to continue playing a major role in determining how drivers interact with the
environment, including the traffic, around them.

B. Smart Clothing The state-of-the-art technique for clothing is restricted to special purpose,
low-volume fabrics that are embedded with electronics. However, projects that use IoT in
future garments by incorporating sensing layers like as a conductive coating or a mesh of
conductive threads, into a cloth during production. Especially, [9] lays down three
requirements for achieving this:
– The sensor layers got to be tailored counting on what variables they aim to sense and
therefore the body location they are alleged to perform their job on.
– There should be connectivity between the sensor layers to furnish an influence and
communication infrastructure for the sensory components.
– There should be an interface to line up to be embedded with electronic circuitry.
In conjunction to the features, a separate OS could also be added to the electronic control
modules. IoT can find application in product inspection and internal control. For instance,
Wong, y., & lp (2010) [10], proposes the planning of a garment hanger that not only checks
how the material looks like(such as colour and fitting)in order that it meets predetermined
standards, this also determine its lastingness that is strength as well as its response to being
worn by an individual several times.
Researchers have also looked into the various possibility of developing a sensor system to
figure out the optimal temperature for a building’s heating or cooling system relying on the
clothing insulation of the occupants [11]. The work was undertaken to prevent wastage of
 energy as well as reduce the feelings of discomfort experienced by people. This may be
considered inside the building owing to inordinately high or low temperature settings. A
smart sensor system for clothing insulation inference (SiCILIA) may be a platform that
addresses these challenges by obtaining the private and physical variables of the
inhabitant’s thermal environment to deduce their clothing insulation.
1) Education Global education with the vast proliferation of internet access, students and
researchers now feel the urge to not only access the work of experts in their field but
also their peers. The Internet has thus become a platform for sharing ideas and ongoing
research. It is expected that in the future experts in a particular area will be requested to
teach classes anywhere in the world through streaming or live video [16].
With the world’s leading universities are providing access to their professors free of
charge, the idea of “flipped classrooms” is gaining strength, whereby students would be
expected to learn the subject matter outside the classroom, leaving the course
instructor to discuss problems and ideas during class time. By providing an opportunity
for students in the developing world to learn beyond basic education (which is often
limited by the economic status), MOOCs and other online resources like the Khan
Academy [17] can, in time, help to improve the quality of life for people who cannot
afford higher education.
Another major group of beneficiaries would be home-bound individuals who are capable
of learning and participate in classroom courses. In the future, MOOCs may take the
transformation into vehicles for two-way information which can prove vital for the
universities and teachers engaged in furthering these initiatives. MOOCs can generate
data-sets outlining the number of registrations and drop-outs, online attendance per
course and the students‟ internet protocol (IP) address of the students. The universities
can thus gauge the time that people spend on course materials and narrow down the
content and topics that might be popular among specific demographics. This would
allow course instructors to streamline their teaching methods to reduce drop out rates
and to align the curriculum to the students‟ needs.
C. Environment Observation, Forecasting and Protection
With the environment under constant stress due to extensive urbanization and adverse
human activities such as hunting for sport, IoT is projected to play a part in preserving
natural resources and endangered species. In order to achieve the latter objective,
organizations around the world are using GPS-enabled devices to track the habits and health
of endangered. In fact, Cisco is using long range radio (LoRa)-based connectivity to track the
movement of anyone entering the reserve grounds for rhinos. In case of Trespassing,
precautionary measures may be taken for the well-being of the animals.
Furthermore, IoT can potentially help alleviate waste management issues particularly in
countries like the USA where the daily per capita trash was estimated to be 4.6 pounds in
2013 [18]. By determining the optimum time for waste collection and the best routes for the
trucks to follow, IoT can redress the problems associated with waste build-up in
neighbourhoods.
With an increasing number of water stressed countries around the world, the installation of
smart water sensors in buildings can also to help limit domestic water consumption.
Through these devices and data analytics, users will be able to keep track of how much
water was used in a given period, allowing them to cut down on excessive usage.
 Another major environmental crisis that the world faces is deforestation. In addition to
fighting forest fires, drones are now part of an initiative by Biocarbon Engineering to replant
one billion trees [19]. The organization aims to achieve its goals through precision
agriculture techniques, the use of technology to reduce manpower requirements and cost
and the deployment of drones to determine the landscape of the area affected by
deforestation. Finally, IoT can also assist in predicting and mitigating the effects of natural
disasters. In particular, Zizmo [20] uses cloud connected sensors that detect motion near
earthquake epicentres to issue a warning to residents in the surrounding areas. Similarly,
Avatech [21] uses pressure sensors to predict the likelihood of an avalanche.
D. Smart Agriculture
The world’s water reservoirs are fast depleting and there is an urgent need to conserve this
precious resource. According to an estimate, farmers use 70% of earth‟s freshwater, 60% of
which is lost due to faulty irrigation systems, inefficient agricultural techniques and the
cultivation of thirsty crops. Sensors and actuators can provide growers with a better visibility
over their operation and thus allow them to minimize water wastage by monitoring metrics
such as temperature and water pressure. In this respect, Microstrain [22] has developed a
system of wireless sensors to gauge key conditions during the growing season in vineyards.
The sensors measure variables such as temperature, soil moisture and solar radiation and
alert the farmers in case of extreme conditions. Figure 3 spells out the possible applications
of IoT in farming.

Fig. 3: Applications of IoT in agriculture

E. Health Care Given the vast number of future applications of IoT, it is little wonder that IoT is
expected to revolutionize health care as well. IoT can allow physicians to constantly monitor
 the physiological parameters of their patients. Owing to the recent advances in wireless
sensor networks (WSNs) and embedded systems, miniaturized health monitoring devices
have become a reality. These sensors can form a body sensor network (BSN) which not only
monitors the patients‟ health indicators but also incorporates context aware sensing for
improved sensitivity. In this connection, [23] proposes the design of a hardware
development platform.
The diagnosis of cardiac diseases by constantly monitoring the patient’s electrocardiogram
(ECG) signals is a common application of BSNs. These sensor networks have also been used
for monitoring patients with Parkinson’s disease as they offer credible data collected over a
larger period of time, compared to the inferences made through clinical observation. For
example, in [24], the authors used wearable sensors to identify the movement
characteristics of patients suffering from Parkinson‟s disease and attained real-time
monitoring with high accuracy. Similarly BSNs have also been used for the treatment of
respiratory diseases. In such a scenario, the network comprises a respiratory sensor for
determining the depth and frequency of breathing. The collected data might then be used
for patients to undergo breathing training which is instrumental in respiratory disease
rehabilitation. The setup includes It utilizes a respiratory sensor for monitoring depth and
frequency of breathing, to guide patients to take correct breathing training, which plays a
very important role in respiratory disease rehabilitation [25, 26].
F. Smart Buildings
Sensors can prove useful in preventing possible health hazards at home. For instance,
environmental sensors can now monitor air quality, barometric pressure, carbon monoxide
concentration, colour, gas leaks, humidity, hydrogen sulphide levels and temperature, with
upcoming start-ups offering users to access these details remotely. Netatmo [27] is one such
venture. Other enterprises have tried to incorporate IoT principles to household lighting.
Meethue [28], for example, is a bulb that can be controlled by mobile devices that is
sensitive not only to the weather but also to user preferences, time and room activity.
Additionally, some smart home solutions have also focused on facilitating the activities of
the elderly. For instance, Ubi [29] a voice- activated computer allows access to an audio
calendar, podcast and voice memos, and can also make lighting based notifications to
indicate the occurrence of certain events
[2] Gubbi, J., Buyya, R., Marusic, S., & Palaniswami, M. (2013). Internet of Things (IoT): A
vision, architectural elements, and future directions. Future Generation Computer Systems,
29(7), 1645–1660.
[3] Fleisch, E., Weinberger, M., & Wortmann, F. (2014). Business models and the internet of
things. In Bosch IoT Lab White Paper.
[4] Boeglen, H., Hilt, B., Lorenz, P., Ledy, J., & Poussard, A. (2011). A survey of V2V channel
modeling for VANET simulations. In 8th International Conference on Wireless on-Demand
Network Systems and Services, Bardonecchia (pp. 117–123).
[5] Nshimiyimana, A., Agrawal, D., & Arif, W. (2016). Comprehensive survey of V2V
communication for 4G mobile and wireless technology. In International Conference on
Wireless Communications, Signal Processing and Networking (WiSPNET), India (pp. 1722–
1726).
[6] ParkSight: The complete smart parking solution, Streetline, Inc., Foster City, CA, USA,
Tech. Rep., 2016.
[7] Uber. (2016). Uber [Online]. Available: https://www.uber.com/
[8] All Traffic Solutions. (2016). All Traffic [Online]. Available:
http:/www.alltrafficsolutions.com/ smartappsvideo/smartapps-overview/
[9] Cheng, J., et al., (2013). Smart textiles: From niche to mainstream. IEEE Pervasive
Computing, 12(3), 81–84.
[10] Wong, Y., & Ip, K. (2010). A three in one smart garment hanger. In International
Conference on System Science and Engineering, Taipei (pp. 50–55).
[11] Shaabana, A., Zheng, R., & Xu, Z. (2015). SiCILIA: A smart sensor system for clothing
insulation inference. IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), USA (pp. 1–6).
[16] Selinger, M., Sepulveda, A., Buchan, J. (2013). Education and the internet of everything:
How ubiquitous connectedness can help transform pedagogy. Education IoE Whitepaper,
Cisco.
[17] Khan Academy. Khan Academy (2016). [Online]. Available
https://www.khanacademy.org
[18] Report on the Environment (2013). United States Environmental Protection Agency
[Online]. http://www.epa.gov/roe/
[19] BioCarbon Engineering: Industrial scale reforestation services (2016). [Online].
http://www. biocarbonengineering.com/
[20] Zizmos: Earthquake early warning system (2016). [Online]. https://www.zizmos.com
[21] Avatech (2016). [Online]. http://avatech.com/
[22] MicroStrain, Inc. (2016). Shelburne Vineyard Remote Monitoring. [Online]. Available:
http://www.microstrain.com/news/shelburne-vineyard relieswireless-sensors-and-cloud-
monitoritsvines
[23] Lo, B., Thiemjarus, S., King, R., & Yang, G. (2005) Body sensor network - A wireless
sensor platform for pervasive healthcare monitoring. Proceedings of 3rd International
Conference Pervasive Computing (pp. 77–80).
[24] Patel, S., et al., (2006). Analysis of the severity of dyskinesia in patients with Parkinson’s
disease via wearable sensors. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Wearable and
Implantable Body Sensor Networks, USA (pp. 4–126).
 [25] Mitchell, E., et al., (2010). Breathing feedback system with wearable textile sensors. In
Proceedings of the 2010 International Conference on Body Sensor Network (BSN), Singapore
(pp. 56–61).
[26] Bates, A., et al., (2010). Respiratory rate and flow waveform estimation from tri-axial
accelerometer data. Proceedings of the 2010 International Conference on Body Sensor
Network (BSN), Singapore (pp. 144–150). 27. NetAtmo: Urban weather station (2014).
Household Technol. PTY Ltd., Durban, South Africa.
[27] Meet Hue Personal Wireless Lighting, Koninklijke Philips, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
http://www2.meethue.com/en-us/
[28] Unified Computer Intelligence Corp. (2016). UBI [Online]. Available:
http://theubi.myshopify.com/.
[29] Perera, C., Liu, C. H., & Jayawardena, S. (2015). The emerging internet of things
marketplace from an industrial perspective: A survey. In IEEE Transactions on Emerging
Topics in Computing, 3(4), 585–598.