Introduction to IoT

• Let's us look closely at our mobile device which contains GPS

Tracking, Mobile Gyroscope, Adaptive brightness, Voice detection,
Face detection etc. These components have their own individual
features, but what about if these all communicate with each other to
provide a better environment? For example, the phone brightness is
adjusted based on my GPS location or my direction.
• Connecting everyday things embedded with electronics, software, and
sensors to internet enabling to collect and exchange data without
human interaction called as the Internet of Things (IoT).
• The term "Things" in the Internet of Things refers to anything and
everything in day to day life which is accessed or connected through
the internet.
• IoT is an advanced automation and analytics system which deals with artificial
intelligence, sensor, networking, electronic, cloud messaging etc. to deliver
complete systems for the product or services. The system created by IoT has
greater transparency, control, and performance.
• As we have a platform such as a cloud that contains all the data through which
we connect all the things around us. For example, a house, where we can
connect our home appliances such as air conditioner, light, etc. through each
other and all these things are managed at the same platform. Since we have a
platform, we can connect our car, track its fuel meter, speed level, and also track
the location of the car.
• If there is a common platform where all these things can connect to each other
would be great because based on my preference, I can set the room temperature.
For example, if I love the room temperature to to be set at 25 or 26-degree
Celsius when I reach back home from my office, then according to my car
location, my AC would start before 10 minutes I arrive at home. This can be
done through the Internet of Things (IoT).
• The word IoT(Internet of Things) refers to the things that are
connected to the internet or network.
Or
in other words, we can call it an ecosystem of connected devices that
are accessible through the internet.
• The Internet of things is a system of interrelated computing devices,
provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a
network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer
interaction.
• The things receive inputs (using sensors) and transform them into data
that is transmitted through Internet.
• The things also can produce output or take action using actuators.
• A dynamic global network infrastructure with self-configuring
capabilities based on standard and interoperable communication
protocols where physical and virtual "things" have identities, physical
attributes, and virtual personalities and use intelligent interfaces, and
are seamlessly integrated into the information network, often
communicate data associated with users and their environments.
What is a Sensor?
• A Sensor is a device that is able to detect changes in an environment.
Sensors are hardware components that can detect events or changes
in their surroundings, and then provide a corresponding output.
• Sensors are the eyes and ears of any IoT Project.
What is Actuator?
• An Actuator is a device that converts energy into motion. It is usually
used to apply force on something.
• How does Internet of Thing (IoT) Work?
• The working of IoT is different for different IoT echo system
(architecture).
• However, the key concept of there working are similar.
• The entire working process of IoT starts with the device themselves,
such as smartphones, digital watches, electronic appliances, which
securely communicate with the IoT platform.
• The platforms collect and analyze the data from all multiple devices
and platforms and transfer the most valuable data with applications to
devices.
Sensors/Devices

•  Sensors or devices are a key component that helps you to collect live data from the surrounding environment.

Connectivity

• All the collected data is sent to a cloud infrastructure. The sensors should be connected to the cloud using
various mediums of communications. These communication mediums include mobile or satellite networks,
Bluetooth, WI-FI, WAN, etc.

Data Processing

•   Once that data is collected, and it gets to the cloud, the software performs processing on the gathered data.
identifying objects, using computer vision on video.

User Interface

• The information needs to be available to the end-user in some way which can be achieved by triggering
alarms on their phones or sending them notification through email or text message.
Characteristics of IoT
• Characteristics of the Internet of Things:
1.Connectivity — Connectivity is an important requirement of the IoT
infrastructure. Things of IoT should be connected to the IoT infrastructure.
Anyone, anywhere, anytime can connect, this should be guaranteed at all
times. For example, the connection between people through internet
devices like mobile phones, and other gadgets, also a connection between
Internet devices such as routers, gateways, sensors, etc.
2.Intelligence and Identity — The extraction of knowledge from the
generated data is very important. For example, a sensor generates data, but
that data will only be useful if it is interpreted properly. Each IoT device has
a unique identity. This identification is helpful in tracking the equipment
and at times for querying its status.
3.Scalability — The number of elements connected to the IoT zone is
increasing day by day. Hence, an IoT setup should be capable of handling
the massive expansion. The data generated as an outcome is enormous, and
it should be handled appropriately.
4.Dynamic and Self-Adapting (Complexity) –IoT devices should
dynamically adapt themselves to changing contexts and scenarios.
Assume a camera meant for surveillance. It should be adaptable to
work in different conditions and different light situations (morning,
afternoon, and night).
5.Architecture — IoT architecture cannot be homogeneous in nature.
It should be hybrid, supporting different manufacturers ‘ products to
function in the IoT network. IoT is not owned by anyone engineering
branch. IoT is a reality when multiple domains come together.
6.Safety — There is a danger of the sensitive personal details of the
users getting compromised when all his/her devices are connected to
the internet. This can cause a loss to the user. Hence, data security is
the major challenge. Besides, the equipment involved is huge. IoT
networks may also be at the risk. Therefore, equipment safety is also
critical.
IoT Enabling Technologies
Different technologies together enable development of IoT applications.
The IoT enabling technologies are:
• Wireless Sensor Networks
• Cloud Computing
• Big Data Analytics
• Communication Protocols
• Embedded Systems
IoT Enabling Technologies: Wireless Sensor Networks
• A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a collection of devices which
communicate through wireless channels.
• A WSN consists of distributed devices with sensors which are used to
monitor the environmental and physical conditions.
• A WSN consists of a number of end nodes, routers and coordinators.
End nodes can also act as routers.
• A coordinator collects data from all the nodes and is connected to
Internet.
Examples of WSNs used in IoT systems:
• Weather monitoring systems
• Indoor air quality monitoring systems
• Soil moisture monitoring systems
• Surveillance systems
• Smart grids
• Structural health monitoring systems
• IoT Enabling Technologies: Cloud Computing
• Cloud computing is a computing model in which applications and services are delivered over
Internet. The resources provisioned by cloud can be compute, networking or storage. Cloud
allows the users to access resources based on utility model. The characteristics of cloud
computing are:
• On demand: The resources in the cloud are available based on the traffic. If the incoming traffic
increases, the cloud resources scale up accordingly and when the traffic decreases, the cloud
resources scale down accordingly.
• Autonomic: The resource provisioning in the cloud happens with very less to no human
intervention. The resources scale up and scale down automatically.
• Scalable: The cloud resources scale up and scale down based on the demand or traffic. This
property of cloud is also known as elasticity.
• Pay-per-use: On contrary to traditional billing, the cloud resources are billed on pay-per-use
basis. You have to pay only for the resources and time for which you are using those resources.
• Ubiquitous: You can access the cloud resources from anywhere in the world from any device.
All that is needed is Internet. Using Internet you can access your files, databases and other
resources in the cloud from anywhere.
Cloud computing offers three basic service models using which users can
subscribe to cloud resources. These service models are:
• Infrastructure-As-A-Service (IAAS)
• Platform-As-A-Service (PAAS)
• Software-As-A-Service (SAAS)
These three service models can be illustrated as shown below.
IAAS model provides the core infrastructure to companies for building their
own applications.
This core infrastructure includes servers, storage, networking, etc.
PAAS model offers development runtimes for the users to build and deploy
their application.
SAAS model offers already developed and deployed applications for the users
to use. Examples of SAAS offerings are Gmail, Facebook, DropBox, YouTube, etc.
• Cloud computing supports four basic deployment models.
• These models differ in the way how the cloud is built and who are
using the resources in the cloud.
The four cloud deployment models are:
• Public cloud
• Private cloud
• Community cloud
• Hybrid cloud
IoT Enabling Technologies: BigData Analytics
• BigData is a collection of data coming from various types of sources. The data is
often huge which cannot be handled by the traditional databases and data
warehouses. BigData is often characterized by six Vs. They are:
• Volume: Refers to the huge volume of data aggregated from various sources.
• Variety: Refers to different types of data. Data can be structured, semi-structured or
unstructured.
• Velocity: Refers to the speed at which the data is generated. Now-a-days the amount
of data available on the Internet per minute is several peta bytes or even more.
• Veracity: Refers to the degree to which the data can be trusted. If the data collected
is incorrect or has manipulated or wrong values, the analysis of such data is useless.
• Value: Refers to the business value of the collected. Even though we have huge
amount of data, but it is not useful for gaining profits in the business, such data is
useless.
• Variability: Refers to the ways in which the big data can be used and formatted
• The data analytics framework consists of six steps namely: collection,
cleaning, integration, analysis, visualization and alerting. These six
steps can be summarized as shown in the below figure.
IoT Enabling Technologies: Communication Protocols
• Communications protocols form the backbone for IoT systems. They
allow devices to communicate with each other.
• Protocols define the data exchange formats, data encoding and
addressing schemes for devices.
• Protocols also provide flow control, error control, and other functions.
• IoT Enabling Technologies: Embedded Systems
• Embedded system can be imagined as computing hardware with
software embedded in it.
• An embedded system can be an independent system or it can be a part
of another larger system.
• An embedded system is a microcontroller or microprocessor based
system which is designed to perform a specific task.
• The key components include microcontroller/microprocessor,
memory, networking units, I/O, and storage.
• It runs Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS).
An embedded system has three components. They are:
• Hardware
• Software
• Real Time Operating system (RTOS) that supervises the application
software and provide mechanism to let the processor run a process as
per schedule by following a plan to control the latencies
The characteristics of an embedded system are:
• Single-functioned
• Tightly constrained
• Reactive and Real time
• Memory
• Connected
Physical Design of Internet of Things (IOT)
• Things in IoT refers to IoT devices. Things have unique identities. Things can perform sensing,
actuation, and monitoring. Some of the examples of things in internet of things are shown below.
Some of the examples of IoT devices are:
• Home appliances: smart TV, smart refrigerator, smart AC, etc.
• Smart phones and computers
• Wearables: smart watch, smart sensors, etc.
• Automobiles like self-driving cars
• Energy systems
• Retail : smart payment
• Printers
• Industrial machines
• Healthcare: smart watch, smart healthcare, etc.
• Surveillance: smart cameras, smart trackers, etc. 
• The physical design of an IoT system is referred to as the
Things/Devices and protocols that are used to build an IoT system.
• all these things/Devices are called Node Devices and every device has
a unique identity that performs remote sensing, actuating and
monitoring work.
• and the protocols that are used to establish communication between
the Node devices and servers over the internet.
• Things/Devices
• Things/Devices are used to build a connection, process data, provide
interfaces, provide storage, and provide graphics interfaces in an IoT
system.
• all these generate data in a form that can be analyzed by an analytical
system and program to perform operations and used to improve the
system.
• for example temperature sensor that is used to analyze the
temperature generates the data from a location and is then
determined by algorithms.
An IoT thing or device is made up of different
components. The generic block diagram of an IoT thing
or device is given below:
Connectivity
• Devices like USB hosts and ETHERNET are used for connectivity between the devices and
the server.
Processor
• A processor like a CPU and other units are used to process the data. these data are
further used to improve the decision quality of an IoT system.
Audio/Video Interfaces
• An interface like HDMI and RCA devices is used to record audio and videos in a system.
Input/Output interface
• To give input and output signals to sensors, and actuators we use things like UART, SPI,
CAN, etc.
Storage Interfaces
• Things like SD, MMC, and SDIO are used to store the data generated from an IoT device.
• Other things like DDR and GPU are used to control the activity of an IoT system.
• Physical Design of IoT: IoT Protocols
• A protocol is a set of rules that governs the communication between
two or more devices.
• A protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics and synchronization of
communication and possible error recovery methods.
• An overview of different protocols used in IoT with respect to TCP/IP
protocol stack is given below:
Application Layer protocol
• In this layer, protocols define how the data can be sent over the network with the lower
layer protocols using the application interface.
• these protocols include HTTP, WebSocket, XMPP, MQTT, DDS, and AMQP protocols.

HTTP
• Hypertext transfer protocol is a protocol that presents in an application layer for
transmitting media documents. it is used to communicate between web browsers and
servers.
• it makes a request to a server and then waits till it receives a response and in between the
request server does not keep any data between two requests. 

WebSocket
• This protocol enables two-way communication between a client and a host that can be run
on an untrusted code in a controlled environment.
• this protocol is commonly used by web browsers.
MQTT
• It is a machine-to-machine connectivity protocol that was designed as a
publish/subscribe messaging transport. and it is used for remote locations where a
small code footprint is required.
Transport Layer
• This layer is used to control the flow of data segments and handle the error
control. also, these layer protocols provide end-to-end message transfer capability
independent of the underlying network.
TCP
• The transmission control protocol is a protocol that defines how to establish and
maintain a network that can exchange data in a proper manner using the internet
protocol.
UDP
• a user datagram protocol is a part of an internet protocol called the connectionless
protocol. this protocol is not required to establish the connection to transfer data.
Network Layer
• This layer is used to send datagrams from the source network to
the destination network. we use IPv4 and IPv6 protocols as host
identification that transfers data in packets.
IPv4
• This is a protocol address that is a unique and numerical label
assigned to each device connected to the network. an IP
address performs two main functions host and location
addressing. IPv4 is an IP address that is 32-bit long.
IPv6
• It is a successor of IPv4 that uses 128 bits for an IP address. it is
developed by the IETF task force to deal with long-anticipated
problems.
Link Layer
• Link-layer protocols are used to send data over the network's physical
layer. it also determines how the packets are coded and signaled by
the devices.
Ethernet
• It is a set of technologies and protocols that are used primarily in
LANs. it defines the physical layer and the medium access control for
wired ethernet networks.
WiFi
• It is a set of LAN protocols and specifies the set of media access
control and physical layer protocols for implementing wireless local
area networks.
Logical Design of IoT
• The logical design of an IoT system refers to an abstract
representation of entities and processes without going into the
low-level specifies of implementation.
• it uses Functional Blocks, Communication Models,
and Communication APIs to implement a system.
• Logical Design of Internet of Things(IoT)
1.IoT Functional Blocks
2.IoT Communication Models
3.IoT Communication APIs
IoT Functional blocks
• An IoT system consists of a number of functional
blocks like Devices, services, communication, security,
and application that provide the capability for sensing,
actuation, identification, communication, and
management.
• These functional blocks consist of devices that provide
monitoring control functions, handle communication
between host and server, manage the transfer of data,
secure the system using authentication and other
functions, and interface to control and monitor various
terms.
Application
• It is an interface that provides a control system that use by users to view the status and analyze of system.

Management
• This functional block provides various functions that are used to manage an IoT system.

Services
• This functional block provides some services like monitoring and controlling a device and publishing and deleting the data
and restoring the system.

Communication
• This block handles the communication between the client and the cloud-based server and sends/receives the data using
protocols

Security
• This block is used to secure an IoT system using some functions like authorization, data security, authentication, 2-step
verification, etc.

Device
• These devices are used to provide sensing and monitoring control functions that collect data from the outer environment.
IoT Communication Models
• There are several different types of models available in an IoT
system that is used to communicate between the system and
server like the request-response model, publish-subscribe
model, push-pull model, exclusive pair model, etc.
Request-Response Communication Model

• This model is a communication model in which a client sends the

request for data to the server and the server responds according to the
request.
• when a server receives a request it fetches the data, retrieves the
resources and prepares the response, and then sends the data back to
the client. 
• In simple terms, we can say that in the request-response model server
send the response of equivalent to the request of the client. in this
model, HTTP works as a request-response protocol between a client and
server.
• Example
• When we search a query on a browser then the browser submits an
HTTP request to the server and then the server returns a response to the
browser(client).
Publish-Subscribe Communication Model
• In this communication model, we have a broker between publisher and
consumer. here publishers are the source of data but they are not aware
of consumers.
• they send the data managed by the brokers and when a consumer
subscribes to a topic that is managed by the broker and when the broker
receives data from the publisher it sends the data to all the subscribed
consumers.
• Example
• On the website many times we subscribed to their newsletters
using our email address. these email addresses are managed by
some third-party services and when a new article is published on
the website it is directly sent to the broker and then the broker
sends these new data or posts to all the subscribers.
Push-Pull Communication Model

• It is a communication model in which the data push by the

producers in a queue and the consumers pull the data from the
queues. here also producers are not aware of the consumers. 
Example
• When we visit a website we saw a number of posts that are published
in a queue and according to our requirements, we click on a post and
start reading it.
Exclusive Pair Communication Model

• It is a bidirectional fully duplex communication model that uses

a persistent connection between the client and server. here first
set up a connection between the client and the server and
remain open until the client sends a close connection request to
the server.
IoT communication APIs
• These APIs like REST and WebSocket are used to communicate between the
server and system in IoT.
REST-based communication APIs
• Representational state transfer(REST) API uses a set of architectural
principles that used to design web services. these APIs focus on the systems'
resources that how resource states are transferred using the request-
response communication model. this API uses some architectural constraints
Client-server
• Here the client is not aware of the storage of data because it is concerned
about the server and similarly the server should not be concerned about the
user interface because it is a concern of the client. and this separation is
needed for independent development and updating of server and client. no
matter how the client is using the response of the server and no matter how
the server is using the request of the client
Stateless
• It means each request from the client to the server must contain
all the necessary information to understand by the server.
because if the server can't understand the request of the client
then it can't fetch the request data in a proper manner.
• Cacheable
• In response, if the cache constraints are given then a client can
reuse that response in a later request. it improves the efficiency
and scalability of the system without loading the extra data.
• A RESTful web APIs is implemented using HTTP and REST
principles.
• WebSocket based communication API
• This type of API allows bi-directional full-duplex communication
between server and client using the exclusive pair
communication model. this API uses full-duplex communication
so it does not require a new connection setup every time when it
requests new data. WebSocket API begins with a connection
setup between the server and client and if the WebSocket is
supported by the server then it responds back to the client with
the successful response after the setup of a connection server
and the client can send data to each other in full-duplex mode.
• this type of API reduces the traffic and latency of data and
makes sure that each time when we request new data it cannot
terminate the request.