A high-level abstraction on IoT devices
Background
The article is written as a part of the Data Engineering coaching from Team Data Science. The objective is to share the newcomer perspective on IoT and data lifecycle in the IoT industry directed towards newcomers. Feel free to correct in case if some/all parts have little/no sense.
You can find the first article ‘So, you want to be a smart farmer’ where I laid the foundation of the project here.
A network of things
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of physical devices that are able to connect to a network and exchange data. The devices, which form the IoT, are equipped with sensors, objects that measure a physical quantity and convert it into typical electrical signals or optical signals. On a high-level, the IoT architecture technology mainly consists of five major components — sensors; gateways and networks; storage; and Analytics/presentation level.
Can you hear me or communication in a network of things
Sensors have different communication capabilities — device-to-device, where IoT devices are directly connected and communicate with each other, and device-to-program communication where output data from the IoT device is fed into the output program. The example of the device-to-device communication in our agriculture IoT project could be communication between a temperature sensor and heating device/blower where the temperature sensors sense the change in the temperature level and if it detects the decrease in the temperature level below the threshold, it will send the signal to the microcontroller and controller will start the heater, running it until the moment when the temperature reaches the set limit. If, on the opposite, the temperature is above the threshold value, the controller will start the blower to bring the temperature down. The device-to-program communication in our project will be the web-portal where we would display the soil data.
Communication in the IoT network requires special networking protocols: -Lower level communication protocols for low cost and short-range communication:
— wifi
— zigbee
— cellular (2G, 3G, or LTE)
— bluetooth
-Higher-level communication protocols that are optimized for high-latency or unreliable networks:
— MQTT
— COAP
— XMPP
— HTTP (REST)
From theory to reality
As per MarketsandMarkets, the global Internet of Things market size is forecasted to grow from USD 170.6bn in 2017 to USD 561.0bn by 2022 with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 26.9% during the forecast period (source: Internet of Things (IoT) Market by Software Solution (Real-Time Streaming Analytics, Security Solution, Data Management, Remote Monitoring, and Network Bandwidth Management), Service, Platform, Application Area, and Region — Global Forecast to 2022).
Globally, Discrete Manufacturing, Transportation & Logistics and Utilities industries are projected to spend $40B each on IoT platforms, systems, and services, followed by Healthcare.
The worldwide agriculture IoT market is expected to grow from USD 12.7bn in 2019 to USD 20.9bn by 2024, at a CAGR of 10.4%. Europe and the Americas will lead all other markets (source: Agriculture IoT Market by Offering (Hardware, Software, & Services), Application (Precision Farming, Precision Forestry, Livestock Monitoring, Fish Farm Monitoring and Smart Greenhouse), Application, and Geography — Global Forecast to 2024).
The IoT communication protocol market is expected to grow from USD 11.44 billion in 2015 to reach USD 15.80 billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 4.66% during the forecast period, with the Wi-Fi technology holding the largest share followed by Bluetooth. Region-wise penetration, North America has been the leader in the IoT communication protocol market (source: IoT Communication Protocol Market by Connectivity Technology (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Bluetooth Smart), End-Use Application (Consumer Electronics, Automotive & Transportation, Building Automation, Healthcare), Region — Global Forecast to 2022).
To be continued…
