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Enabling Technologies

In this chapter, we describe modern technologies that appeared in the last few years, enabling the idea of IoT to be widely implementable. In the [1] we can read that “The confluence of efficient wireless protocols, improved sensors, cheaper processors and a wave of startups and established companies made the concept of the IoT mainstream”. Similar analyze been done in [2] where authors write that “the IoT is enabled by the latest developments in RFID, smart sensors, communication technologies and Internet protocols”. To operate RFID and smart sensors need the microprocessor system to do the reading, convert the data into digital format, and send it to the Internet using the communication protocol. This process can be done by small- and medium-scale computer (embedded) systems. These are essential elements of technologies used in IoT systems.

Small-Scale Computer Systems

Last years we can observe rapid growth in the field of microprocessors. It includes not only the powerful desktop processors but also microcontrollers – elements that are used in small-scale embedded systems. We can also notice the popularity of microprocessor systems that can be easily integrated with other elements like sensors, actuators, connected to the network. Essential is also the availability of programming tools and environments supported by different companies and communities. An excellent example of such systems is Arduino.

Medium-Scale Computer Systems

The same growth can be observed in medium-scale computers. They have more powerful processors, more memory and networking connectivity build in than small-scale computer systems. They can work under control of multitasking operating systems like Linux, Windows, embedded or real-time operating systems like FreeRTOS. Having many libraries, they can successfully work as hubs for local storage, local controllers and gateways to the Internet. The example of such systems we consider in our course is Raspberry Pi.

Access to the Internet

Nowadays the Internet is (almost) everywhere. There are lots of wireless networks available in private and public places. The price of cellular access (3G/4G/5G) is low, offering a good performance of data transfer. Connecting the “thing” to the Internet has never been so easy.

IP Addressing Evolution

The main paradigm of IoT is that every unit can be individually addressed. With the addressing scheme used in IPv4, it wouldn’t be possible. IPv4 address space delivers “only” 4 294 967 296 of unique addresses (2^32). If you think it’s a big number, imagine that every person in the world has one IP-connected device – IPv4 covers about half of the human population. The answer is IPv6 with a 128-bit addressing scheme that gives 3.4 × 10^38 addresses. It will be enough even if every person will have a billion devices connected to the Internet.

Data Storage and Processing

IoT devices generate the data to be stored and processed somewhere. If there is a couple of sensors, the amount of data is not very big, but if there are thousands of sensors generating data hundreds of times every second. It can be handled by the cloud – the huge place for the data with tools and applications ready to help with data processing. There are some big, global cloud available for rent offering not only the storage but also Business Intelligence tools, Artificial Intelligence analytic algorithms. There are also smaller private clouds created to cover the needs of one company only. Many universities have their own High-Performance Computing Centre.

Mobile Devices

Many people want to be connected to the global network everywhere, anytime having their “digital twin” with them. It is possible now with small, powerful mobile devices like smartphones. Smartphones are also elements of IoT world being together sensors, user interfaces, data collectors, wireless gateways to the Internet, and everything with mobility feature.

The technologies we mentioned here are the most recognisable, but there are many others, smaller, described only in the technical language in some standard description document, hidden under the colourful displays, between large data centres, making our IoT world operable. In this book, we will describe some of them.


[1] Ovidiu Vermesan, Peter Friess (eds.): Digitizing the Industry, Internet of Things Connecting the Physical, Digital and Virtual Worlds, River Publishers Series in Communications, 2016
[2] Ala Al-Fuqaha, Mohsen Guizani, Mehdi Mohammadi, Mohammed Aledhari, Moussa Ayyash: Internet of Things: A Survey on Enabling Technologies, Protocols and Applications, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, Volume: 17, Issue: 4, 2015
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