What is IoT? (IoT)

The word Internet of Things(IoT) should be familiar for people.Automatic factory, smart city and smart appliances, etc. all contain elements of IoT.
Simply put, the main concept is connect the device to network so that the device can communicate or transfer data to other device through network.

The concept first appeared in 1982

The Carnegie Mellon University students assembled a machine that conforms to the concept of the IoT.
It's a Coca-Cola vending machine, because students have to stay in the research room all day, sometimes thirsty and want to buy a glass of Coke, but when they walked to the vending machine far away, they realized that there was no Coke anymore. So smart students connect the vending machine to the Internet to monitor the amount of cola cans, and they can know whether the vending machine is still in stock in the research room. Also, because they are always recording the situation of the vending machine, this group of students know that the vending machine sells about 120 bottles of Coke every day.

The term first appeared in 1999

The term "Internet of Things" first appeared in 1999.
Proposed by Kevin Ashton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Automatic Identification Center, he used this concept to describe how things change our lives when device connected to the Internet. With the passage of time, until the Industrial 4.0, the term IoT began to be widely used, and the slogan has been 10 years since 2011, and it is still under development and experimentation. Industry 4.0 emphasizes smart factories, which include device-to-device communication, and this is the concept of IoT.

How Does it Work?

After introducing the history of IoT, let’s talk about how IoT works.
As mentioned above, the concept of IoT is implement device-to-device communication, But how is it done?Let us split into the following questions:
- How to receive messages?
The device can receive messages in a variety of ways. The messages include temperature, humidity, pressure, distance, image, etc.
When the device is equipped with temperature sensor, humidity sensor, pressure sensor, laser distance sensor, camera, etc., these messages can be received.
- How to sent message to computer
Only receive messages is not enough, these messages must be sent to the computer for analysis and control, but how to do it?
Through wired network or Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee and other wireless communication technologies, these messages can be sent to the computer, and the computer can start to analyze the messages.
- What can the computer do when receiving the message?
The computer receives the information and analyzes data.
Then the computer can output information to user, such as the Coca-Cola vending machine of Carnegie Mellon University in 1982. Computers can also send control commands to devices through internet, such as smart appliances.

Architecture of Internet of Things

The architecture of the Internet of Things mainly has three layers: perception, network, and application layers.
- Perception Layer
The device gets information through sensors, like the human body’s sensory system.
- Network Layer
Send information to the computer through wired and wireless network technology, like the neural network of the human body.
- Application Layer
The computer receives messages and calculates, then reacts and sends commands, just like the human brain center..

IoT with IADIY

IoT is composed of the above three-layer architecture, and each layer is indispensable. IADIY is also working on development of IoT applications.
For the perception layer of IoT, we provide a variety of sensor products, such as camera modules that provide device image vision functions, and laser sensors that provide device ranging functions. These products are commonly used in robotics, automation and smart home appliances.
For the application layer, we also provide IMX series embedded computers, which receive information from the sensing layer and execute calculations and control task.
Users can use our sensors and embedded computers to implement IOT applications. In addition, we also provide a complete set of solution services. If you have any needs, please contact us.

There are many ways to implement IOT applications.
In addition to purchasing suitable hardware devices, software development is also an important part. For integrated development, ROS is one of the common and practical tools.
For ROS related content, please refer to ROS introduction article.