Internet of Things - Are you excited?

IoT is a framework emerged from various technology and standards that is in use like,  WSN, RFID.

WSN / RFID assumes only very low power availability (or harvest from available resources) and hence the need for low computing power and low power radio.   Main objective is to pass on the required data either periodically or as and when necessity arises and never give up for years together even when not attended.  Appropriate protocol evolved with minimal software architecture over a small piece of device (computing hardware) called motes or nodes or tokens.

These nodes formed their own network without depending on computer networks in terms of IP related overload, pkt structures etc.,.  Only the end node, will get connected to computer network.  Mostly their data flow is one way - keep on passing the sensor data.  This design did not worry about security at any stage except at the connecting end.

With IPV6 and Low power WAN standards, IoT growth is very high, demanding direct access to a cloud and listening to master control command from an App.  IoT covers both sensing the requirement of an object/machine/equipment as well as controlling its dependencies.  It tries to address all possible scenarios that we wanted like Smart Home,  Machine to Machine (M2M) including machines used in hospitals, process industries, Smart City, Energy Conservation and Connected World of Every Single object that is in use today.

Every device can have its own IP and be part of network as per its framework.  It looks like Security and the need for operation with minimal power (for continuous operation) are left behind in this sudden growth.  What will happen if every connected things like, for example, Machines in an industry, or Instruments in a hospital, household items in a Smart Home are hacked?  A trusted computing base with supervisory control may evolve to address the security issues.

Various solutions are being proposed every day with all possible hardware combinations and APIs.  The range is from low cost hardware with free cloud access using its set of APIs to dedicated devices with proprietary solutions for deployment in industry.  Given this, it may not be practical to try out every solution and then figuring out the actual design that suits a specific requirement.

One approach will be to use a flexible setup that will help to understand all aspects and power of the technology / framework and then design a best possible solution.  That approach should give more freedom to do the maximum possible tests, analysis.

In line with this thinking, Benchmark introduces iCONSe-T (www.iCONSe-T.com).  It is a flexible solution both to understand the working or implementation of IoT as well to try out in real life for any IoT requirement.

For more information, Please click

http://www.benchmark-electronics.com/