Internet of Things: a glimpse overview

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Andreas Pitsillides, Networks Research Lab, Dept. of Computer Science, University of CyprusThe Second Cyprus Symposium, 'Pathways to Indefinite Lifespans‘, University of Nicosia, 24 May 2014

Talk Schedule

• Motivation• The Internet of Things (IoT)• Indicative Application Domains and real

life scenarios• Concluding Remarks• Future Challenges

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Motivation

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Motivation

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20 years on, Vision or Reality?

MotivationIt's a smart world?‘The real and the digital worlds are converging, bringing much greater efficiency and lots of new opportunities’WHAT if the two worlds exist, the real one and its digital reflection?

• A Real world - full of sensors, picking up everything from movement to smell.

• A Digital world, a construction built of software - takes in all that information and automatically acts on it.

• E.g. If a door opens in the real world, so does its virtual equivalent. If the temperature in the room with the open door falls below a certain level, the digital world automatically turns on the heat.

Two decades later that still sounds like science fiction. But does it? Second Life, Google Glass, Cloud

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2010, Nov. http://www.economist.com/node/17388368?story_id=17388368

Vision of Prof David Gelernter, Yale University, in early 1990s in his book “Mirror Worlds”.

Motivation

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http://www.economist.com/node/17388368?story_id=17388368

• emergence of connected sensors and embedded devices (currently, mostly living in their microcosm, but could be interconnected in the ‘big web’, sensing and acting on the environment)

• new ubiquitous wireless networks (e.g. WSNs, Smart Phones) and communication techniques and standards

• activities of humans themselves.

‘For e.g. the micro-blogging service Twitter’s 160m users send out nearly 100m tweets a day.When they see, hear or read

something, they type it into their computer or smartphone, 140 characters at a time.’!! And now Tweeting Things

The real and the digital worlds are converging fast due to:

MotivationSo,• Smart devices and sensors are becoming an integral part

in our life, interconnected and embedded everywhere.• New sensor and communication technologies are

appearing, some with Internet support. (e.g. sensor networks, smart phones, RFIDs, short-range wireless communications, NFC, real-time localization, …)

• New communication paradigms:• More things are being connected• People are connecting to Things• Things are connecting to Things

• Prices for embedded computer hardware have effectively dropped.

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Motivation

But

• High heterogeneity is present in pervasive environments.

How do we bridge these technologies together?

How can heterogeneous physical things communicate and interact?

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Motivation

The Internet is a solution!

• An increasing number of embedded devices are supporting the IP protocol, thus many physical objects now have direct connectivity to the Internet.

thus the Internet of Things (IoT).

which includes technologies and research disciplines that enable the Internet to reach out into the real world of physical objects.

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The Internet of Things: a glimpse

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Internet of Things (IoTs)

Thus,As we equip people, places, and commodities with Internet-connected embedded devices that can sense information about the environment and subsequently take action, we are creating the Internet of Things (IoT).

The IoT is speculated that it will improve society and quality of life

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Internet of Things

BAN

EnvironmentalSensors

• Physical Interconnection of devices, objects……integrated with virtual interconnection of services

• A large number of these devices are MINITIARIZED devices (sensors, BAN)!!!

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Motivation: Is there a need?Large sums spent on smart-infrastructure projects; some countries made smart systems a priority of industrial policy. E.g.

• IoT is central to European Union’s “Digital Agenda” & recently concluded a public consultation and China announced a plan with clear guidelines for IoT.

There is real need for such systems• physical infrastructure is ageing • health-care costs are exploding• money is tight, ....

Can use resources more intelligently, e.g. • Monitoring patients remotely can be much cheaper and safer than keeping

them in hospital. • A bridge equipped with the right sensors can tell engineers when it needs

to be serviced. • Today power grids, transport systems and water-distribution systems

are essentially networks of dumb pipes make smart.• If power grid in America were 5% more efficient, it would save greenhouse emissions

equivalent to 53m cars. • congested roads cost the country, e.g. in 2007 in US 4.2 billion working hours lost and 10.6

billion litres of wasted petrol. • utilities around the world lose between 25% and 50% of treated water to leaks

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Applying the IoT in Real-Life Scenarios

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Wide spectrum of applications

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From Smart objects:

http://www.chumby.com/ (right)

http://www.nabaztag.com (left)

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Nabaztag Personal friend –assistant – can speak ‘common sense interesting bits, read web text, communicator, ...

chumby takes your favorite parts of the internet and delivers them to you in a friendly, always-on, always-fresh format.

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Big and small smart objects

DIGITAL DENTAL: The Beam Brush responds to the mouth and wirelessly sends a record of your oral hygiene habits to your smartphone.

And a big smart object ..a small smart object

Smart Spaces (e.g. cities, urban, home)

Smart Transport• Pollution control

Smart Energy• Monitoring of

renewable energy infrastructure

• Monitoring of biofuel production

Smart Water• Contamination control• Infrastructure

monitoring (smart pipes)

Smart Agriculture• Contamination control• Urban agriculture

(hydroponics)

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In the Smart Home of today

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Internet-enabled SH products (‘smart objects’)

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SMART SQUARE: Owners can drop battery-powered Twine sensors around their homes to remotely monitor conditions such as temperature and moisture.

IDEA OF A SMART HOME HAS BEEN AROUND FOR decades.

But until now, you had to be very wealthy—or very nerdy—to have one. A number of companies are aiming to change that, and one of them is Supermechanical, an Austin, Texas–based spin-off from MIT’s Media Lab. The company’s first product is Twine.

For US $125, you get a durable rubbery square, 68.5 millimeters on a side, that can text, tweet, or e-mail alerts when specific changes occur in your home. Each Twine block incorporates Wi-Fi, internal temperature and orientation sensors, and a headset-jackstyle connector for adding an optional moisture sensor or magnetic switch.

A ‘smart’ fridge…‘smart’ washing machine … etc…

all interconnected into a ‘smart home’ and beyond

Samsung is currently showcasing a fridge that comes with an embedded touch screen that connects to the Internet and lets users shop straight from their fridge.

SM Internet-enabled products (‘smart objects’)

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Smart Health

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Smart wearables

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So…

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FromInternet of Things

to Internet of People

“in which pervasive connectivity and embedded intelligence will enable the environment to learn about us and better cater to our needs and habits to ensure our comfort while maximizing energy efficiency,”

… and even beyond

Oleg Logvinov, panel member and Director Market Development Industrial & Power Conversion Division, STMicroelectronics,, IEEE-SA hosted panel the “Digital Telepathy:When Every Thing Connects”, SXSW 2013 Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, USA

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SOME APPLICATION DEVELOPED AT NetRL, UNIVERSITY OF CYPRUS

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• The WoT in Energy-aware Smart Homes

• Blending Smart Homes with Online Social Networking• Sociale Homer: Sharing Home Devices through Online Social Networking• The WoT in competitions for energy efficiency in local neighborhoods• Social Electricity (First prize award by ITU).

• Smart metering• Integrating Smart Homes to the Smart Grid

• Beyond the Smart Home – Urban Spaces

Concluding Remarks

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Blending the real and virtual worlds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4DHt0vUulY

Did we reach Gelernter’s vision of a real and virtual world?

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Concluding Remarks

• Potential applications are out there• Technology is maturing• Many challenges still exist, but solutions and

some early deployments are appearing

• Generally, it is an active research field... with many potential benefits, and perhaps potential dangers.

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With so much to gain, what is there to lose? • Privacy (potentially) • Risk of abuse by a ‘malevolent’ government or IT

company • ‘compared with some smart systems, the ubiquitous telescreen monitoring

device in George Orwell’s novel “1984” seems a plaything. The book’s hero, Winston Smith, would soon have a much harder time finding a corner in his room to hide from big brother.’

• Fairness between those with access to smart systems, which can be better informed than those without, giving them an unfair advantage (or perhaps not, due to the clutter of information?!).

• Information clutter (e.g. in Germany this year they threw out 86 million RFIDs—projected to grow to 23 billion RFIDs and sensors by 2020) and info exchanged around the globe: see our world in 60 seconds

• ... And many more ... Brother.

Concluding Remarks

http://www.economist.com/node/17388368?story_id=17388368 30

Future Prospects and Challenges

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Future prospects and challenges

• Internet of Nanothings– More next

• Will Google be the First to Produce a Conscious Machine?– autonomously adapt and optimise within its own

environment.

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Nanotechnology• Concept proposed by Richard Feyman in 1959

in his nobel prize acceptance speech• “Plenty of room at the bottom”

• Nanotechnology are devices on the scale of the order of one billionth of a meter(10-9)

• Example materials: Graphene, Nanocrystallites, Nanoparticles

• Numerous healthcare applications– Improved monitoring of chronic diseases– Accurate drug delivery– Nanorobots that can perform surgery

• Other applications include Aeronautics, Environmental Science

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NANOMATERIALS: GRAPHENE, NANOTUBES & NANORIBBONS

Graphene: A one-atom-thick planar sheet of bonded carbon atoms in a honeycomb crystal lattice.(Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov)

* Carbon Nanotubes (CNT): A folded nanoribbon (1991)* Graphene Nanoribbons (GNR): A thin strip of graphene (2004)

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• – much, much smaller than SNs– A set of minified, wireless comm.-enabled nodes.– Node components:

• CPU• MEM• Wireless module (antenna & modem)• Power supply (internal or external)

– Each COMPONENT:• ≥ 900 nanometers

– Final assembly:• ~ 1mm-100μmeters

Nano-sensor nodes

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Nanomachine to treat cancer• Issue with current chemotherapy

is that drugs kill good cells • Aim – deliver drug to targeted

areas• Cut the dosage down by hundred –

thousand times

• Honeycomb nanostructure that holds the drug particles

• Valves releases particles. Numerous approaches:• Chemical agent• Light

• Developed at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) http://www.rsc.org

36The Challenges of the Internet of Nano Things, Sasitharan Balasubramaniam(Sasi), Nano Communication Centre, Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering, Tampere University of Technology

DNA Nanorobot

• Robotic device developed from DNA• DNA origami – 3D shapes created from

folding DNA• Two halves connected with a hinge,

and shut using DNA latches• The latches can be designed to

recognize certain cell proteins and disease markers

• Hold molecules with encoded instructions (antibody fragments)• Used on two types of cancer cells

(leukemia and lymphoma)

• Developed at Wyss Institute http://wyss.harvard.edu

37The Challenges of the Internet of Nano Things, Sasitharan Balasubramaniam(Sasi), Nano Communication Centre, Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering, Tampere University of Technology

Smart Organ

• Through tissue engineering we can develop various body parts• Tissues -> Organs (skin, bone)

• Using nanomaterial scaffolds, we can grow cells on the scaffold into tissue

• Utilizing 3D bioprinting to develop organs

• Challenge – integration to the existing system within the body

• Integrate sensors into the tissue (Smart tissue)• Robert Langer (BBC, October 2013)

www.mhs.manchester.ac.uk

www.explainingthefuture.com

38The Challenges of the Internet of Nano Things, Sasitharan Balasubramaniam(Sasi), Nano Communication Centre, Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering, Tampere University of Technology

Problems and Challenges• Scale of nanodevices allows us to….

– Reach hard to access areas…..– Access vital information at a whole new level (molecular

information)…..

• Devices of the future will be built from nanomaterials, including programmable metamaterial

• Limitation – limited functionalities!!• Communication and networking between nanomachines

would further advance their capabilities and functionalitieso Electromagnetic (EM) Nano Communicationso Molecular Communications, Bacterial Communication

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From Internet of Things

BAN

EnvironmentalSensors

• Physical Interconnection of devices, objects……integrated with virtual interconnection of services

• A large number of these devices are MINITIARIZED devices (sensors, BAN)!!!

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To Internet of NANO Things

BAN

EnvironmentalSensors

• MORE MINITIARIZED -> Interconnection of devices at Nanoscale AND connection to the wider Internet

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Applications: Body Area NanoNetworks

Enzyme protocols

Cell

Nucleus

Cell

Nucleus

Cell

Nucleus

Cell

NucleusCell

Nucleus

Cell

Nucleus

Micro-gateway

Short rangetransmission

Message biomolecule

Synthetic Nanosensor

Long rangetransmission

• New healthcare monitoring approaches

• BAN -> BAN2

• Heterogeneous molecular communication networks• Short range (Calcium

signalling)• Medium range

(Bacteria)• Long range (Hormones)

Baris Atakan, Ozgur B. Akan, Sasitharan Balasubramaniam, Body Area NanoNetworks with Molecular Communications in Nanomedicine, IEEE Communications Magazine, January 2012.

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Punch line

• Would this technology enable the Pathways to comfortable, hassle free, Indefinite Lifespans?

• Or will it create an unbearable clutter of information/activities/too much ‘comfort’ in an already overloaded world?

–This questions I will leave for you to ponder.

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Thank you for your attention!

Contact Details: Andreas Pitsillides(Email: Andreas.Pitsillides@ucy.ac.cy)

NetRL Lab: http://www.NetRL.cs.ucy.ac.cy/

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Indicative reference material

As with many (generic) presentations, inspiration is drawn from the work of others and also material from presentations. This is also the case here, with too many references to list. Below is an indicative set. I apologise to those colleagues that I have missed…

Andreas Pitsillides & Andreas Kamilaris, The Web of Things: Towards smart pervasive envirnoments, Mini-Symposium - The Internet of Things, Machine to Machine Communication and Smart Cities, held in Cape Town University, September 5, 2013.

The Challenges of the Internet of Nano Things, Sasitharan Balasubramaniam (Sasi), Nano Communication Centre, Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering, Tampere University of Technology

I.F. Akyildiz “The Internet of Nano-Things’’ Auia napa, ICT2012.

EEEM048- Internet of Things, Lecture 1- Introduction, Dr Payam Barnaghi, Dr Chuan H Foh, Electronic Engineering Department, University of Surrey, 2013.