2020 5th International Conference on Devices, Circuits and Systems (ICDCS)

Applications of Internet of Things (IoT) - An

Overview
2020 5th International Conference on Devices, Circuits and Systems (ICDCS) 978-1-7281-6368-0/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE 10.1109/ICDCS48716.2020.243556

S.R. Jino Ramson S. Vishnu M. Shanmugam

1School of Engineering Technology Electronics and Communication Engg. Computer Science and Engineering
Purdue University, USA VFSTR, Guntur, India VFSTR, Guntur, India
2VFSTR, India vishnuvazhamkuzhiyil@gmail.com shaninfo247@gmail.com
jramson@purdue.edu

Abstract—Internet of Things (IoT) is a revolutionary commu- THINGS NETWORK CONNECTIVITY CLOUD/SERVER/VM

nication paradigm which plays an essential role in the field of user
remote monitoring and control operations. This paper presents Wired
the overview of IoT based remote monitoring and control systems application
thing - 1 Zigbee servers
which potentially solve societal issues in the field of healthcare,
Bluetooth
environment, home automation, transportation, military, agri- thing - 2
RESTful
Wi-Fi
culture, solid waste management, smart metering, surveillance,
consumer asset tracking, smart grid, vehicular communication DSRC/WAVE MQTT
Internet
system and pilgrims monitoring. thing - 3 DASH 7 CoAP
Index Terms—Internet of Things, applications, environmental 6LoWPAN custom network server
monitoring, healthcare, military, solid waste management thing - 4
LoRaWAN
GSM/GPRS
I. I NTRODUCTION user
...

3G/4G geolocation visualization and

The things which have the facility to transfer data over a thing -N server data processing

network without demanding human to human or human to

computer interaction are termed as Internet of Things (IoT).
According to Gartner research and advisory firm, 20.4 billion
things will be connected to the internet [1] by 2020. Also,
the worldwide market of IoT will reach 1.7 trillion USD by
2020 from 655.8 billion USD in 2014 with the annual rate
of 16.9 percent [2]. This considerable amount of revenue is
expected by developing IoT platforms. An IoT platform is
a system which involves data acquisition from any object
using sensors and circuits, processing and transmission over
a network, storage, visualization and data processing with
artificial intelligence schemes according to the requirement of
users [3]. The network architecture of IoT is shown in the Fig.
1 and the overview of various applications of IoT platform is
discussed in this article.
II. A PPLICATIONS OF I OT
The recent advancement in sensors development, light
weight communication protocols, open source server pro-
grams, web development tools and dashboards of IoT is being
applied for several societal problems which is shown in the
Fig. 2.
A. Military
IoT find its critical applications in the field of military.
ZigBee, GSM networks [4] are some of the wireless network
technologies which were used for armed personnel’s health
Fig. 1. Network architecture of IoT
monitoring and tracking. But these technologies are having
drawbacks which include limited bandwidth, high operative
cost, complex infrastructure and so on. These drawbacks can
be overcome by upgrading armed personnel’s health monitor-
ing and tracking system into IoT architecture. Deployment of
IoT on the battlefield can improve the situational awareness,
risk assessment and response time of the military authori-
ties. IoT based systems can assist the military in identifying
the enemies, monitoring the armed personnel’s physical and
mental state and synchronize armed personnel with defense
systems [5]. Military uniforms and helmet with embedded
sensor devices can be used to acquire their locations and vital
status of the armed personnel. The command center can take
action in real-time to save the life of the armed personnel.
Temperature sensor, pulse rate sensor, accelerometer, ECG
sensors, mobility sensors, oxygen level sensors are some of
the sensors which can be used to develop the smart military
uniforms and helmets [6].
B. Healthcare
This section discusses the use of IoT for remote health
monitoring, tracking Ingestible sensors, mobile health, smart
hospitals and enhanced chronic diseases treatment.

978-1-7281-6368-0/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE 92

 2020 5th International Conference on Devices, Circuits and Systems (ICDCS)

Environmental Waste
Military Smart meters Healthcare
monitoring management
• battlefield things • electricity • mobile health
• air quality • ocean of things • water • remote healthcare
• water quality • tracking ingestible
• soil health sensors
• animal tracking • smart hospitals
• weather and • enhanced chronic
climate monitoring diseases treatment
• volcanic eruption
• gases monitoring
Transportation
Internet of • smart traffic
Smart grid Surveillance
Things (IoT) control
Disaster
• smart parking
monitoring
• electronic toll
• tsunami detection
• road assistance
• forest fire
• fleet management
detection
• vehicle control
• land sliding
• safety
• flood
Vehicular systems
• vehicle to vehicle
Home automation Agriculture • vehicle to
• smart home Consumer asset • crop management infrastructure
• elder care tracking Pilgrims • nutrients level • vehicle to
monitoring monitoring pedestrian

Fig. 2. Applications of IoT

1) Remote health monitoring: The main benefit of remote
health monitoring system is to lead a normal life even though
the patients are under continuous health monitoring. Generally,
the remote health monitoring system is used to monitor
the fall detection of elderly people, heart diseases patients,
neurological diseases and diabetic patients [7]-[8]. The sensors
or devices such as accelerometer, respiration rate sensors
[9], t-shirt with embedded sensors and Kinect camera [10],
wireless body sensors [11], AMPED sensors [12], defibrillator
device [13], pulsometer and pedometer [14], textile based
autonomous nervous system [15] are attached to the patient’s
body to acquire vital signals and the acquired signals are being
processed (amplification, filtering, packetization) according to
the communication network. Then the processed data are
transmitted to the central server for storage and analysis. The
doctors are able to check patients health condition by using
graphical user interface [16].
2) Tracking ingestible sensors: Ingestible sensors are used
to perform capsule endoscopy, in which the sensors can
transmit the images of the interior part of the human body
to the remote monitoring application software installed in
the hospital systems [17]. Also, the nutrient consumption of
patients and the formation of different gases in the digestion
process also can be measured using ingestible capsules.
3) Smart hospitals: IoT plays a vital role to upgrade the
hospital to a smart level. The initial step towards smart hospital
is taken place by developing smart phone based appointment
registration according to the availability of doctor, mobile
application based inquiry and test result report, etc. Further
up-gradation established by designing medical devices that
are able to send real-time signals of the blood sugar level,
ECG, blood pressure, etc to an information platform for
diagnosis[18]. Highly expensive equipment in the hospital
premise can be implanted with RFID chip to establish their
tracking[19].
C. Home Automation
Internet of things redefined the way how an electronic
appliance is controlled in a home environment. Every appli-
ances such as lights, air conditioner, media, security systems,
refrigerator, ovens and so on can be connected to the internet
by using a relay switch, a micro-controller and a network
device. By using a graphical user interface, the user can
control the appliances even from remote location. A wide
variety of sensors are developed to implement IoT based home
automation system . Some of the sensors are temperature
sensors (DHT11/22, DS18B20, LM35), lux sensors (TSL2591,
BH1750), water level sensors (HC-SR04, LM1830), air com-

93

position sensors (MiCS-5525, MQ-8, MQ135), and humidity
sensors (HIH6100, Dig RH). Some of the works in IoT based
home automation are cited here. An optimized and ambient
intelligence-based lighting system is presented in [20]. A
cloud-based intrusion detection system is presented in [21]
which will detect intrusion and give alert to the nearby police
station by acquiring the accurate geolocation of the nodes
in the home automation system. A gas or smoke detecting
system which is able to send an alarm in critical conditions
via email/SMS to the fire safety department which is also
presented in [22].
D. Solid Waste Management
The crucial problems in handling solid wastes are, if the
solid wastes are scheduled to be collected on everyday basis,
if the trash bins are not filled, then it leads to wastage of
manpower, fuel and time. Also, if the trash bins are scheduled
to be collected on weekly basis, if the trash bins are filled
which leads to overflow and pollutes the environment. IoT
based trash bin level monitoring systems resolves the critical
problems in handling solid waste management. [23] and [24]
presented sensor networks based bin level monitoring systems.
The end sensor node consists of an ultrasonic sensor to monitor
the unfilled level of the trash bin, a micro-controller to process
the unfilled data, solar panel to charge the battery and a radio
device to transmit the unfilled data to the central monitoring
station over the internet. The central monitoring station uses
an application to monitor and manage the level of every bin.
E. Smart Metering
Water, gas and electricity are the essential resources for
every house. Receiving the bills at the end of every month
through mail is the common practice. IoT based smart meter-
ing helps the service provider to monitor the usage of essential
resources from a central station and also helps the user to
monitor the day by day usage. Smart meter acquires the usage
information and uploads the information to the central server
through internet. Central monitoring stations such as electricity
distribution center, gas and water distribution centers process
the information and send back to the customers through
internet. The customers can view the day by day usage and
upon receiving the paperless bills through internet, the users
can log-in into their electronic account and pay the bills
electronically [25].
F. Surveillance
Monitoring of human activities and behavior are important
in many aspects. Surveillance system is needed for tracking the
activities of any labor, observing the facilities in the workplace
and observing the places where security is a concern. In other
words, surveillance allows the user to manage and direct the
people and hold the occurred process as a material of evidence
during an investigation. IoT based surveillance system is
presented in [26]. The surveillance device connected to the
internet consistently captures and gathers data. The data can
be audio or video form. The captured data is shared remotely
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2020 5th International Conference on Devices, Circuits and Systems (ICDCS)
through the cloud server. The main advantages are, continuous
monitoring can be done from a remote place, real-time visibil-
ity of a person entering and leaving a place is possible, security
alert messages will be delivered to a particular mobile device
based on motion detection, face detection, number plate of
vehicles to take immediate action if there is any theft process.
Also, it manages and directs the labors at workplaces in real-
time.
G. Consumer Asset Tracking
One of the characteristics of IoT is providing a unique
identity to the physical objects. This characteristic makes use
of IoT in the development of a consumer asset tracking system.
Currently, most of the mobile phones are equipped with a GPS
tracking system that allows locating the lost phones easily.
Similarly, IoT is enabling this facility to the consumer assets
by providing a unique identity and internet connectivity to the
assets. E-commerce companies can trace the status of their
products in transit to ensure the proper delivery of their prod-
ucts. Accelerometer, GPS, vibration sensors, RFID constitute
the sensing part of the system. Nano network processors are
used to establish internet connectivity with cloud services.
H. Smart Grid
Low reliability, high outages, carbon emission, safety and
so on are the drawbacks associated with the conventional
electricity grid. A technological uplift can be made on the
conventional power grid by incorporating IoT to transform
it into a smart grid. A smart grid can be defined as an IoT
system that can sense from different components of the grid
and establish a power management system by controlling the
power supply with respect to the demand [27]. IoT based
smart grid provides accurate and quick interactions between
customers and grid corporations. Due to continuous online
monitoring, the automatic recovery can be done upon failure
by acquiring pre-control [28].
I. Vehicular Communication System
Internet of things opens a new dimension towards the ve-
hicular communications, which includes vehicle to the sensor,
vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to internet communications
[29]. Further vehicular communications can categorize into
two; intra-vehicle communications and inter-vehicle commu-
nications. Intra vehicle communication systems consist of a
network of sensors to monitor road conditions, drivers fatigue,
Tyre pressure and water temperature in the cooling system and
so on. Such a big quantity of sensors needs to be connected to
the ECU (Electrical Control Unit) which uses protocol such
as CAN (Controller Area Network), FlexRay and Tethernet
and so on. Since the sensors are stationary and it is powered
from the vehicles power system, the topology, deployment of
the sensor systems and its connectivity to ECU can establish
with the conventional short-range protocols. Another aspect
of vehicular communication is inter-vehicle connectivity in
which vehicles can communicate to other nearby vehicles to
prevent accidents, convey lane changing information and so

on [30]. IoT can provide an easy up-gradation of vehicles to
smart vehicles by properly designing architecture and choosing
lightweight communication protocols to establish a vehicle to
vehicle communication.
J. Pilgrims Monitoring
A greater crowd can be expected whenever a pilgrimage
session prevails. Pilgrims move in groups of considerable size.
So, the probability of misplacing valuable items, missing of
person from their group is high. If a pilgrim lost their way
from their group leads anxiousness to their relatives and opens
a challenge for the authorities who are managing the crowd
[21]. IoT based pilgrims monitoring system can recognize a
lost, deceased, and physically harmed pilgrim, guide and link
the identified pilgrim to their respective groups, manage and
control pilgrim crowd.
III. C ONCLUSION
An overview of some important applications of IoT in the
field of military, solid waste management, smart metering,
healthcare, transportation, vehicular systems, precision agri-
culture, pilgrims monitoring, consumer asset tracking, home
automation, disaster monitoring, environmental monitoring,
smart grid and surveillance have been studied. Apart from
these applications, IoT can be applied eminently in other fields.
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