Applications of Internet of Things

Kashika Sharma

ECE-1 SEM-7 (03510102818)

This document focuses on the various applications of IoT that are or can be
incorporated in our daily lives to make it a little more smart and automated. But
before jumping on to the applications we’ll see the basic definition of IoT and a bit of
its history. Furthermore, the advancements in the field of IoT and its amalgamation
with AI (Artificial Intelligence) and DA (Data Analysis) is discussed in order to see
the future possibilities of the said technology.

What is IoT?

The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects)

that are embedded with sensors, processing ability, software, and other technologies
that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or
other communications networks. So what this definition aims to deliver is, IoT is
nothing but objects talking among themselves over the internet. This can mean a
fan being connected to a mobile application and has sensors so that it stops when
someone manually triggers the switch from the app or sensors read no one is
present in the room. IoT aims to make life easier and efficient, like in the said
example one could save energy by installing sensors and using the technology the
right way.

How does this connecting things over the internet happen is the next question in our
minds. WiFi module comes handy to solve the issue. We have a variety of WiFi
module to choose from depending upon the complexity of application.

ESP 8266

The ESP8266 WiFi module is a powerful, yet cost-effective, surface-mountable

WiFi module with an embedded ESP8266 system on chip (SoC). It’s one of
the most popular low-cost WiFi modules for controlling devices over the
internet.

The module has a wireless WiFi transceiver operating in an unlicensed

frequency range of 2400-2484 MHz with support for TCP/IP communication
protocol stack and WiFi security including WAP3. It can work with firmware to
provide Wi-Fi connectivity to external host MCUs like the Arduino or as self-
sufficient programmable MCUs with an RTOS-based SDK that can run
applications.
 Following is a pin diagram of ESP 8266 WiFi board.

Some of the Arduino boards with ESP 8266 WiFi connectivity are-

Arduino Uno

The Arduino Uno board is based on the ATmega328P with an ESP8266WiFi

Module integrated. It has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used
as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz quartz crystal, a USB connection,
a power jack, an ICSP header and a reset button. It contains everything
needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer with a
USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started.

Arduino Yún

The Arduino Yún is an Arduino board unlike any other. While programming it
is very similar to the Arduino Leonardo and uses the same processor, the
Atmel ATmega32U4, it also has an additional processor, an Atheros AR9331,
running Linux and the OpenWrt wireless stack. Programming the 32U4 via
USB is identical to the Arduino Leonardo. Once you've configured the Yún to
connect to your WiFi network, you can program the 32U4 via WiFi as well.

Applications of IoT

IoT has been ever so advancing and its one of the first uses dates back to 1982
when Coca-Cola connected one of its vending machines to the ARPANET and it was
able to report its inventory and whether newly loaded drinks were cold or not. After
around forty years we now see IoT being utilised almost in every field now whether
its healthcare, architecture or household applications. Let’s hop onto some
applications that are widely used.

Home Automation

What they call it these days? ‘Smart Homes’. They are a blessing of IoT. It
can automate a lot of things or appliances which can include lighting, heating
and air conditioning, media and security systems and camera systems. Long-
term benefits could include energy savings by automatically ensuring lights
and electronics are turned off or by making the residents in the home aware
of usage. A smart home or automated home could be based on a platform or
hubs that control smart devices and appliances. For instance,
using Apple's HomeKit, manufacturers can have their home products and
accessories controlled by an application in iOS devices such as the iPhone and
the Apple Watch. This could be a dedicated app or iOS native applications
such as Siri. This can be demonstrated in the case of Lenovo's Smart Home
Essentials, which is a line of smart home devices that are controlled through
Apple's Home app or Siri without the need for a Wi-Fi bridge. There are also
dedicated smart home hubs that are offered as standalone platforms to
connect different smart home products and these include the Amazon
Echo, Google Home, Apple's HomePod, and Samsung's SmartThings Hub. In
addition to the commercial systems, there are many non-proprietary, open
source ecosystems; including Home Assistant, OpenHAB and Domoticz.

IoT devices can be used to monitor and control the mechanical, electrical and
electronic systems used in various types of buildings (e.g., public and private,
industrial, institutions, or residential) in home automation and building
automation systems. In this context, three main areas are being covered in
literature.

 The integration of the Internet with building energy management systems

in order to create energy-efficient and IOT-driven "smart buildings".

 The possible means of real-time monitoring for reducing energy

consumption and monitoring occupant behaviors.

 The integration of smart devices in the built environment and how they
might be used in future applications.

Medical and healthcare[edit]

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is an application of the IoT for medical

and health related purposes, data collection and analysis for research, and
monitoring. The IoMT has been referenced as "Smart Healthcare", as the
technology for creating a digitized healthcare system, connecting available
medical resources and healthcare services.

IoT devices can be used to enable remote health monitoring and emergency

notification systems. These health monitoring devices can range from blood
pressure and heart rate monitors to advanced devices capable of monitoring
specialized implants, such as pacemakers, Fitbit electronic wristbands, or
advanced hearing aids. Some hospitals have begun implementing "smart
beds" that can detect when they are occupied and when a patient is
attempting to get up. It can also adjust itself to ensure appropriate pressure
and support is applied to the patient without the manual interaction of nurses.

Specialized sensors can also be equipped within living spaces to monitor the
health and general well-being of senior citizens, while also ensuring that
proper treatment is being administered and assisting people to regain lost
mobility via therapy as well. These sensors create a network of intelligent
sensors that are able to collect, process, transfer, and analyze valuable
information in different environments, such as connecting in-home monitoring
devices to hospital-based systems. Other consumer devices to encourage
healthy living, such as connected scales or wearable heart monitors, are also
a possibility with the IoT. End-to-end health monitoring IoT platforms are also
available for antenatal and chronic patients, helping one manage health vitals
and recurring medication requirements.

The application of the IoT in healthcare plays a fundamental role in managing

chronic diseases and in disease prevention and control. Remote monitoring is
made possible through the connection of powerful wireless solutions. The
connectivity enables health practitioners to capture patient's data and
applying complex algorithms in health data analysis

Transportation

The IoT can assist in the integration of communications, control, and

information processing across various transportation systems. Application of
the IoT extends to all aspects of transportation systems (i.e. the vehicle, the
infrastructure, and the driver or user). Dynamic interaction between these
components of a transport system enables inter- and intra-vehicular
communication, smart traffic control, smart parking, electronic toll collection
systems, logistics and fleet management, vehicle control, safety, and road
assistance.

Manufacturing[edit]

The IoT can connect various manufacturing devices equipped with sensing,
identification, processing, communication, actuation, and networking
capabilities. Network control and management of manufacturing
equipment, asset and situation management, or manufacturing process
 control allow IoT to be used for industrial applications and smart
manufacturing. IoT intelligent systems enable rapid manufacturing and
optimization of new products, and rapid response to product demands.

Digital control systems to automate process controls, operator tools and

service information systems to optimize plant safety and security are within
the purview of the IIoT. IoT can also be applied to asset management
via predictive maintenance, statistical evaluation, and measurements to
maximize reliability. Industrial management systems can be integrated
with smart grids, enabling energy optimization. Measurements, automated
controls, plant optimization, health and safety management, and other
functions are provided by networked sensors.

Agriculture[edit]

There are numerous IoT applications in farming such as collecting data on

temperature, rainfall, humidity, wind speed, pest infestation, and soil content.
This data can be used to automate farming techniques, take informed
decisions to improve quality and quantity, minimize risk and waste, and
reduce the effort required to manage crops. For example, farmers can now
monitor soil temperature and moisture from afar, and even apply IoT-
acquired data to precision fertilization programs. The overall goal is that data
from sensors, coupled with the farmer's knowledge and intuition about his or
her farm, can help increase farm productivity, and also help reduce costs.

Real life mini projects based on IoT

Light Monitoring via SMS alert

This IoT project detects the switching ON & OFF operations taken place in the
system under observation and sends an SMS alert for the same. The project
uses esp8266 WiFi module along with an LDR and resistors. Twilio messaging
app is used for SMS service along with BOLT cloud for storing and analysing
the data sent by the WiFi module from time to time. Following is the block
diagram to make the circuit using esp8266 WiFi module.
Temperature Monitoring via SMS alert

This IoT project detects change or abnormalities in the temperature of the

surroundings. It makes use of s temperature sensor along with an LED screen
to display the temperature. It also has a buzzer attached to it which buzzes
when the temperature crosses the set threshold. Most importantly it uses
esp8266 WiFi module, Arduino Uno and BOLT cloud for transferring and
storing data respectively. Following is the block diagram of the same.

Intruder Alert System

This IoT project detects motion of nearby objects when switched on. One can
place it near door when going out and this device with the help of HC RS04
will detect motion and send SMS and email to the linked email address and
phone number. It uses Arduino uno and esp8622 module along with a buzzer
and BOLT cloud storage for performing the said task. Following is the block
diagram for the same.
Future Possibilities for IoT

IoT and AI (Artificial Intelligence) amalgamation

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the science of instilling intelligence in machines so

that they are capable of doing tasks that traditionally required the human
mind. AI based systems are evolving rapidly in terms of application,
adaptation, processing speed and capabilities. Machines are increasingly
becoming capable of taking on less-routine tasks. While, human intelligence is
actually ‘taking’ a perfect decision at the appropriate time, AI is merely about
‘choosing’ a right decision at the appropriate time. To put it plainly, the
creativity in decision that humans can take is lacking in AI.

However, AI when connected to IoT along with the concepts of Big Data
Analytics (BDA) can do wonders. Presently, IoT is bound to sending and
receiving data or information over the internet with the help of sensors, WiFi
modules and cloud. But if we connect AI techniques to IoT then instead of
sending a message regarding abnormality the system will try to rectify the
abnormality altogether.

AI can be regarded as a technique to use the data in an efficient manner so

that it is understandable to the people who provide it, modifiable (in case of
errors), holds usefulness in the present scenario and is meaningful. AI,
therefore, relies heavily on data science techniques. To state in a broader
way, data science is the science of developing tools and methods to analyze
large volumes of data and gain information from it.

The true smartness of an IoT service is determined by the level of processing

that it can perform. A non-smart IoT system will have limited capability and
will be unable to evolve with the data. However, a smarter IoT system will
have artificial intelligence and may serve the actual goal of automation and
adaptation.

Some IoT+AI Projects

Automated Vision-based Surveillance System to Detect Drowning
Incidents in Swimming Pools

At present, swimming pools are built in hotels, sport clubs, schools and
private residences. Although there have been various regulations put into
place to reduce drowning accidents in some countries, communities still
experience many drowning incidents. Accordingly, a real-time system that will
track swimmers in a pool using machine learning techniques and prevents
drowning accidents is proposed. The system consists of a Raspberry Pi with
the Raspbian operating system, a Pixy camera, an Arduino Nano board,
stepper motors, an alarm system, and motor drivers. The proposed system is
based on the color-based algorithm to position and rescue swimmers who are
drowning. The device then sends an alarm to the lifeguards. To verify the
performance of the proposed system, a prototype has been developed,
implemented, and tested. The results from experiments indicate that the
system has a unique capability to monitor and track swimmers, thereby
enabling it to mitigate and curb the number of deaths by drowning.

Deep Learning Techniques for Obstacle Detection and Avoidance in

Driverless Cars.

One of the key parts of physical system of urban life is transportation. This
mission-critical application has attracted many researchers in both academia
and industry to investigate driverless cars. In the domain of autonomous
vehicles, intelligent video analytics is very critical. By the advent of deep
learning many neural networks based learning approaches are under
consideration. This work tries to implement obstacle detection and avoidance
in a self-driven car. One of advanced neural network called Convolutional
Neural Network (CNN) is exploited for real time video/image analysis using an
IOT device. This project makes use of a raspberry pi which is responsible for
controlling the car and performing inference using CNN, based on its current
input. The model trained has achieved an accuracy of 88.6% and are in good
consent with expected performance.

Voice assistants

These are cloud-based voice services which act as table-top personal

assistants for users. They perform various tasks through third-party
applications and other smart devices in their proximity. They are capable of
answering queries, calling cabs, making restaurant reservations, playing
music, switching smart lights on/off, and many more tasks based on the
user’s voice commands. Few of the well known voice assistants are:

• Alexa is the voice assistant from Amazon, which is used in products like
Amazon Echo, Amazon Tap, etc. There is a specific set of skills known as the
Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) that can be modified and updated to personalize or
improve certain skills.
• Siri from Apple Inc. is used in Apple Homepod which serves a similar
purpose.

• Google Assistant used in Google Home has additional features where it

can recognize up to six different users and pull their respective details to
converse with them.

Efficient Face Detection And Identification In Networked Video

Surveillance Systems

Applications for face detection use algorithms that rely on identifying human
faces in broader photos that may include environments, artifacts, and other
sections of a person's physique. This work proposes a real-time identification
system, based on modern image processing capabilities of open source API
like OpenCV and due to the solution requirements, a study on the
performance analysis of such solution compared to available commercial
framework like SPID from NEC is intended. However, here, the study is
available with the results of various experiments on the developed system. A
systematic approach is followed to produce such outputs and have been
measured using software codes. By using IP camera and a Raspberry Pi, the
solution developed is simple in nature. This study relies on face detection and
identification functionalities for human faces but not limited to live faces only
but mix of faces from still images as well.

Robots

Recent advancements in this field of robotics has led to the creation of robots
who have increased human likeness and are able to interact with humans
while understanding, reciprocating and expressing certain human emotions.
Robots are IoTs in themselves since they contain multiple sensors and
actuators along with AI that helps them continuously learn and adapt
themselves over time.

• Pepper from SoftBank Robotics is a human-shaped robot which is termed

as a humanoid companion which can interact with humans.

• Sophia from Hanson Robotics is a social humanoid robot which is

incredibly human-like and can express emotions through more than 50
facial expressions. During a conversation, it is able to maintain eye
contact with the human while conversing. Sophia is world’s first robot to
get a country’s full citizenship.

• Robotic Kitchen from Moley Robotics is an advanced fully functional

robot integrated into a kitchen. It has robotic arms, oven, hob and a
touchscreen unit for human interaction and is able to prepare food of
expert quality from its recipe library.