The Internet of Things (IoT) is where objects, animals or even people are provided with unique identifiers. While the IoT is still taking shape, it’s already making incredible strides as a new frontier for the connected world in which people, devices, environments and virtual objects are all connected and capable of interaction using wireless technologies, micro-electromechanical systems and the Internet. There’s a new wave of technology platforms targeting the need to bridge these sophisticated communications, as well as hardware manufacturers producing physical devices and sensors to power the IoT.
A thing, in IoT, can be a person with a heart monitor implant, a dog with a biochip transponder, a smart parking sensor — or any other natural or man-made object that can be assigned an IP address and provided with the ability to transfer data over a network. So far, the Internet of Things has been most closely associated with machine-to-machine (M2M) communication in manufacturing and power, oil and gas utilities. Products built with M2M communication capabilities are often referred to as being smart. (e.g. smart label)
However this is just the beginning. Pockets of “Internet of Things” solutions will occur in high-value manufacturing floors as the emergence of technology in that industry has changed the face of operations. Supervisory control and data acquisition systems in industrial processes in conjunction with IoT will introduce significant cost reductions in manufacturing operations, utilizing WLAN for interconnectivity, manufacturing and distribution. As reported by Gartner, the IoT-installed base will reach 26 billion by 2020, with incremental revenue exceeding $300 billion.
A new era of computing technology is here and will offer connectivity to a vast number of smart “things” interacting and communicating with each other on manufacturing floors to generate a tremendous volume of useful data with the potential to increase efficient operations and positively impact every aspect of the manufacturing life cycle. This interaction and exchange of data between machines is no longer pivotal on smartphones alone. Rather, any object and appliance on the manufacturing floor, once connected, will generate data to streamline every aspect of the manufacturing process. The objects on a manufacturing floor can become smart with the integration of embedded processors, and once they become smart, the next step is the need for remote communication. Wi-Fi is among several connectivity technologies such as NFC, Sub-Gig, ZigBee, GPS, BT/BTLE, RFID and cellular. Once the connectivity is established, the automation of processes will follow.
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