The concept behind the IoT is simple yet revolutionary: the facilitation of the interplay between man, machine, and an array of machines. Mind-blowing, isn’t it? The IoT ecosystem encompasses every sphere of activity, including retail, healthcare, home automation, energy distribution, etc.
With this in mind, the concept might come off as having innumerable layers of complexity. However, the schematics of the IoT boils down to just 4 main components. Let’s see what they are.
The 4 Main Components of the IoT
Sensors
Sensors are pieces of technology that extract data of varying complexities, including humidity, sound waves and video feed, from the immediate environment. These sensors can be assembled together inside a device such as a smartphone, a piece of machinery, a vehicle, walls of a building, etc, in order to gather multifaceted data. After gathering data, sensors transmit the collected data through their connectivity apparatuses to cloud infrastructures.
Connectivity
The sensors transmit the gathered data to a cloud infrastructure and receive feedback through certain connectivity mediums, including cellular networks, Wi-Fi, Wide-Area Networks (WAN), etc, each with its own set of advantages and drawbacks. The connectivity of the sensors is also imbued with what is called gateways.
The gateways can serve as data filters that minimize the size of data transmitted to the cloud infrastructure, and also as receptors which receive the command sent from the cloud to the actuators of the devices (components that trigger a class of action in the devices) that host the sensors. In their original form, the gathered data exists in an analog form. They’re then aggregated and digitized by the gateway to compress their sizes and optimize them for further processing.
Data Processing
The next thing that happens after data is acquired and transmitted to cloud infrastructure is the processing of the data to determine the changes happening in the sensor’s environment, such as changes in temperature, the changes in the presence of certain entities such as an entry of an intruder in a home, etc.
In order for this to happen, the transmitted data is sent to a streaming data processor that facilitates the transmission of the acquired data to a data lake as well as control applications. The processed data is stored in the data lake, from where they can be extracted to a big data warehouse when they’re needed for insightful analyses to predict trends. The big data warehouse contains only well-structured, streamlined contextual data, whereas the data lake collects all types of data transmitted to the cloud infrastructure.
User Interface and Control Applications
This is where the human touch enters into the IoT system. The processed information is made available to end-users so they can act on the data. This can happen through notification emails and push messages. But in some IoT systems, the human decision maker is substituted for control applications which take action on the processed data automatically.
For instance, automated factory lines can receive instructions to shut down certain compartments when the preconditioned control applications of the IoT system detect through the processed data a potential fault that can cause widespread damage. These applications can function based on both the rules set by the IT operatives or machine-learning modules which are regulated by the historical data saved in the big house warehouse.
Other Important Components of the IoT
Device management
The process of authenticating the source and of the data as well as the configuration of the sensor device, and the maintenance and update of the sensor to ensure the sensors perform optimally.
User Management
This determines the users that have access to the IoT system.
Conclusion
A bona fide IoT system comprises a network of sensors and actuators, network connectivity, user interface and/or command applications, regardless of the sphere of activity which it is created for.
