By Arun Ravisankar, Comcast Corporation
History is witness to the evolution of civilizations and how humans continue to discover and innovate things that would propel everyone to newer levels of technological advances, as we aspire to attain a higher intellectual state. Industrial revolutions are key indicators of how humankind continues to seek techniques that would improve lifestyles and bring advancement to civilization. IoT (Internet of Things) applications play a significant role in providing peace of mind to customers/users and help improve lifestyles. Residential IoT applications bring peace of mind to customers by offering security applications or improving lifestyle by offering a suite of home automation applications that enable users with a worry free experience that also optimize usage of resources. Commercial and Industrial IoT applications help organizations increase productivity and help optimize resources.
Regardless of IoT application type, there are some major components that power them and help provide all the services that these applications are designed and intended for. Figure 1 shows the components that typically make up an IoT application. All these components play an integral role in providing the desired result.
Rules would define how applications would act on data sent from sensors. Rules form the basic construct of IoT applications. For example, rules set on a home automation application to determine the next course of action if a motion sensor detects a motion event.
Algorithms would analyze sensor data and provide insights that could be used in predictive analysis and advanced applications Sensors are devices that interface with the physical world, and usually to convert physical parameters (for ex: temperature, humidity, magnetic field, light, sound, etc.) to electrical signals which a machine can understand and a software program can process.
Sensors on an automobile are vital in determining the health of important components and also are an integral part of the systems that provide reliable information for autonomous driving. Numerous sensors also aid the safe operation of airplanes.
This paper focuses on the role of sensors that are vital in providing the information necessary for software algorithms to process and apply the rules that govern the application’s features. We examine how new sensors and sensing techniques could take these applications to a higher scale of efficiency.