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1. Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1
.........
2. The Internet of 4
things ................................................................................................
2 Definition ...................................................................................................... 4
. ......
1
2 Scope of IoT 5
. systems ..........................................................................................
2
2 History .......................................................................................................... 8
. ......
3
2 Applications .................................................................................................. 8
. ......
4
2 Actors ............................................................................................................ 9
. ......
5
1
3.1 smart buildings………………………………………………………… 0
3 Smart 2
. buildings ................................................................................................. 1
1
3 Current role in electrical 2
. engineering ............................................................... 1
4
5 Preparations for 4
. IoT .......................................................................................... 0
2
5 Big data in building 4
. services ............................................................................. 3
3
5 New discipline: data 4
. engineer ........................................................................... 4
4
5 Smart 4
. cities ....................................................................................................... 5
5
5 Markets ......................................................................................................... 4
. .... 5
6
6. Conclusions ...................................................................................................... 4
....... 6
7. References ........................................................................................................ 4
....... 8
LIST OF FIGURES
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sensors. The sensors are responsible for collecting data to the IoT system and
monitor the environment or processes. [6]
This brings us to the third main component that is data. [6] The use of data analytics
is crucial for IoT systems. The use of big data and finding patterns and correlations
that are previously unknown will make the IoT systems smarter than traditional
“smart” systems, which are often working by pre-set rules and configurations. By
connecting data from many different sources, unexpected relations will definitely be
found.
6
Figure 1 shows the IEEE definition of the features and the scope of an IoT. The
characteristics that IEEE describe as important in any IoT system are required for it
to differentiate itself from current smart systems. These characteristics are:
All devices in IoT systems must be uniquely identifiable, for example having their
own IP address. [3]
Another important feature of IoT systems is the ability of self-configuration and self-
adaptation. This is due to the high number of different devices from many different
manufacturers that are to be connected to the same framework, that is IoT. With
these different devices, ranging from sensors, actuators, storage devices, mobile
phones, tablets and computers to utilities, smart grid and even home appliances, the
remote control and coordination of these systems is virtually impossible on a larger
scale. The natural direction of the IoT device development lies towards self-
configuration and adaptation. Self configuration consists of discovering neighbouring
devices and networks and resource provisioning to these networks. [3]
Ubiquity will become one of the major features of IoT, and large scale adaptation is
essential for the success of IoT systems. In much of the same way as the Internet for
humans is ubiquitous, available anytime, anywhere and with any device, the IoT
systems need to be available anytime and anywhere for it to have the tremendous
impact that is expected. In the same way as the Internet can’t properly connect
people if only a fraction of people has access to the Internet, the IoT can’t serve it’s
purpose if it is not ubiquitous. [3]
The different parts of the IoT system must be able to communicate with each other
without technology barriers. This means that every device uses standardized and
interoperable communications protocols. [3]
One of the more important aspects of making the “things” intelligent, is to have them
sense their surroundings. The addition of sensors and actuators in the IoT systems is
crucial in making the systems autonomous [3]. The IoT system gather information
from sensors and things to monitor the status or behaviour of the system [4]. The
objects need to be smart and dynamic, and have embedded intelligence to be able to
perform simple tasks without the need for further data analysis [3]. The information
they gather is used to automatically optimize processes or resource use, and to
improve on the business decision-making process [4].
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2.3 History
The concept of the Internet of Things is not something completely new, but has rather
developed since the beginning of the Internet and control systems in general. This
concept has slowly incorporated more and more “things” to create complete system of
interconnected devices. There have always been Internet connected devices and online
control interfaces, but the idea of machines communicating with each other on a larger
scale is something that is new and revolutionary, and which defines the Internet of
Things. One of the first uses of the term “Internet of Things” was Kevin Ashton, an
executive at Procter & Gamble, who said in 1999, “we need an Internet for things, a
standardized way for computers to understand the real world” [7]. This was when a
growing number of devices, especially RFID tags and other logistics monitoring
systems, were starting to connect to main servers with proprietary systems, not through
the Internet. With the introduction of automated communication between devices via the
Internet, the logistics monitoring could easily be scaled and therefore made much more
effective. When the benefits from machine to machine communication was apparent in
logistics, more and more industries have adopted the technology and began moving in
the direction from closed systems to larger interconnected systems.
The IoT-movement and hobbyists got a great boost in 2002 with the Italian
microcontroller company Arduino, which started out with the goal to “teach students
to create electronics, fast" [8]. The emergence of small, cheap DIY (do-it-yourself)
electronic kits set the stage for an embedded ecosystem and soon there was open
source versions of everything from home automation, lighting control and other
building systems to autonomous robots and drones. In the coming years, more and
more of home projects have been connected to the Internet, and open source projects
like openHAB can bring them all together and create a true Internet of Things [9].
With processing power rising even on small microcontrollers and general purpose
processors at the same time as prices are falling, the need to produce optimal code for
simple processes is not an issue anymore, and thus enabling hobbyist to create real
world applications.
2.4 Applications
With the introduction of true IoT systems, many areas in society will change. The
possibilities for us to analyse many different aspects of our lives can affect all possible
industries and cultures, much in the same way the Internet has changed our lives.
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Figure 2 Most popular IoT applications today [10]
The most popular IoT applications based on searches on Google, Twitter and LinkedIn is
presented in Figure 2. From this we can see that smart homes are leading the searches
[10]. But with further analysis the scope of a smart city can include smart homes,
smart grid, connected cars and connected health. From this we can conclude that the
interconnectivity of things is an important factor in all IoT applications.
In this work we will concentrate on building services and lighting control, even
though other applications are also shortly described based on their importance in a
larger macro scale. It is important to notice that to achieve a true Internet of Things,
these systems cannot be separated from other applications and thus reverting back to
the current way of thinking, but should be opened up with the intention of sharing
data. It is of outmost importance that many systems from different disciplines have a
common interface to connect devices to each other, and create an ecosystem that is
not dependent of any one manufacturer or industry.
2.5 Actors
Many hardware and software manufacturers have realized the potential business
growth with the emergence of the Internet of Things. The IoT market is rapidly
expanding, but still with a lack of a common goal, and therefore it is still fragmented.
Companies are creating IoT applications but often with proprietary solutions, which
can become de facto industry standards. The trend is to expand new applications with
neighbouring industries [2].
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for low powered devices over wireless networks. The goal of “IPv6 over Low Power
Wireless Area Networks” (6LoWPAN) is to enable IPv6 support using the 802.15.4
wireless standard. [3]
In this section, we will look at a few of the largest companies and how they enable the
IoT with their development of either hardware or software, and in some cases, both.
Intel
Intel is mostly known for its microprocessors and is to this day, the leading manufacturer
in the world in terms of revenue [11]. In recent years, Intel has acquired other companies
in different industries (e.g. the Finnish security company Stonesoft) in order to diversify
their portfolio. Intel has also released small computers named Edison and Galileo, and
with them Intel has made a stride towards taking a piece of the IoT market. A move
especially targeting against established DIY-manufacturers like Raspberry Pi and
Arduino. Intel has together with McAfee and Wind River developed a gateway solution
to connect larger sensor and actuator networks to the Internet [12]. This will enable
existing legacy systems and devices, which are not optimized to be connected directly to
the Internet, to have a direct connection to the cloud services without compromising
security. This gateway solution enables a faster adaptation of IoT services especially in
already established sensor networks.
Cisco
Cisco Systems Inc., is a technology company that designs, manufacturers and sells
mainly network equipment. Cisco is the world leader in networking equipment and
infrastructure [13]. The company has devoted significant efforts towards developing
and promoting IoT systems. Cisco recently helped develop the “IoT World Forum
Reference Model”, which goal is to unify the IoT terminology and bring clarity to the
process of developing IoT systems as a whole [14]. The model is a collaboration
among 28 members which include Intel, GE, Itron, SAP, Oracle and Cisco, among
many others [4].
IBM have announced a cloud based IoT service for electronics. The goal is to provide
electronics manufacturers a means of collecting data from sensors and easily combine it
with data from other areas for real-time analysis [16]. IBM will invest $3 billion over
four years towards its IoT unit, whose first task is to build the cloud based service [17].
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ARM
ARM is an architecture for computer processors. The name is originally Acorn RISC
Machine, and the architecture is developed by the British company ARM Holdings.
The architecture of the ARM computers is designed in a way that requires
significantly less transistors than in processors that are used in most personal
computers [18], which translates to lower power consumption and less heat.
ARM has recognized the importance of their low powered architecture with all
microcontrollers potentially being connected to the Internet. ARM has together with
partners created a software ecosystem for a common platform to all developers of
IoT devices. [19]
Arduino
Texas Instruments
Microsoft
As one of the largest software developers in the world, Microsoft already has a large
customer base to whom it can offer new IoT services. Microsoft has several projects
in development for IoT systems, one of the more important is the “Azure IoT Suite”.
The Microsoft Azure IoT hub establishes a two-way connection with the users’
devices. Azure analyses and presents the data collected from the connected devices
as usable information to people who can use it for better decision making.
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prototype on cheaper systems, like the Raspberry Pi before committing them to
Google is one of the largest technology companies in the world and Google is one of the
most valuable Brands in the world [22]. One could argue that Google is already living in
the IoT age since it collects data from all possible sources, smartphones, internet
searches, image and voice recognition etc. Google is estimated to process over 100 PB
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(100x10 bytes) worth of data every day in 2014. The same estimate proposes Google
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to have 15 exabytes (15x10 bytes) of data stored in its data centres [23]. With this large
capability of data storage and analysis, Google have a strong argument in why
consumers should use their cloud based IoT systems to store data.
Google has started many projects revolving around the IoT themes, of which two of
the largest ones are Brillo and Weave. Googles project Brillo is an operating system
for IoT devices, meant to be used in small devices with significant hardware
constraints [24]. Weave on the other hand, is a platform independent protocol meant
to be used by, but not constrained to, Brillo devices [25]. Google have other IoT
services also available mainly considering data analytics, for example Big Query
tools, which allow users to make SQL like queries on large big data sets, and many
other similar tools [26]
Samsung
Samsung is a Korean company who mainly is known for their consumer electronics
manufacturing, even though Samsung is active on many other fields also. Samsung have
invested in IoT on different levels. Samsung recently acquired SmartThings, who
develop and manufacture a home automation system for use in residential buildings
[27]. SmartThings is one of the more promising IoT applications for homes on the
market at the moment. More on SmartThings in section 3.1.3. Samsung has also
released their version of a system on chip (SOC), the Artic. The Artik chips have
built in connectivity and an open source environment for developers to build their
applications on. [28]
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This is also one of the prerequisites for widespread IoT adaptation, as we will discuss later.
Software especially written for embedded systems, which IoT depends on, will become
more accessible to everyone, not only for big software companies. This has historically
been an area where the learning curve is relatively steep, and there has been a need for
specialization on programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and machine programming.
The actors in this field have mainly been big companies with large budgets and
dedicated software engineers and research and development (R&D) departments, ruling
out almost all hobbyist programmers in the process. In recent times all this have
changed. Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of Intel and Fairchild Semiconductor, suggested
in 1965 and revised in 1975, that the transistor count would double every two years. This
has been the trend ever since Moore saw the current trend in the ´60s and ´70s, even
though physical limitations have been a concern every now and then. Figure 3 shows
how modern processors are situated around the prediction
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recent years reached a threshold where for small, simple systems, the quality and
speed of the programing code is not an issue. This major boost in processing power
has made it possible for do-it-yourself enthusiasts to create their own software from
scratch with high level programming languages, like Java, without lacking in speed
in the physical realm, a challenge that has been the issue for many newcomers to
PLC and microcontroller programming.
Another stride forward in making programming available for everyone is the simple
programming style “If-This-Then-That” (IFTTT). This lets users program their own
routines with no advanced knowledge of programming languages. [3] IFTTT lets
users take data from different web services, such as Facebook and trigger actions
with this information.
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3.1 Smart buildings
With a higher level of comfort and automation in recent buildings, larger building
companies have begun to market their more advanced houses as “smart houses” or
“smart buildings”. Like many other marketing buzzwords, “smart buildings” have
many definitions depending on the service provider or builder. However, there are
still a consensus that all smart buildings often have similar properties, for example
they have intricate automation systems and advanced control systems with intuitive
user interfaces. These houses are today regarded as smart buildings, but with these
control and automation systems beginning to be more common, the preposition
“smart” is becoming more insignificant with residents expecting a certain automation
standard in todays’ new buildings. In a smart building, the various systems can
interact, much in the same way as it is envisioned for IoT to communicate, but only
in a local setting, that is, within the building. The user can have remote access to the
system, for example to turn the heating on or off.
A feature of many smart buildings is the real time monitoring of electricity and water
consumption [36]. This enables building owners to have accurate invoicing of tenants
at the same time as tenants are inclined to lower their consumption due to the
feedback of their consumption in regards to similar peers. The lower the level of
which the consumer has access to their consumption, all the way down to individual
devices, then they are more likely to actively promote energy conservation [36] [37].
Another energy saving device found in many smart homes is a home/away switch.
This switch allows the residents to turn off any non critical loads, and to ensure that
any devices needing supervision, for example the oven or other devices with fire or
water hazards, are switched off before leaving the building [36].
Other engineering disciplines in the building design groups might include architects,
structural engineers, geotechnical engineers, construction engineers and interior
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designers among others. The amount of different designers in a project is highly
dictated by the size of the project and the knowledge of the building developers.
With highly skilled contractors running the building site, the need for engineers in
small projects can be minimal. Again, in large projects, the engineering contracts are
often split up in many parts.
The TATE 12 description of areas of responsibility for these three main building
services disciplines are very precise, and widely already in use in Finland. TATE 12
states that the automation engineer is responsible for all building automation design.
This refers to all HVAC and plumbing automation. The electrical engineer is
responsible for lighting control and lighting automation. TATE 12 replaced the older
TATE 95, which had issues with the division of responsibilities. The goal was to
have a more uniform understanding among all stakeholders of what systems are
included and who is responsible for them, as to minimize confusion and possible
disputes. The lines between building automation and lighting automation are still
somewhat blurry, especially in larger buildings where some of the lighting is
controlled partly with the same parameters as the HVAC system. This is not seen as
an issue and the problems that arise from this diffusion are often solved in good
spirit, but it is to be noted that this could be an issue for the uninitiated.
There are tens of other systems defined in TATE 12 which the electrical engineer is
responsible for, security and ICT systems etc. These systems all have their own control
centres and cabling networks, or shared with one or two other systems by the same
vendor if in use in the same building. This requires many different sets of instructions
and maintenance routines for the building owners and designers. The main issue with
moving towards an Internet of Things, is that system manufacturers are unwilling to
open up their systems in fear of competition. The common practice is to bind the
customer with one system, often offering benefits when connecting multiple systems
from the same vendor. These systems are for the most part proprietary.
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4.1 Lighting
Individual lighting fixtures are rarely connected to the Internet neither directly nor
via gateways. There are some lighting control systems that are possible to connect to
the Internet, and more important, they are able to communicate with other devices
and sensors. This is thought to change in the next five years with smart lighting
market expected to reach 50 million euros by 2020
Philips HUE and Osram Lightify are two similar systems for retrofitting “smart”
light bulbs into existing lighting fixtures. These systems work with ZigBee
technology to communicate with a gateway. The user can control these lights with
their smartphones either directly via LAN or the cloud and set different scenes to
activate at certain times or conditions. The main difference between the HUE and
Lightify is that the gateway of Lightify is proprietary with no API [33], whereas the
HUE bridge have an open API [32], making it a much more IoT like system.
However, since both HUE and Lightify use the same open source protocol ZigBee, it
is possible to control lighting fixtures by both manufacturers with third party
gateways, such as SmartThings or even home made Raspberry Pi computer.
The Finnish government have obliged all electricity utilities to renew their energy
meters to so called “smart meters” which enable two-way communication with the
meter and the utilities. The meters send data at least daily back to the utilities about
consumption for billing and metering purposes. The two-way communication enables
utilities to send out control signals to the meters which can turn off non critical loads
in buildings in cases of severe load imbalance. This is used in larger industries but
not yet on a larger scale in residential housing .
In the future, the load control from the smart meters can be used to charge electrical
vehicles in off peak hours . Tesla, a company that manufactures electrical vehicles and
batteries, will bring to market their “Powerwall” in 2016, which stores energy during low
peak hours or from solar cells during sunny hours, to be used during high peak hours or
at night when solar power isn’t available . The same principle as in the Powerwall could
be used with the batteries in electrical vehicles.
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5. Challenges
There are still many obstacles to overcome before we are able to implement IoT into a
larger scale. Here we will describe some of these obstacles. While these might be some
of the more common technical difficulties that we encounter, there are also economical
difficulties in unproven business models or lack of knowledge to promote these new IoT
applications to customers. This is also made worse by the global financial situation,
which at the moment is not encouraging companies to be pioneering new solutions.
Generally, the investments in public services are shrinking, which prevents the needed
infrastructure to be built. This might be solved by proving the technology in smaller
scale and installing applications that have a very clear return on the investment. Some of
these might include smart parking, smart buildings a so forth, which would exhibit proof
for the need of infrastructure and act as a catalyst.
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6. Privacy and security
With big data comes the problem of storing the data in a secure way. Strong security
measures and privacy policies must be taken to enable the IoT visions. Much of the
value created from IoT applications are under the assumption that security measures
are developed in the same manner as the IoT technology [53]. Historically businesses
and consumers have reacted to security when it is noticed lacking. With the amounts
of data generated by IoT, security breaches might not be detected as easily as with
traditional computer systems, thus increasing the risk of late security measure
adoption. Designers and implementers of this technology must address this issue
from the start. Failure to keep information secure will have a dramatic effect on the
reputation of the companies providing products and services, even more so than the
effects of data breaches today [2].
Another concern is the healthcare market, which could be life threatening under an
attack. Even if the devices themselves wouldn’t be directly hacked, a denial of
services (DoS) attack could prevent a monitoring devices to create an alarm if there
would be any danger to the pati
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7. Conclusions
The confusion among the general public regarding the Internet of Things is significant.
This is due to many companies and manufacturers using their own derivations of the
phrase, like “Internet of Everything”, “Industrial Internet” whichever fits their agenda
and describes their product line the best. Some companies are using IoT as a synonym
for “smart devices”, which further confuses customers. Even though the term IoT have
been around since 1999, companies and the media have not decided on a common phrase
to use, and therefore many different organisations have started collaborations in order to
create a common definition of what the Internet of Things is.
The world of interconnected things that make up the IoT universe, is still beyond
imagination with many wild ideas floating around. The main goal is to enhance our
current way of living or to enable completely new applications. The cross use and
analysis of big data from many different sources and industries help business leaders
make more informed decisions and more accurate predictions of the future. In building
services, more systems will be interconnected and share data in order to have a more
coherent understanding of the state of the premises at any given time, with predictive
maintenance and automatic fault reporting. Buildings will become connected with other
buildings and services, and together create smart cities and societies.
Many companies are working hard on making this dream a reality, and in the process
have their share of the emerging market. One of the biggest prerequisites for IoT
systems is low cost sensors and electronics. This trend with prices going down while
performance rises, has given small companies and hobbyists the means to pursue the
IoT market and create applications that earlier was only possible by large PLC
manufacturers with huge R&D departments.
The lighting and building services industry will also have to adapt to this new
technology. Current lighting control systems, for example DSI, DALI and KNX, will
probably be replaced with IP addressable light sources. The simplicity of a
ubiquitous IP based system far outweighs the benefits any of the current control
systems currently enjoy. There are already some lighting systems on the market that
can be classified as IoT, but since the amount of data from other sources is still
lacking, a true IoT ecosystem is not yet still available.
Currently in building services design, electrical engineering has a clearly defined role
and responsibilities stated in the TATE 12 description list. The current automation
designers are more concentrated on HVAC automation, since this is their primary tasks
in TATE 12. This is about to change since the emergence of IoT will bring automation
design closer to electrical design as more and more electrical (or electrified due to IoT)
devices start sending sensor information and become controllable.
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8. References
[1] Gartner, “Gartner says 4.9 billion connected “things” will be in use in 2015,”
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