IOT SUPPLEMENT FEATURE THE RISE OF THE IOT ENABLED MACHINES
Greg Fyke, IoT Strategy Director at Silicon Labs considers how the Internet of Things is more than the sum of its parts and the route to full, cross industry, M2M implementation
T
wenty years ago, technology forecaster George Gilder brought to public
attention a fundamental idea behind the growth of the Internet. It was formulated by Ethernet co-inventor Bob Metcalfe at the start of the 1980s. Metcalfe argued that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of devices interconnected within it (see Figure 1). In the next phase of development, the
Internet is set to do much more. Industry leaders predict that the number of Internet-connected devices will surpass 15 billion nodes by 2015 and reach over 50 billion by 2020. This new phase is rapidly giving rise to the Internet of Things (IoT). Most of the connected devices will not be traditional PCs, servers or even smartphones but much smaller, cheaper, single-function embedded devices. Metcalfe’s Law will allow them to deliver far more value than would be possible if these devices were not connected to the Internet.
INTEROPERABILITY THROUGH STANDARD PROTOCOLS For the IoT to work, all devices must be able to connect seamlessly and interact without human intervention. The key to this device interoperability is through open standards, enabling a wide range of devices to communicate with each other. The capability of device-to-device communications enhances the value of the network as predicted by Metcalfe’s Law. Once the network infrastructure has been
created, more information and intelligence can be obtained at negligible incremental cost. To achieve this level of sophistication, software needs to abstract specific hardware details by providing a common application layer that can be shared between devices and applications. By giving connected devices a common language that enables them to communicate autonomously, the underlying technology used to transport data becomes irrelevant, freeing the developer to focus on building IoT applications. There is no one wireless or wireline
technology that can efficiently serve all application needs across an entire network. To develop cost-effective IoT products, engineers need to be able to select the optimal communications channel and protocol for their application. As a result, the IoT will be based on a variety of protocols. For devices to be able to reach
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out across the Internet, they will also need to support IP somewhere along the communications channel. Connected devices must be able to use protocols that are lightweight and have data rates that reflect their requirements. Devices that connect to the IoT through a centralised controller can employ proprietary standards given that their data is aggregated and converted to a standard format before being passed onto the Internet via a gateway device.
Figure 1:
The value of a network is equal to the square of the number of devices connected to it
Figure 2:
Home area networks often contain numerous connected devices
that they leverage usage patterns that the system has already learned. Scalability is an important factor as well. Bluetooth, for example, is limited to just seven devices on a network and Wi-Fi to 32. Networks based on Silicon Labs’ EmberZNet Pro ZigBee stack provide self-configuring and self- healing mesh connectivity that can be extended to interconnect hundreds or potentially thousands of devices on a single network. Software plays a critical role in enabling the features and capabilities required by IoT applications. Developers can implement advanced functionality through software. For example, while it is useful to be able to turn on an LED light remotely, it is even more useful when an LED lighting system can alert a user that the bulb needs replacing. Software extends the range of autonomous control to further improve efficiency and convenience. Consider that with an intelligent wireless sensor network, a smart home could determine when no one is home and power down all electronic devices. The result of this simple change of operation, multiplied over hundreds of millions of households, is a considerable saving in energy. To help engineers bring their IoT
applications to market faster, semiconductor suppliers must provide a wide range of production software including drivers, applications profiles and production-quality communications stacks such as Silicon Labs’ EmberZNET PRO protocol stack, which provides a ZigBee- compliant solution for the IoT. As it expands, the IoT will be to open new
Employing a mesh topology is ideal for
many IoT applications. A Wi-Fi router may not be able to provide whole-house coverage. But the ZigBee protocol supports mesh topologies that allow nodes far from a network gateway to be reached indirectly through peer devices used as stepping stones. In addition, meshes can automatically configure new devices so
Figure 3:
In the next few years, the IoT will connect tens of millions of devices across numerous industries using the ZigBee protocol
markets and drive new applications and opportunities for OEMs and application developers across all industries. The IoT has become a tangible reality with commercially successful deployments in several markets, including connected home and green energy applications. The fundamental technologies, products, software and tools necessary to create efficient, ultra-low-power connected devices for the last inch are available today. The next step in the build-out of the IoT is to bring these elements together and deliver on the promise of Metcalfe’s Law.
Silicon Labs
www.silabs.com +1 512 416 8500
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