Plant Management
kind of information discovery will be huge, IDC forecasts a US$7.1 trillion market by 2020; McKinsey suggest a more ‘reserved’ $6.2 trillion impact by 2025. When you see numbers like this you realise that something rather dramatic is afoot.
So why now? For starters, a number of technical advances have been made that will enable and then drive the IoT movement. Firstly, mobile communication, at least in the developed world, is now plentiful and cheap. New developments in 5g and radio communication standards will only make this even clearer. Mobile operators, tired of giving away thousands of free minutes and text messages, are seeking new business models to boost their balance sheets – IoT is the answer.
Secondly, cheap, distributed and scalable processing means that even a teen enthusiast can command a vast array of processing power (more than many governments would have had access to ten years ago) for little more than the cost of a can of cola.
Finally, low-cost, ‘good enough’ sensors and devices such as the Raspberry Pi are beginning to litter the market, driving both an excited hobbyist community –
rekindling memories of the PC era of the late 1970s and early 1980s – and serious high-tech businesses. Electronic devices are coming off production lines with internet-connected sensors installed as standard. Whether we ask for it or not, things are getting sensored up.
Machine to Machine It is true that some sectors have been exploiting this sort of capability for years – aerospace, mining and Oil & Gas spring to mind (remember hearing about M2M?). The difference now is in the sheer scale and ambition. IoT is not just about technology and interconnections, it’s about life-wide integration to affect much bigger changes.
From smart cities to intelligent transport, it’s about organisational and personal change as much as it is about technology. That also means its impact will be felt far and wide. Smart City designers want to use IoT to exploit city data to better inform citizens and provide a more transparent model of governance. “Yeah, right”, I hear you say, “I’ll just be given more adverts for things I don’t need,” – but this is serious stuff, designed to make your everyday life easier.
Agriculture
Going back to business, a standout IoT- ready area gaining a lot of attention is agriculture. ‘Agritech’ (agriculture and technology) is already seeing clear benefits from early precision agriculture, with GPS-controlled tractors and using satellite imagery and drones to fine-tune farm inputs.
The ‘agritech’ trend is being enabled by IoT technologies
You don’t need to look far to understand the pressures the farming community is under – asked to grow more whilst using less, food security under increasing global demand, restrictions on the use of pesticides, water shortages, uncertainty of politically contentious farm subsidies and rising energy costs (which have a direct impact on pesticides and other farm input). Spurred on
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