Internet of Things


The Hardest Mile


The most difficult part of connecting to the IoT is often the “last mile” from the local Internet connection to the points where equipment or sys- tems reside in a facility. Connecting these “things” means both bringing existing sensors online and pro- curing, configuring, and connecting new sensors.


Surprisingly, the best path may


not be enabling Internet connec- tivity throughout. Less expensive methods can often accomplish the same thing without the complexity of adding hundreds or thousands of new IP addresses.


Radio frequency (RF)-based mesh networks combined with powerful IoT gateways offer an inexpen- sive alternative. For both new and existing operations, wireless mesh sensor networks provide the proper scalability,


redundancy, and ease


of deployment. Without wires to install, these networks can be oper- ational in just hours. Connected to the cloud with an IoT gateway, the network supplies all the technology necessary for data collection and cloud communications.


Figure 1. Temperature Mesh Router Pressure Vibration Humidity Current Level Temperature Flow Power


Contact Closure


Network or Internet


Wireless Sensors Gateway


wireless sensors


Mesh Router


Mesh Router Smart Sensor


The Wireless Sensors solution is a self-configuring and self-healing wireless mesh network employing Intel®


processor-based IoT gateways.


When to Use Mesh To better understand wireless mesh network advantages, consider the alternative. Most wireless IP networks use a star topology in which all nodes communicate directly with the network through devices like IoT gate- ways. If end-to-end transmission times are critical, these direct communication paths provide it. However, star topologies often lack fault tolerance, so this advantage comes at a cost. Network expansion across large build- ings or outdoor areas is also more difficult.


For applications that can tolerate some latency, mesh topologies provide a convenient solution. In this topology, data is forwarded from node to node until the intended final destination is reached. If individual transmis- sion segments are temporarily unavailable, data is automatically re-routed on an alter- nate path. This ability to self-recover from single points of failure considerably increases overall reliability.


56 | 2016 | 13th Edition | Embedded Innovator


SensiNet Architecture Bridge


Mesh Router Smart Sensor


USB


Cellular Cloud


Ethernet Backbone WiFi


Smart Sensor I/O Types Temperature Humidity


Contact Closures 4-20 mA 0-10 Vdc


Differential Pressure RS-485 Serial (Modbus) Control Outputs (contacts)


Figure 2.


Wireless Sensors' implementation of SensiNet* delivers the low latency of the star topology while maintaining the flexibility and resilience of traditional mesh networking.


| intel.com/embedded-innovator


Primary Path


Secondary Path


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