The Internet of Things

The next wave of communication occurs between things (electric switches, bulbs, door locks, home appliances, industrial machinery, and other objects) over the mobile Internet for conserving energy and resources and for remote monitoring, control, and management, while making human lives better. The number of such things to be interconnected will be in billions to trillions and would dwarf the existing Internet. This chapter introduces the Internet of Things and its network architecture, protocol stack, and applications. This chapter also describes the need for Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) in realizing the Internet of Things. 8.1 The Internet of Things: The New Internet

8.1.1 Introduction The Internet is the most successful, innovative, and massive network ever created by humans. In the 1990s people started using

the Internet to share information and knowledge using the World Wide Web, which is generally considered the first generation of the Internet. The second generation of the Internet, which is ongoing, is the platform for social networking. It is expected that the next revolution, the third generation of the Internet, would be the interconnection of every possible object on planet Earth, creating a new Internet called the Internet of Things.The Internet of Things is a self-organizing and self-healing object of networks, with the Internet as the major communication medium for exchanging information between machines, between machines and people, and between people and machines.The application of the Internet of Things includes various remote monitoring and control applications, including but not limited to connected homes (smart homes), smart grids, environmental monitoring, building management, infrastructure management, industrial automation, fleet management, asset tracking, agriculture applications, aerospace, and network warfare applications. The Internet of Things exhibits four trends that pose challenges but are required for greater benefit. These are: (i) Scale: The number of nodes (devices/objects/sensors) connecting to the Internet is increasing and would grow from billions to trillions. (ii) Heterogeneity: The types of nodes, types of connectivity, and various types of information and applications are growing in number and pose a greater challenge in terms of interoperability. (iii) Horizontalization: The nodes in the Internet of Things may be participating in multiple applications and not tied to a particular service. This makes the Internet of Things a platform and provides a greater opportunity to develop a variety of applications. (iv) Mobility: The objects are being more and more wirelessly connected. And some of these nodes may be attached to be carried by mobile entities.IPv6 [3-7], the next-generation protocol for the Internet and the successor to Internet protocol version 4 (IPv4) [8], can address these trends by providing uniform connectivity to the mobile Internet for trillions of devices and objects of various

types. The other technologies that would help in realizing the costeffective solutions are low-range, low-rate wireless technologies (e.g., Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802. 15.4 [1]), radio frequency identification (RFID), sensors, mobile devices (mobile phones, tablets, etc.), and real-time web. 8.1.2 Social Impact The scope of the Internet of Things’ applications is expected to bring a paradigm shift in today’s society by improving the quality of human lives. For example, the Internet of Things can be used for the following: • Monitoring of vital signs of patients and aging people either at home or in hospitals using wireless sensors provides improved monitoring accuracy whilst also being more convenient for patients. • Deforestation can be reduced by equipping trees with sensors, which can provide real-time information to local authorities. • Connected vehicles will help reduce traffic congestion and improve their recyclability, thus reducing their carbon footprint. The Internet of Things is expected to amplify the profound effects that large-scale networked communications are having on our society, gradually resulting in a genuine paradigm shift. The Internet of Things can also help improve citizens’ quality of life, delivering new and better jobs for workers, business opportunities, and growth for the industry. 8.2 Characteristics of the Internet of Things The Internet of Things typically consists of interconnected low-power wireless personal area networks (LoWPANs) over the Internet. However, there can be many other physical media, for example, Ethernet, powerline communication (PLC), IEEE 802.11, cellular services (second-generation (2G)/third-generation (3G)/long-term evolution (LTE)), and worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX), that may be used for machines to communicate. This chapter focuses on wireless technologies (especially IEEE 802.15.4) as the medium for the information transfer between nodes.