Jump on board the Internet of Things (IoT)

Objects around you are increasingly being embedded with a myriad of sensors and actuators - from your roadway, to your body, to industrial processes. Kevin Ashton (from Proctor & Gamble) used the term ‘internet of things’ to refer to everyday objects autonomously communicating with each other.

There are incredible opportunities opening up in engineering and industry to apply these technologies and data to your work. When formerly inanimate objects can sense the environment and communicate, they become tools for discerning what is happening in remote environments and making decisions on the data.

You are already probably aware of the tiny microcameras that you can swallow to view your gut to pick up sources of illness. Or cars that brake automatically when detecting an object ahead.

The IoT will undoubtedly impact your life in the next decade - no matter whether you are a plumber, plant operator, R&D scientist or CEO of a blue-chip company. And today, the Internet of Things has finally come into its own. Technology costs have been steadily falling and the field is now enjoying wide support from the business community.

Recent research has identified a number of key features of the growth of the IoT. Firstly, most organisations are well aware of the IoT, but investment is still slow, and new skills are required to unlock the full potential. In addition, cooperation between companies (including competing companies) is required to make it work, but consumers will soon be swamped with IoT products and services (even though many will not know it). The result will be that everyone from businesses to consumers will be overwhelmed with data from the IoT.

According to McKinsey there are six types of applications that suit the IoT: behaviour tracking; situational awareness; mass data gathering for decision making; process optimisation; smart metering and the smart grid; and complex autonomous systems.

Sensors can track usage of equipment ranging from cars to the level of thrust of a jet engine to products moving through supply chains (using RFID). This behaviour-tracking data is then relayed back to make decisions on such things as fees to charge for usage of a jet engine, or instructions to adjust shipments of goods. Data from sensors can indicate soil moisture, ocean currents, weather, rain, traffic intensity or intruders in a particular zone.

Masses of sensors can also gather data - for example for oil and gas, or mining exploration (to locate high-grade deposits) - and feed this back for mapping, analysis, and decision making.

As for process optimisation, we have been monitoring data from instrumentation for years, but the lowering cost and smaller size makes for even better process control and optimisation of flow, level, temperature and pressure - and more effective ways of processing previously inaccessible or slow-changing data. Smart meters are also increasingly being used to provide details of energy usage and real-time costs to consumers and power companies.

Application of sensors and actuators to the car industry means that we are now seeing complex automation systems in which automatic braking is now available - and eventually self-driving cars, perhaps allowing us to cut down on the million deaths per year due to car accidents.

These technologies are not pie in the sky - they are being rolled out today. See if you can apply them in your next project.

*Steve Mackay, PhD CPEng, has worked mainly in the industrial automation and data communications fields across the world for the past 30 years and is currently technical director with worldwide engineering education business IDC Technologies (www.idc-online.com). He has also published over 30 engineering books, as both editor and co-author.