The Implementation of IoT in the Automotive Industry

7

October

2022

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Despite the increase in popularity of the Internet of Things, its definition is still loose. Stoltzfus (2020) defines the Internet of Things, hereinafter referred to as IoT, as “a computing concept that describes the idea of everyday physical objects being connected to the Internet and being able to identify themselves to other devices and send and receive data”. The particularity of the IoT is that it allows almost any object to be connected to and transmit data to other devices. Here is a typical IoT example: based on the morning alarm set on your phone, your smart curtains could open automatically to help you wake up and your connected coffee machine could start brewing you a hot coffee by itself as soon as you get out of bed.

This technology can be implemented in virtually any sector, and the automotive sector is no exception to this. Over the past years, the IoT has allowed cars to become part of a network of interconnected vehicles that communicate with each other and with the external world. Mobile apps such as the My BMW app already allow drivers to remotely check the status of their vehicle, pre-climatise their vehicle in advance based on their calendar, and even locate their vehicle when unsure about its parking location (BMW, n.d.). In addition to the great technological progress that has been made in the past decades in the car industry, the IoT still has much more exciting features to offer to this sector.

As for every technology, the IoT also comes with a set of concerns that should be taken seriously since they are directly related to drivers’ safety. Equipping cars with technology that connects them to the IoT means that they become subject to the same dangers as other connected devices (Kirk, 2015). Similar to computers or mobile phones, cars now become hackable, but with consequences that are far more dangerous. An autonomous car could for example be controlled by a hacker that could voluntarily make it collide with other vehicles. Additionally, equipping cars with more technology also means creating more sources of distraction for drivers, which is a major concern as well.

References:

BMW. (n.d.). Connect your life with the My BMW App. Retrieved 07/10/2022 from https://www.bmw.com/en/automotive-life/connected-life-with-the-my-bmw-app.html

Kirk, R. (2015). Cars of the future: the Internet of Things in the automotive industry. Network Security, 2015(9), 16-18. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/S1353-4858(15)30081-7

Stoltzfus, J. (2020). Internet of Things (IoT). Retrieved 07/10/2022 from https://www.techopedia.com/definition/28247/internet-of-things-iot

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Smart Poles, Smart Cities

9

October

2021

5/5 (2)

Internet of things, smart cities. All these futuristic concepts that we read about in books and articles are still vague concepts for most of us. While we understand what the technology will eventually enable us to do, we miss the finer details about how exactly such technology will come about. The answer is quite simple, well sort of.

Explain the technology

Signify, a Philips spinoff company focused on lighting, has been the market leader in producing LED lights for the past few years. Recently they launched BrightSites, a new smart lighting pole that has the capabilities to integrate IoT applications, cameras, environmental sensors, connectivity, and of course, provide energy-efficient LED lights. The light poles also serve as alarm systems that can detect unusual activity by monitoring noise, air quality and more.

What’s more interesting, is how these smart poles can become a source of income for municipalities. BrightSites poles come with display screens which can be used as advertising space to fund the maintenance of such projects.

About the progress: Signify

Their current cooperation with New York allows them to install smart light posts across the city. By 2025 they aim to install 500,000 posts and are currently already halfway there. This project is intended to build the foundations for the future of smart cities.  New York municipalities are piloting a program to create smart cities with smart streetlights that will lower emissions, cut energy usage and at the same time create a foundation for other smart city endeavors. Such projects are being piloted across multiples cities across the world but what is the potential impact?

What it will enable us to do

From a community perspective, the conversion of existing light poles into LEDs, provides a better infrastructure for all communities in the municipalities, reduces the use of energy, the negative impact on the environment, and saving money for the taxpayers. For the citizens, it ensures quality of infrastructure in all neighborhoods and extra safety.

Next steps

Smart light poles could be the solution that brings together the foundations of futuristic smart cities. Think about it, the basic infrastructure in regular light poles is already in place. With few adaptions, these light poles can provide even greater value. Smart lighting utilizes existing infrastructure and converts it into technologically advanced structures that can potentially integrate various other devices to provide you a better experience. Want to charge your electric vehicle? Smart pole got you covered. In need to wifi to call a cab? Smart pole has that too. Potential storm brewing up? The smart poles will be the first to warn you to find shelter.

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Smart Farming: How the Internet of Things transform the Agriculture Industry.

26

September

2020

5/5 (2) With the rising population growth, which is expected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050, there is increasingly more pressure on the agriculture industry in order to meet this rising demand (UN, 2019). In addition, environmental challenges, such as unfavorable weather conditions and climate change, only complicate this further. To meet this demand, the agriculture industry is moving towards the use of the Internet of Things (IoT). Agriculture applications of IoT allow the industry to increase operational efficiency, decrease costs, reduce waste as well as improve the quality of their yield (Ravindra, 2020).

With smart farming, real-time data of farming procedures is gathered, processed, and analyzed, to allow large farm owners to be able to make more informed decisions (Kamilaris et al., 2016). With the use of IoT, players in the agriculture industry can monitor their equipment, crops, and livestock. Moreover, the data obtained from sensors placed in the field, allows them to run statistical predictions for their crops and livestock (Meola, 2020). A few IoT-enabled applications in smart farming, such as Precision Farming, Livestock Farming, and Smart Greenhouses will be discussed below.

Precision Farming

Precision farming is an umbrella notion for IoT-based techniques to make farming more controlled and accurate. Such IoT-based techniques make use of items, such as sensors, control systems, robotics, autonomous vehicles, automated hardware, and so on (Sciforce, 2019). Large farm owners can use crop management devices which should be placed in the field to collect data specific for crops. These devices gather information ranging from temperatures to leaf water potential, to overall crop health. By having this visibility at the crop-level, large farm owners are able to effectively prevent any diseases that can harm their yield. Thus, precision farming allows large farm owners to make decisions per square meter or per plant, as opposed to traditional farming where decisions are made at field-level (Sciforce, 2019). Furthermore, with precision farming, large farm owners reduce their environmental footprint as it allows for more efficient irrigation and more precise use of fertilizers and pesticides for crops (Kamilaris et al., 2016).

Livestock Farming

With the use of wireless IoT applications, large farm owners can collect data and monitor the location, well-being, and health of their livestock. With the information collected from the sensors attached to the animals, large farm owners can identify sick cattle. These sick cattle can be separated from the herd, thereby preventing the spread of the disease (Sciforce, 2019). This would save farm owners significant medical costs which they would have occurred had the disease spread to the rest of the herd. Additionally, it reduces labor costs as ranchers can locate their cattle more easily with the help of IoT-based sensors (Ravindra, 2020).

Smart Greenhouses   

Greenhouse farming is a practice of growing crops, vegetables, fruits, etc. in a controlled environment to provide favorable growing conditions and protect the crops, vegetables, fruits, etc. from unfavorable weather and various pests (Hajdu, 2020). Smart greenhouses are designed with the use of IoT so that it intelligently monitors and controls the climate, based on the requirements of the growing crops. Specifically, the IoT sensors in the greenhouse provide information on the light levels, air pressure, humidity, and temperature. These sensors can control the machines to open a window, turn on lights, control a heater, and so on. In addition, with the creation of a cloud server, farm owners can remotely access the system and control the temperatures within the greenhouse. This eliminates the costs of constant manual monitoring as well as optimizing the growth conditions of the crops (Ravindra, 2020).

Smart farming and IoT-driven agriculture have laid the foundations for the Green revolution. The Green revolution is expected to transform the agriculture industry by relying on combinations of new technologies such as IoT, sensors, geo-positioning systems, Big Data, agricultural drones, robotics, and so on. Pesticides and fertilizer use are expected to be minimized while overall efficiency will be maximized. Also, IoT enables better traceability of food, which in turn will lead to increased food safety. Moreover, these technologies help the environment through, for example, more efficient use of water (Sciforce, 2019). Therefore, smart farming is expected to transform the agriculture environment and deliver a more productive and sustainable agricultural production so that by 2050, all 9.6 billion people can be fed in a sustainable way.

 

Bibliography

Hadju, I., 2020. Greenhouse Farming Exceeds Weather Limitations. [online] Agrivi Blog. Available at: <https://blog.agrivi.com/post/greenhouse-farming-exceeds-weather-limitations> [Accessed 26 September 2020].

Kamilaris, A., Gao, F., Prenafeta-Boldu, X. and Ali, M.I. Agri-IoT: A semantic framework for Internet of Things-enabled smart farming applications. [online] 2016 IEEE 3rd World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT). Available at: doi: <10.1109/WF-IoT.2016.7845467> [Accessed 24 September 2020].

Meola, A., 2020. Smart Farming In 2020: How Iot Sensors Are Creating A More Efficient Precision Agriculture Industry. [online] Business Insider. Available at: <https://www.businessinsider.com/smart-farming-iot-agriculture?international=true&r=US&IR=T> [Accessed 24 September 2020].

Ravindra, S., 2020. Iot Applications In Agriculture. [online] IoT For All. Available at: <https://www.iotforall.com/iot-applications-in-agriculture> [Accessed 24 September 2020].

Sciforce. 2019. Smart Farming, Or The Future Of Agriculture. [online] Available at: <https://medium.com/sciforce/smart-farming-or-the-future-of-agriculture-359f0089df69> [Accessed 24 September 2020].

United Nations. 2020. Growing At A Slower Pace, World Population Is Expected To Reach 9.7 Billion In 2050 And Could Peak At Nearly 11 Billion Around 2100 | UN DESA | United Nations Department Of Economic And Social Affairs. [online] Available at: <https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2019.html> [Accessed 24 September 2020].

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Using AI to Build Smart Cities

6

October

2019

No ratings yet. According to data presented by the UN it is estimated that the world population will grow to approx. 9.7 billion people by 2050. We are also seeing an increasing movement towards cities and it is estimated that almost 70% of the population will be living in urban areas (Medium, 2019). The cities must, therefore, be able to host a large number of inhabitants and additional amounts of commuters. The cities need to be able to provide energy and resources to all these people, whilst also removing waste and wastewater. Traffic is another issue. Furthermore, it is anticipated that these cities, many of which will house 10 million people, will consist of mixed nationalities, cultures, and backgrounds (Medium, 2019). Administration and management are therefore also focus-areas to create peaceful, prospering cities.

Many of these problems can be tackled using AI. This blog post will present some ideas discussed by Medium (2019) that might help battle the challenges presented by the large crowds of future cities.

Smart Traffic Management: Smart traffic solutions can be used to control the traffic flow and, consequently, avoid congestion. This can consist of road-surface sensors and cameras that will collect data in real-time, and a data system that is analyzing this data and offering recommendations to commuters to limit congestion issues.

Smart Parking: Again, road sensors will collect data and further notify the users of available parking spots nearby. Imagine finding a parking spot on your app and reserving it before you leave for your destination instead of aimlessly searching around the city for a parking spot for hours – wasting time and releasing emissions for every minute.

Smart Waste Management: Waste collection and disposal is an increasingly difficult challenge for the cities. Not only are they faced with more trash, but there is also an increasing public concern about proper disposal and recycling as the majority of people get more aware of climate issues. An example of a city in the foreground of smart waste management is Barcelona, where sensors are fitted on the trash bins which notifies the collection trucks when they are being filled. AI can also be used to design smarter routes for trash collection, or even automate the process with the use of robots.

Smart Policing: This is a rather controversial topic, where cities could use data-driven strategies to predict and catch criminal actions. This has already been implemented in Singapore, where a network of cameras and sensors monitors and notifies the authorities if criminal actions are happening. This might be difficult to implement in certain cities, as many populations are more skeptical towards surveillance and has a larger focus on privacy. The idea is still interesting, though.

As most people will find themselves living in cities in the future, the authorities of the cities will be extremely important in the development of our future world. The politics in the cities might in many cases be more significant than the politics countrywide. Cities should cooperate and share their smart solutions with other cities and create a positive loop which will contribute to creating a better world for humans and the planet.

Could you think of other smart initiatives that can help cities be more sustainable and liveable?

 

 

 

References:

Medium. (2019). Artificial Intelligence for Smart Cities. [online] Available at: https://becominghuman.ai/artificial-intelligence-for-smart-cities-64e6774808f8 [Accessed 6 Oct. 2019].

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Albert Heijn, the Dutch Amazon Go?

24

September

2018

No ratings yet. Today, 24th of September 2018, Albert Heijn, the largest supermarket chain in The Netherlands, enabled cashier- and cash free shopping in two of their stores. With a ‘tap-to-go’ card or Android app their customers can scan the barcodes of the products they would like to buy. After 10 minutes the purchased amount will be withdrawn automatically from their linked bank account. This means the customer doesn’t need to wait in line for a cashier or spend time paying at a self-scan machine, thus will spend less time in the store.

This concept makes all of us think about the Amazon Go concept, but the technique Amazon uses is completely different compared to Albert Heijn’s solution. Amazon Go uses cameras with computer vision to scan which items has been taken from the shelf by which customer. The computer vision system is trained with deep learning technology, which enables the cameras to recognize the distinguishable patterns in products and people. Interestingly enough, the cameras also see when a customer puts a product back on the shelves, whilst not using facial recognition. When I first read about Amazon Go a few years ago, I thought that this futuristic idea would disrupt the retail industry and their industry leaders. Fortunately, I am proud to see that ‘our own’ Albert Heijn responded on time with a different technology, whilst still reaching the goal of consumer convenience.

Now, as a Business Information Management student, it is interesting to see what opportunities come with this way of cashier- and cash free shopping. I will start with the following possibility: if customers scan their products while standing before a shelf, the retailer could better understand customer in-store behaviour and monitor consumer traffic. This enables retailers to not only offer personalized discounts or promotions based on product preference, but even based on in-store behaviour. In the future, they could offer an extra discount for a product you just put back on the shelf or use in-store promotion screens who recognize your tap-to-go card and adjust their promotion to your preferences and the shelf you are standing at.

I am sure that Amazon and Albert Heijn didn’t use the only technologies who could enable cashier-and cash free shopping. Also, I believe that there are way more possibilities enabled by cashier-and cash free shopping. Let me know in the comments which technologies and opportunities you would relate to cashier-and cash free shopping!

Sources:

https://nos.nl/artikel/2251836-zonder-af-te-rekenen-de-supermarkt-uit-ah-begint-met-kassaloos-winkelen.html

https://dzone.com/articles/impact-of-big-data-analytics-in-retail-industry-te

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/in/Documents/CIP/in-cip-disruptions-in-retail-noexp.pdf

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/amazon-go-seattle-uk-store-how-does-work

https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-go-heres-a-look-at-the-impact-on-human-jobs-retail-innovation-amazons-bottom-line/

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Let IoT be the guardian angel

14

September

2018

No ratings yet. Living away from your family feels nice and free, but let’s be honest, as we grow up, we start to think, or worry about the elderly in the family. “How are they doing today?”,” Have they took the pills today?”, “Grandpa has been living alone for 5 years…”. “Did my grandma turnoff the gas?…” You can’t sleep.

From a macro view, the whole world is getting old: The UK will see a massive 23% increase in those aged 65+ between 2010 and 2018. By 2035, numbers of people aged 65+ will rise by just under 7 million – from 11 to 16.9 million. By 2050 the number of senior citizens in China will reach the peak at 400 million, which is 34.9% of total population, whereas Japan has already reached 32% in 2013.

The aging of population comes with large population base, rapid growth, high average age, disability and empty nest effect, while the demand for life, rehabilitation, medical care and spiritual service of the elderly has become increasingly prominent. The Internet of Things (IoT) is helping society facilitate the challenge.

IoT smart home devices/systems are taking care of elderly from 3 different aspects: precaution/reminding, rescue and comfort.

IBM has introduced cognitive and IoT technology to home field, through the deployment of a variety of sensors to the elderly home environment, the system can track user daily activities and body performance data and therefore build the “scene”. With the enrichment of personal data, the system will be able to build customized modes and timetables. The function of reminding or precaution can be reflected in very detailed aspects, for example, the self-learning stove alarm learns an individual’s cooking habits within a specific house by picking up data. Falling asleep when – or simply forgetting that – the stove is left on is incredibly dangerous, and this small device aims to send alerts before toxic gases are released/before a fire starts without being a hindrance. Also, Philips HUE motion sensor can detect footsteps in the dark and light up the smart lights in the hallway, therefore making the journey to the toilet easier.

sensors-17-01182-g001 (1)

 

Even if misfortunes happen, the smart devices(motion sensor) and warble devices, such as the latest Apple Watch,will sense and report the incident, whether it is because of fall down or drop of stroke, the initial symptom will be reported to both guardians and emergency center at the first place.

The IoT caring system will bring people multiple surprises, in addition to real-time health care, it can take care of the spiritual needs of the elderly. When the elderly have communication needs, the smart device will list the background information of the elderly in the corresponding database, including interests, hobbies, habits, personality or recommend interesting places, nice TV programs or rich community activities. Most importantly, your video/voice memo will be delivered.

In the future, development of both digital technology and health care will tip the scale toward precaution/reminding, as we will do our best to prevent any incident. And, most importantly, we make money and take care of our family.

 

 

 

Related articles:

https://www.ibm.com/blogs/internet-of-things/elderly-independent-smart-home/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/reenitadas/2017/05/22/10-ways-internet-of-medical-things-is-revolutionizing-senior-care/#3fd704fb5c8f

https://www.aplaceformom.com/blog/the-internet-of-things-iot-intends-to-transform-senior-care/

https://www.qorvo.com/design-hub/blog/smart-homes-for-seniors-how-iot-helps-aging-parents/

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The Era of the Living Services

14

October

2017

No ratings yet. What is the impact of digitalisation in our everyday life and in the way of doing business?

According to Mark Curtis, Fjord’s Chief Client Officer, we are approaching the “Living service” era or more commonly called “The internet of Things”. What he says in his video it that this new way of living will have a huge impact not only in the way people carry out everyday tasks, but also in the strategies companies will need to adopt. In particular, he identifies this era as a combination of the digitalization of everything and the liquid expectation. Nowadays, even physical objects are becoming digital; lets’ think about automatic doors and curtains in hotels. However, the most relevant factor concerns how this digitalization is affecting customers’ experiences across industry barriers (that’s why Curtis uses the word liquid). So far literatures have been focusing on competition within industries. For Instance, Porter has dedicated his studies in identifying the dynamics of competitive intensity and attractiveness of a specific industry. But what about now? Can we still rely just on those?

What Curtis underlines is the fact that a customer who lived a great experience tends to have such high expectation even when experiencing other services. If I take UBER and I enjoy the online payment, in order to keep my satisfaction high, I will expect that any other service will allow me to do that; if it doesn’t happen it will result in disappointment and low level of satisfaction. Thus, in order to make this possible, firms need to observe what digital experiences other companies are offering inside and outside its industry.

Moreover, an other characteristic of “Living services” is that they aren’t designed for mass consumption but around individual needs. For this reason, any company should be always able to tailor, respond and adapt to changes. It is no more about meeting customers’ needs, but designing a product that also include emotional and physiological concerns of each different user.

An example is the new product launched by Google, Google Home. It is not just a speaker through what you can listen to music, it is a sort of personal assistant. Whenever you need an information about a location, an event or whenever you want to know what will be your appointments of tomorrow, you can say: “Hey google”, and it will immediately answer to all your questions. What makes this product customized to users is the fact that it uses the data it collected from previous requests to tailor other services (and probably Ads.) and thus to give them a unique experience.

Thus, would this really revolutionise the concept of competition? Moreover, don’t you think that we are paying these unique experiences at high price? What about all our personal data we are involuntary providing?

 

 

References:

M. Curtis (2015), An Introduction to Living Services. [Online]. Available at: https://youtu.be/DP9RUdoEhtI

G. Clauser  and B. Butterwoerth (2017), Is the Google Home the Voice-Controlled Speaker for you?. [Online]. Available at:https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/google-home-voice-controlled-speaker/

 

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Technology of the Week – How IOT disrupts Agriculture

22

September

2017

No ratings yet. Hi there!

Having a nice day? Did you have some nice meals? You probably have, as we students love to eat! However, did you know that we need to produce 70% more food by 2050 than we had to produce in 2006. Seems impossible!

Luckily, we’re living in a time of technological advancements. Internet of Things is about sensors in all things that surrounds us. These sensors transmit data back to a common IOT platform and this platform uses common language and advanced analytics to provide you, or your products with valuable information (IBM Think Academy, 2015). What does this have to do with food? Well, you’re about to find out.

IOT is disrupting the agriculture industry, this sounds like a bad thing, but it’s actually very good for us, as hungry students. IOT is making the industry a lot more efficient and has created a whole new industry segment: precision farming!

Precision farming is about managing variations in the field accurately to grow more food using fewer resources and reducing production costs whilst respecting the environment. And this is done by applying Internet of Things.

We used the theory of newly-vulnerable markets to assess the market disruption and found that all three conditions apply: the industry is newly easy to enter because of lower technology costs, it’s attractive to attack as there is a lot of money to make as we need more food in the future, and it’s hard to defend as incumbents are very old-fashion and don’t look further than current strategies.

One interesting example of the use of Internet of Things in agriculture is drones. A drone is an unmanned aircraft or machine, that is also known as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or automated robot (IoT Agenda, 2017). The cost of production for drones continues to fall drastically, which means that the adoption of drone usage by people and companies is rapidly increasing.

There are many ways drones can increase efficiency in agriculture. They can perform a soil and field analysis. when the field is analyzed, the drones can also do the planting instead of the farmer, which is way faster (MIT Technology Review, 2016). Furthermore, drones can monitor the crop and do a health assessment to increase the efficiency.

By drones taking over these task, the farmer is enabled to make optimal use of resources, increase the profitability and sustainability of production, and reduce environmental impact.

But what will the future of agriculture look like? As you’ve seen, after the implementations of the drone, the farmer is now still actively involved in the whole farming process. We predict that, in the future, drones will operate autonomously. Currently, drones can take-off and land, determine flying patterns and determine flying height autonomously. In the future we predict that drones will become an “unsupervised learning system”. The profession of farming, as we know it now, could possibly disappear. A farmer will need to become more like a system manager than an agriculture know-it-all.  

 

Group 14

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Is the internet of things destroying the internet?

23

October

2016

No ratings yet. With the rise of the internet of things, the internet and its advantages as well as dangers have become much more integrated with our devices. This also creates an opportunity for hackers to launch cyberattacks targeted to those connected devices. Due to the inherent properties of software, the internet of things can never be 100% secure.

Lately a botnet has been created out of a large array of cameras and other devices that fit into the internet of things. This so-called Mirai botnet consist of more than half a million nodes. The targets of this botnet and the consequences are not small with recently reported DDoS attacks to Dyn’s Domain Name System management services (DNS) infrastructure, resulting in outages of websites such as Twitter, Spotify and Reddit. It is estimated that just around 10% of the nodes of the botnet were used for this attack.

Examples of Internet of Things devices that are used in this Mirai botnet are for example security cameras. Ironically, many of those cameras cannot be easily updated to increase their data security. The amount of devices that can be used for such a bonnet is ever increasing. As it is impossible to control for the security of all software that is put on internet of things devices, the problem is only likely to become worse.

After a hacker put the source code to this botnet online on a hacking forum, more DDoS attacks were predicted by CERT, the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team. Given that the source code was published before the outages of e.g. Spotify and Twitter, this is also what happened.

What do you think about the future of this development? If software (or accompanying hardware) can never be 100% secure and the amount of connect devices increases how secure is the future even? Apart from DDoS attacks, how about all the internet connected sensors of these connected devices and its effect of the inherent properties of software on security and privacy? Let me know what you think!

 

https://motherboard.vice.com/tag/The+Internet+of+Hackable+Things

https://motherboard.vice.com/read/criminal-hackers-have-launched-a-turf-war-over-the-internet-of-shit

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/internet-of-things-malware-mirai-ddos

https://motherboard.vice.com/read/twitter-reddit-spotify-were-collateral-damage-in-major-internet-attack

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Assen: A living Internet of Things laboratory

14

October

2016

5/5 (1) One of the most promising and important developments for companies is the Internet of Things. Generally speaking, the Internet of Things refers to the networked interconnection of everyday objects, which are often equipped with ubiquitous intelligence (Xia et al, 2012). Companies are starting to explore the possibilities this development brings along. It is the next big thing and experts predict that companies who will not follow, will be left behind. This is because the Internet of Things will increase the ubiquity of the Internet by integrating every object for interaction via embedded systems, which leads to a highly distributed network of devices communicating with human beings as well as other devices (Xia et al, 2012). In this manner, the amount of information companies can acquire will tremendously increase, resulting in better decisions, services and products, as well as new business models.

What not many people know, is that there is a city in the Netherlands with a huge sensor network. This city is Assen, the capital of the province Drenthe. The project group named Sensor City Assen states that the purpose of Sensor City Assen is “the realization and in-position posture of a metering network in rollers for various applications”. To be able to measure in all sorts of different environments, it is necessary to have a large network of connection points for sensors, which are distributed regularly throughout the area. At the beginning, the goal was to improve traffic flow and environment in the city centre and surrounding region. The project group did this by developing real-time intelligent traffic management systems making use of different sensing sources of real-time traffic data. For this purpose, a real-time traffic estimation and prediction model will be developed and deployed (Friso, Zantema & Mein, 2013).

After this project had been proven very useful, it is now used for many other researches and tests. Companies and organizations can use the sensor network to acquire information and test their applications. The sensor network in Assen is an unique “living laboratory” and can be very valuable for companies and organizations. Nevertheless, the name recognition and attention it gets is little. Maybe sharing this project with my fellow students, who are seen as the “the leaders and forerunners of tomorrow”, will change this.

The project group has made a video, in which they explain  Sensor City Assen. This video is definitely worth watching!

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Friso, K. Zantema, K. & Mein, E. 2013. Online Traffic Modelling in Assen: The Sensor City. Conference Paper, December 2013.

Xia, F. Yang, LT. Wang, L. & Vinel, A. 2012. Editorial Internet of Things. International Journal of Communication Systems. 25:1101–1102

Sensor City Assen: http://www.sensorcity.nl/

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