Separating the data from the application in the IoT

In this TED Talk Arlen Nipper gives us his interesting vision on the internet of things. He thinks the internet of things hasn’t really taken off yet. He says that all technologies are here to really make the internet of things happen, but that the mindset of how to apply these technologies is still prohibiting the real expansion of the internet of things. Something needs to happen to have a real internet of things and not just some connections between some own devices and/or own applications. The ‘things’ in the internet of things are embedded computers. To go from embedded systems who work independent to an internet of things all embeded systems need to be able to comunicate with each other. The thing that is still missing in his opinion is one protocol that all embedded devices can understand. Like http is for the internet of people, a protocol is needed for the internet of things. A protocol that can be used on any platform, with any operating system, with any programming language and that can be send low bandwidth and low energy over any connection medium. Now a lot of complex layers are needed in the different steps from getting the data from the embedded devices and sending and receiving and storing and analyzing them. The data should be separated from the application so the data can easily be shared amongst applications instead of only being used by proprietary applications.

I think this is very interesting and he is definetely right I think. It should be possible to easily share and access data from different applications and combine them to make other applications and to analyze different data together to come up with new, optimized business processes. And I think this is definitely needed and there will definitely come a standard for that. Maybe MQTT, the future will tell.

If you are interested in the internet of things, definitely watch the video to know more.

Does the NSA violate our privacy?

For the last decade, the NSA has been capturing data from big internet companies like Facebook and Google. Probably these companies were aware of these activities. The privacy of the users was violated and this resulted in a big protest. People didn’t want the NSA and FBI to have their information. Since Snowden leaked this information about the spying activities, people are more careful about what they put on the internet.

Do you mind that NSA might be checking your internet activities? Personally, I don’t care so much, I have nothing to hide. I just hope that the information is only used for good purposes, for example against crimes. I think there are already some assaults that have been prevented thanks to the spying activities. If people don’t want their personal information to get leaked, they should not put it on the web. Also, people should be more careful with the applications they install on their smartphone.

The importance of energy harvesting

Energy harvesting is the process by which energy is derived from external sources. It is a very important technology for wireless networks. I already mentioned it in a previous post about EnOcean, but I think it is a really interesting subject.

If devices can harvest energy from their surroundings, batteries might never get low. For example, in our thesis, we use a solar panel. Getting energy from the sunlight is a form of energy harvesting. I will discuss some of the most important energy harvesting technologies.

• Kinetic energy can be converted into electrical power. The movement of a magnet in an electromagnetic field provides a rate of change of flux. This results in an induced electromagnetic force on the coils. The induced voltage can be used to power a battery.
• Like mentioned before, photovoltaic panels also generate electrical power and can be used in WSN’s.
• Wind energy can be converted into electrical power by wind turbines. This is a well-known technique and used a lot for green energy. It is a little less common for use in WSN’s, but it stays an important energy harvesting method.
• A change of temperature can also be converted into electrical power by thermoelectric generators.
• Vibrations can be converted into electrical energy by piezoelectric crystals. They generate a small voltage when they are mechanically deformed.

In times of austerity and environmental awareness, this is a very important subject. Personally, I think there should be more investments in research, to improve these techniques. Maybe in several years, they can also be implemented in devices that we use every day, like a smartphone. Batteries will live much longer or maybe they will not be needed anymore.

Artificial intelligence: the end of people?

Artificial intelligence is probably the biggest achievement in the history of technology. But there is a chance that machines could avenge them on the humans. This is what happens in the terminator movies, but could it happen in real life? Stephen Hawking thinks so and talks about it in the independent. He thinks there must be more research in the possible risks of artificial intelligence http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/stephen-hawking-transcendence-looks-at-the-implications-of-artificial-intelligence–but-are-we-taking-ai-seriously-enough-9313474.html

The current artificial is not of a nature that science fiction doomsday scenarios present themselves. But it would be wrong to dismiss the idea as pure science fiction, writes Hawking.

The current artificial intelligence is not of a nature that science fiction doomsday scenarios present themselves. “But it would be wrong to dismiss the idea as pure science fiction. Perhaps the biggest mistake in history,” writes Hawking in The Independent. There is more and more research in artificial intelligence and the technology is becoming better. Recent technologies like self-driving vehicles and the digital personal assistant Siri are just examples of the IT arms race, which builds on a growing theoretical knowledge and allows that  unprecedented investments are involved. But these achievements will seem small if you look at what we can expect from the next years.

Still we should be worried, according to Hawking, because there are no limits to the possibilities: there is no physical law that prevents particles from organizing themselves in a way that they can perform more advanced calculations than the human brain. Technology could be developed that can not be controlled.

Please let us know what you think of artificial intelligence! Do you think machines could overpower us? Personally I think, that we will always keep the control, but some risks need to be taken into account.

Threat of electricity blackouts in Belgium after shut down of nuclear reactors

Here is a very actual situation where the smart grid and DSM could come in handy. In Belgium two nuclear energy reactors, Doel 3 and Tihange2, had been shut down in the summer of 2012 till june 2013 because of tears in the reactor vessels. In march 2014 the reactors were shut down again after tests on the reactor vessels stilll didn’t meet the required results. New tests had to be done now before being sure that the reactors can be used again. In the worst case could be decided to close the reactors definitevely. This would be a loss of capacity of about 2000 megawatt. In the meanwhile another nuclear reactor in Belgium, Doel 4, had to shut down also because of some problems.

Because of the loss of these reactors there was a fear of power shortages this winter and therefore the belgian government and the energy providers put together a plan, “ het afschakelplan”. When there is a power shortage looming, some streets will be uncoupled from the network in order to avoid a general blackout of the electricity supply in the country.

I personally think smart grid technologies can really help in preventing that streets should be put without electricity. Electricity consumption will be a lot easier to manage and instead of setting streets with no electricity at all, some specific electric appliances could be shut down at more households than only some streets. This way more people will lose some, but no streets will be totally put without any electricity at all. Also like the normal working of DSM, peaks in the electricity consumption can be managed and avoided better, what will limit the maximum energy needed at a certain time.

Do you think the smart energy grid can help to manage the loss of reactors better and prevent black outs?

Articles about the shut down of the reactors (in dutch):

http://www.demorgen.be/wetenschap/kernreactoren-doel-3-en-tihange-2-gaan-volledig-plat-a1829156/

http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/binnenland/1.2147099

Grape Networks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix6GUfgEIbs

In this video, an example of Wireless Sensor networks in the agricultural industry is illustrated. Grape Networks is a WSN company with a platform of monitors which capture environmental data, such as water, temperature… Thus, we can retrieve info about the micro-climate of a small area. The platform is designed especially for vineyards. By knowing changes in the environment, the farmers can react quickly to this changes. This results in a higher quality of the vineyard. For example, when it is suddenly very dry, the farmers get a notification and they know that they have to add water to the plants.

The nodes can have up to five different sensors for measuring agricultural data. The data can be transferred via Wi-Fi, satellite or the cellular network. The network is mesh-based. This means the node scan send messages through other nodes within a 2000 foot range.

The use of a WSN in a vineyard resulted in a few advantages. The profit losses due to climate changes were reduced. The labor cost is also reduced because people don’t have to go on the field to measure the environmental parameters. The farmers only have to go on the field when measurement thresholds are reached. The data can be accessed from anywhere in the world, so it can also be used for other purposes, for example weather forecasting. The network is very portable. The nodes can easily be placed and removed.

This is a god example of how WSN’s can make our lives easier. With fewer costs and less effort, a higher quality is achieved. The market of WSN’s is still growing and soon WSN’s will be all around us.

Big Data Analysis

The Internet of Things will mean a lot of data coming from everywhere. Not only about how to store this data has to be thought about, but also how to easily use and share that data and make it meaningfull. Also not all data is important to store or to store for a long time, some data just needs to be read and thrown away to avoid piles of useless data to analyze. I personally think this is an important consideration to make when designing IoT applications: are these measurements and data really of use for my application or will I not use them.

I think a lot of work is still needed in making analytical models and giving true value to data. And I also think it is very application specific of how data should be handled and stored. Data coming from a moving car or from a building will need different ways to handle the data like it is said in the following article: http://www.enterpriseappstoday.com/business-intelligence/how-iot-will-change-big-data-analytics.html

The last quote from a Forbes’ article is a nice quote to end my post with (http://www.forbes.com/sites/howardbaldwin/2014/11/24/a-match-made-somewhere-big-data-and-the-internet-of-things/):

you can have all the sensors in the world, but you’re still going to need someone to figure out what they’re telling you.

Case study of a smart city: Smart Santander

The Smart Santander project is an experimental platform consisting of a wireless sensor network composed of Waspmote sensor nodes with sensors, actuators, cameras and screens to offer useful information to citizens and visitors of the city in Spain.

The Waspmote sensor nodes are divided in 22 zones which each form independent networks working on different frequency channels so there is no interference between the zones . To set up and configure these network parameters each zone has a Meshlium. After the network is configured the Meshlium serves as a gateway where all the sensor nodes in its network send the data of their sensors to. The Meshlium gateway can then forward this data to a database and/or to other platforms for further processing, monitoring and analyzing of the measurements.

375 Waspmote sensor nodes have been used to monitor parking free slots. They are burried under the surface of the road at parking slots and have a magnetic field sensor to detect the variation of the magnetic field generated by a car parked on it. The data that the gateway receives from these sensor nodes will be visualised on panels througout the city of Santander to indicate the number of free parking slots. The status of the parking slots can also be consulted on a google map before going to the city center.

Another 750 Waspmote nodes in this project are spread over the city to monitor environmental parameters like temperature, luminosity, CO concentration and noise levels. If any of these sensors measures an unusual value above a specified treshold, the system will analyze the information and may send an alarm to the Meshlium gateway. To know where the sensors are located, each sensor node can also have a gps module to send its coordinates with the data it sends to the gateway. Also this data is visualised online on a real-time map so the citizens can check the environmental conditions around them.

The project allows researchers from all over the world to test different algorithms in a real environment.

I think this is a great way for testing wireless sensor networks in a real application set-up. It is great that the project is open for developers and researchers to test out their algorithms and applications to get real results.

The luminosity sensor in this application seems a little bit useless since it measures light intensity but except for monitoring nothing is really done with this value. A human eye can also see if it is light or dark outside. But of course this set up is still just used for testing. And later it can for example be used to automatically turn on and off the street lights in that area. Or when a solar panel is connected to it, the node can predict by the value of the luminosity sensor how much energy it will get from the sun and so it can decide how much measurements or other tasks it can do without losing too much battery.

Can you think about other smart city applications with sensor networks? Give your thoughts about smart cities in the comments, please.

If you would like to read more about this project you can go to following pages:

http://www.libelium.com/smart_santander_smart_parking/

http://www.libelium.com/smart_santander_parking_smart_city/

http://www.libelium.com/smart_santander_environment_smart_ctiy/

Drones: a violation to our privacy?

In the past years, drones already have been used for military operations. But in the future, there will also be domestic drones. For example, packets can be delivered by drones and people will have personal drones. Will there be thousands of drones flying around in ten years? Will they violate our privacy?

If you compare the usefulness with the disadvantage of privacy violation, I think the usefulness wins. Of course, the laws of privacy will have to be changed and laws for drones need to be written. I just have one big concern: some people could use drones for bad purposes. Terrorists might be able to bomb public places from a distance. Thieves will be able to spy on your house. In my opinion, not only laws need to be changed, but there also must be invested in technologies which can control the airspace. Drones should be detectable and not be in locations where they should not be.

Drones could also become important in wireless sensor networking applications. They could drop nodes in places that are hard to reach for humans, but they can also act as a node. It would be useful to be able to change the node’s position from time to time.

Are you for or against drones? Please let me know in the comments section.

Mobile internet devices outnumbering humans

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/feb/07/mobile-internet-outnumber-people

This article is about the number of internet-connected mobile devices such as smartphones and 3G tables. IPv4 makes it possible to address 4.294.967.296 devices. By now, we already have exceeded that number. The internet providers were forced to shift their networks over to the IPv6 system. This expands the number of devices that can connect to 3.4 x . This will normally be enough for eternity, but in the future, you never know..

This article indicates that the internet of things really is happening. The number of ip-based devices already exceeded the number of humans on this planet. This number is even growing faster than the demographic growth. With the growing market of embedded devices and wireless sensor networks the number of devices will increase even more. In a few years, each human will be using a dozen of internet devices. Should we be worried that devices will be leading our life? Should we be concerned about our privacy? Could our devices be hacked and can those hackers retrieve personal information?

Personally, I’m very curious for the future. The only concern I have is the technology. What if it fails at some point? There could be small errors with disastrous results. Also, jobs could get lost. If devices are taking over everything, some jobs will become unnecessary. Nevertheless, I think the growth in number of devices will increase the quality of our lives. Please share your opinion. Does the growth in number of devices concern you?