Internet of things (IoT) in automation
Internet of things (IoT) in automation , robotic industry is proving to be a game changer for automation and robotic companies. Industrial automation and robotic companies that use IoT solutions can reap new benefits. The Internet of Things (IoT) helps to create new technologies to solve problems, enhance operations, and increase productivity. IoT can be explained as connection of inimitably identifiable electronic devices using Internet ‘data plumbing’ including Internet Protocol (IP), cloud computing and web services. Internet of Things (IoT) Impact on Industrial Automation is very high. It makes us to use tablet computers, smart phones, virtualized systems, and cloud storage of data.
IoT helps to streamline, collapse, and create system architectures that are effective, affordable and responsive. The major aim is to create frictionless communications and interaction from manufacturing field input/output including analyzers, actuators, robotics etc to enhance flexibility and increased manufacturing. Using IoT, the industrial automation has leveraged commercial technologies in major applications. These examples include PLCs displacing banks of relays.
Internet of things products
Internet of things devices
IoT devices are used in various fields and vary from home automation and the functionality of house. Devices such as smoke detectors, thermostats, smart music systems, smart light bulbs come under this category. On the other hand, IoT devices are also present in the interaction with the human body, where we can talk about fitness trackers, smart body scales or even baby monitors.
IoT Gateway Devices
They act as a communication bridge between IoT Sensor Network and Cloud Server. Known as emerging as key elements in bring next-gen devices to the Internet of Things (IoT). They help to integrate protocols for networking, help manage storage and edge analytics on the data, and facilitate data flow securely between edge devices and the cloud.
Industrial IoT Development Kits
Industrial IoT Development Kits provide an entire, high quality design environment for engineers and solution architects to drastically accelerate the development and delivery of IoT applications. Using this kits, any development/industrial environment can quickly be turned into a production ready unit. The IoT Development Kit targets a variety of IoT application requirements by providing a range of different hardware platforms, spanning from very compact low-power ARM-based designs to powerful multi-core, latest generation Intel Atom gateways.
EXAMPLE : Application of iot in automation of vehicles
Connected Cars
The idea of connected cars is not new. In fact, according to an estimation by Gartner, there will be more than 250 million connected cars in the world by the end of the year 2020. The car is connected over an IoT network called CV2X (cellular vehicle to everything) which connects vehicles and smart transport systems with each other.
Connected cars facilitate fast transmission of data and increase drivers’ response time through enhanced vehicle communication. Based on the vehicle’s connection with different objects, CV2X is sub-divided into four categories:
- Vehicle to vehicle (V2V): V2V connection allows vehicles in a proximate range to share data with each other. The data mainly constitutes information related to location, speed, and dynamics. V2V connection helps in preventing accidents and allow emergency vehicles like ambulances and fire trucks to easily move through traffic.
- Vehicle to infrastructure (V2I): V2I connection refers to a network of vehicles and road infrastructures. The infrastructure in V2I generally constitutes traffic lights, lane markings, and toll booths. V2I generally facilitates smooth traffic flow and avoid long queues at toll booths or petrol pumps.
- Vehicle to pedestrians (V2P): Through the use of a mobile application, a pedestrian can also connect with CV2X network. A pedestrian can use this application to locate nearby taxis and monitor the estimated time of arrival for transits. They can also connect with the pedestrian walking system and change traffic signals to cross a road.
- Vehicle to network (V2N): Intelligent Transport System (ITM) and weather forecast department can also connect with the network to alert the drivers about change in weather conditions or an accident on the road. Moreover, vehicles are connected via smartphones. This way, the driver can use voice commands to operate the music system and GPS of the car while driving.
Internet of things (IoT) in Robotics
Many people often think about Internet of Things (IoT) and robotics technology as separate fields, these two niches seem to be growing simultaneously as we find new ways to engineer each one.
The IoT and robotics communities are coming together to create The Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT). The IoRT is a concept in which intelligent devices can monitor the events happening around them, fuse their sensor data, make use of local and distributed intelligence to decide on courses of action and then behave to manipulate or control objects in the physical world.
IoT is a network of things which is connected to the internet, including IoT devices and IoT-enabled physical assets ranging from consumer devices to sensor-equipped connected technology. These items are an essential driver for customer-facing innovation, data-driven optimization, new applications, digital transformation, business models and revenue streams across all sectors.
IoT devices usually designed to handle specific tasks, while robots need to react to unexpected conditions. Artificial intelligence and machine learning help these robots deal with unexpected conditions that arise.
Why IoT and Robotic Tech Are Evolving Together
IoT focuses on supporting services for pervasive sensing, monitoring and tracking, while the robotic communities focus on production action, interaction and autonomous behavior.
A concept where the sensor data is coming from a range of sources is fused, processed with local and distributed intelligence, used to control, manipulate objects in the physical world is how the term “Internet of Robotic Things” was created.
IoRT has three intelligent components:
- First, the robot can sense that it has embedded monitoring capabilities and can get sensor data from other sources.
- Second, it can analyze data from the event it monitors, which means there’s edge computing involved. Edge computing is where the data is processed and analyzed locally instead of cloud. It eliminates the need to transmit a wealth of data to the cloud.
- Third, because of the first two components, the robot can determine which action to take and then take that action. The robot can control or manipulate a physical object, and if it was designed to, it can move in the physical world. The bigger idea for now is collaborations between machine / machine and between man / machine. These interactions could move toward predictive maintenance and entirely new services.
