TECHNICAL TRADE OFFS OF IOT PLATFORMS · PDF fileAt its core, the IoT is simply a way of getting ... Server-based platforms with virtually no limitations E.g., Multi-core x86 or ARM,

Copyright 2007-2016, The PTR Group, Inc.
TECHNICAL TRADE-OFFS OF IOT PLATFORMS
Mike Anderson Chief Scientist
The PTR Group, Inc.
http://ThePTRGroup.com
[email protected]
http://theptrgroup.com/

Who is The PTR Group? The PTR Group was founded in 2000 We are involved in multiple areas of work: Robotics (NASA space arm) Flight software (over 35 satellites on orbit) Offensive and defensive cyber operations
Ill leave this to your imagination
Embedded software ports to RTOS/Linux/bare metal
IoT systems architecture and deployment
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Who am I? Over 39 years in the embedded space Developed part of VxWorks Instructor for Linux/Android internals Mentor for FRC #116 FIRST Robotics Team Frequent speaker at: Embedded Linux Conference Embedded Systems Conference CIA Emerging Technology Conference And more
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What Well Talk About What, exactly is a platform?
The architectures
The big players
Differentiating the IoT and IIoT
Where is the money?
Summary
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What is the Internet of Things? A thing is any device that will have connectivity to a network Advances in power management, wireless communications and CPU
architectures enables the embedding of intelligence into devices that were previously dumb
The data that is produced from the things needs to go someplace for use This could be used locally -- e.g., a thermostat Could be collected at the border gateway and preprocessed to be
forwarded to the servers The fog model
Or, sent directly to the servers The cloud model
The cloud systems provide command and control and data analytics

The Core of the IoT At its core, the IoT is simply a way of getting access to sensor data and potentially controlling device(s) based on that data The number and type of sensors and their
connectivity are differentiating factors
What you do with the data is also a factor Personal consumption like a fitness band
Machine to human
Monitoring and control ala telemetry/SCADA Machine to machine
Estimates are for $3+ trillion in sales by 2020
Source: lbl.gov
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What is a Platform? Well, it depends on who you talk to A piece of hardware with sensors
An operating system targeted at sensor technologies
A communications protocol/paradigm
An end-to-end system that connects sensors to the cloud and provides for data analytics
And, at some level, its all of these things It depends on your focus
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Consumer IoT Today, consumer uses of IoT devices break out into two primary uses Fitness-related devices
Wearables, exercise equipment, etc.
Home monitoring a.k.a, smart home Thermostats, smoke detectors, cameras,
etc.
The fitness market is relatively new Often, battery-powered sensors Bluetooth, NFC, Wi-Fi or USB connectivity Dominated by proprietary solutions
Examples include products from Garmin, Fitbit, Runtastic and more
Source: Garmin.com
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Consumer IoT #2 The smart home segment used to be known as home automation The home automation term was a non-starter and the market was flat
Now, there are a number of players in the space Thread Group Apple HomeKit ZigBee Alliance Z-Wave Alliance IoTivity AllSeen
There are several dozen component manufacturers who are participating in one or more of these ecosystems Interoperability is the key to success
Source: nest.com
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Edge, Middle and Cloud We can think of the IoT as being comprised of devices on the edge, middle box and cloud portions of the ecosystem Edge devices are where the sensors and actuators are found Often, battery operated
with low-power networks Consumer edge devices
may have wall power
Source: eurotech.com

Edge, Middle and Cloud #2 The middle boxes are better known as border routers/gateways Translate from the low-power network
of edge devices to standard Internet protocols like IPv4/IPv6
May provide data pre-processing
The cloud portion provides: Connectivity to external
controllers (smartphones, tablets, etc.)
Data aggregation and analytics Both connectivity and data services Source: fortune.com

Edge Devices Often uses small microcontrollers such as the Atmel AVR, ARM Cortex M, MicroChip PIC32, etc. type of processors 8/16/32-bit processors No MMU
Legacy IIoT edge devices may be wired using older technologies like RS-232/RS-485/RS-170 Industrial Internet of Things The power for the device may be collocated in cable
Some edge devices are expected to run from battery for years at a time Wireless connectivity via BLE, NFC, IEEE 802.15.4 IPv4/IPv6/6LoWPAN or proprietary stacks such as ZigBee or Z-Wave

Edge Devices #2 Specifications vary, but generally: RAM < 512 KBs Flash < 1-2 MBs CPU speed < 300 MHz
Sensors may be built into the SoC Software may be bare metal or running on small RTOS Companies like Wind River/Intel,
Micrium, Green Hills, Express Logic Open source like FreeRTOS, Contiki
C/C++ is the dominant language in this segment
Source: semiwiki.com

Border Routers The middle boxes are gateways between the edge and the Internet Take in low-power wireless on one
side and spit out IP via Wi-Fi or Ethernet
These devices run an MMU-based operating system Linux, Tizen, Android, iOS, Windows
May take the form of Apple TV, tablet, or other GUI-ful device or even sensors like the Nest thermostat Provides local command and control functions as well as system monitoring
Your system can have multiple border routers for redundancy Java, JavaScript, Python, C/C++ are commonly found here
Source: bradcampbell.com

The Cloud Server-based platforms with virtually no limitations E.g., Multi-core x86 or ARM, always-on power
May provide command and control of downstream devices E.g., hand-held device interface
Focused on data aggregation and data analytics Potentially, petabytes of storage with more processing horsepower than you can shake a stick at The power behind Apples Siri and many other intelligent agents Web-friendly languages like Java, JavaScript, Python, etc. Frameworks like Hadoop
Source: howtoshakeastick.com

BTW, how big is a Petabyte? By comparison, assume that:
Byte of data (20): one grain of rice
Kilobyte (210): cup of rice
Megabyte (220): 8 bags of rice
Gigabyte (230): 3 container trucks
Terabyte (240): 2 container ships
Petabyte (250): covers Manhattan
Exabyte (260): covers the UK (3x)
Zettabyte (270): fills the Pacific ocean
Source: arstechnica.com

Message Protocol Alphabet Soup There are a number of different messaging protocols vying for dominance MQTT Message Queue Telemetry Transport Simple hub and spoke approach to
messaging Can sit on TCP for message reliability Focus is on telemetry gathering
XMPP Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol Used by Facebook and Jabber messaging applications Uses XML format over HTTP or TCP Communications rates are measured on human scales
Source: microbiologynetwork.com
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Message Protocols #2 DDS Data Distribution Service Publish/subscribe M2M middleware focused on device-to-device
messaging Object Management Group standard Security and interoperability of a wide variety of devices and services
REST Representational State Transfer Uses HTTP verbs (GET/POST/PUT/DELETE, etc.) for message transfer
and storage
CoAP Constrained Application Protocol Simpler version of HTTP sitting on UDP targeting memory-constrained
devices
Proprietary protocols Consumer devices frequently implement these
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Dimensions of Compatibility Many of the devices in the IoT rely on wireless connectivity Wi-Fi is considered too power hungry for battery-operated
devices However, its easy to work with if theres always power Often used in the border routers
Bluetooth Low-Energy (Bluetooth Smart), NFC, cellular and IEEE 802.15.4 for the edge devices IEEE 802.15.4 layer 3+ varies from vendor to vendor
Data exchange includes MQTT, XMPP, CoAP, REST, DDS and proprietary protocols
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The Platforms - Apple HomeKit Uses Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or NFC Products have finally started to become available Broad selection of locks, thermostats, cameras,
etc. Compatible with iOS 8+ devices

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TECHNICAL TRADE OFFS OF IOT PLATFORMS · PDF fileAt its core, the IoT is simply a way of getting ... Server-based platforms with virtually no limitations E.g., Multi-core x86 or ARM,