We often hear about the Internet of Things (IoT). The vision is to connect sensors, machines, appliances, vehicles, even signs and roadways, to the Internet. A huge portion of IoT growth is expected to be wireless. In this blog, I'll take a look at some wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions and the capabilities they provide.
Last month, Martin Rowe reported from Cisco’s Bill Swift’s DesignCon keynote that "by 2020 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet." A lot of these will be some kind of M2M connection. ABI Research recently reported that M2M cellular module shipments increased 21 percent in 2012 and will reach 100 million in 2015. As you will see below, this will mean billions of physical connections.
In another Cisco forecast, global M2M traffic grows at 86 percent CAGR through 2016 to over 500 petabytes per month (500 million gigabytes!). That forecast also is based mainly on cellular M2M data, so the actual M2M data traffic is more, once you include local network connections.
An M2M gateway can do a lot of things, but at least it will have a network connection plus one other I/O connected to something. You need gateways to send the collected data or measurements to a network where you can do something with the information. Even a simple smart-sensor comprising a temperature sensor connected to a cellular modem is its own gateway, but gateways can do a lot more. The network link can be Ethernet via a wire, or a cellular/WAN wireless connection, routing through a service provider onto the Internet. Another option is via WiFi to a local network.
The I/O side of the gateway provides options to connect things to the network. To support all the connections, most devices include a microprocessor, usually based on an ARM core. For example, Laird Technologies offers the SDC-WB40NBT (Figure 1) module designed to be integrated into customer electronics and provide connectivity between WiFi and other I/O. Other than antenna connectors, the physical interface is through a Kyocera 120-pin connector located on the lower edge of the board. This product is targeted at OEMs designing M2M products.
Figure 1. Laird Technologies SDC-WB40NBT module.
You can see an Atmel chip, which includes a 396MHz ARM9 core supporting all the I/O. To the left is a Broadcom chip providing 802.11a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.1EDR (up to seven simultaneous connections). Laird says it provides Linux as the user development environment. The company also says it will soon offer a version with twice the memory and supporting Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). The range of I/O possibilities is shown in the block diagram. Ethernet, UART, USB, 2-wire (including CAN Bus), serial, SDIO (SD Card interface), GPIO, and analog (voltage) I/O are provided. Drivers are pre-loaded for all I/O.
The user manual shows that the input power (the 3.3VDC shown in the diagram) uses three power pins and three ground pins, and all the other signals have their own ground pins. That should help reduce problems with power, as well as crosstalk issues. Given all the I/O options, this device may find its way into industrial monitoring, security, telematics, and other applications.
Martin Rowe 2/7/2013 11:34:20 PM User Rank Blogger
Re: Machine to machine, WHY BOTHER WITH THE INTERNET???
eafpres, Considering that I have 10 Ethernet ports plus wireless around the house, I have the potential for all kinds of networking. Right now, only the computers and a blu-ray player are networked, plus the iPad. When my shared printer dies (soon I think), I'll network the printer. Right now, the printer is connected to the one desktop computer, so it must be on to print anything.
Re: Machine to machine, WHY BOTHER WITH THE INTERNET???
If everything in my household were "smart", where I define smart to be it can be power managed remotely, and if all those were managed in a single, web-accessible UI, then I would create profiles to manage as much as possible. Today, I have a programmable thermostat (from the front panel, not networked) and I installed an in-outlet timer on my outdoor lights. I used to unplug the power bricks for the printer and a couple other things but often forget.
Martin Rowe 2/7/2013 10:16:42 PM User Rank Blogger
Re: Machine to machine, WHY BOTHER WITH THE INTERNET???
eafpres, I can see some advatages to hainvg devices like microwave oven having the power disconnected when not in use. Mine is on 24 hours and it's basically a clock and I don;t even need that because the gas range right below it also has a clock. Butm the plug for the microwave is in a cabinet above the unit.
So many items are on all the time that don't need to be. My Ethernet hub, while in use 16 hours a day wheil I;'n working on this site, could be shut down overnight. Same for the wireless router.
In my former house, theere were AC outlets mounted above the desk surface. I used to unplg the DSL modem every night and hadly used hte wireless, Now both are in a closet, another I ahve a power strip for the DSP mdoem because it needs to be reset once in a while, like today. The unit and it outlet are mounted 8 ft above the floor.
Martin Rowe 2/7/2013 10:11:32 PM User Rank Blogger
Re: Machine to machine, WHY BOTHER WITH THE INTERNET???
@william, You make a good point about providing a way for hackers to get in. I won't restart the refrigerator discussion again. With convenience, we lose privacy. Home health monitors, however, seems worth the risk if a system can inform the proper people of a dangerous condition.
Re: Machine to machine, WHY BOTHER WITH THE INTERNET???
Hi William--I generally agree that some of the popular examples, like the refrigerator example we have discussed here on The Connecting Edge, are questonable. But there are many subtleties. If all the toasters, microwave ovens, etc. have some kind of connection locally, then you can enable some kind of energy management in homes, small business, etc. You are right that using the internet for all this is a sledgehammer.
But, right now, since the underlying infrastructure for things like home energy management, it may be the path of least resistance to give everything an IP address and build end user applications. Eventually it should be cheaper to do most of it locally and less via the internet.
Another example is home health monitoring. There are applications coming out with simple cellular gateways linking to in-home Bluetooth enabled sensors (blood pressure, glucose, P02, etc.) and connecting to a back end service via a cellular modem. These don't need to use the internet but that is one possible route. Some of the data might be put back on secure websites for the home user to keep track, or for doctors to access. So it ends up being a hybrid of where the data flows.
William K. 2/7/2013 8:28:03 PM User Rank Connectivity Master
Machine to machine, WHY BOTHER WITH THE INTERNET???
There will be some value delivered by some of the M2M communication, but a whole lot of that data really does not need to waste internet bandwidth, and provide a convenient entry point for hackers and snoops. An isolated network is faster and much more secure, and quite probably cheaper to use, as well. Who else needs to know when machine #1 has completed the top half of a widget and is ready to pass it on to machine #2?
My point is that the creation of huge amounts of data does not equate with the production of any useful information. So perhaps it is not the very best choice to put every toaster and dishwasher on the internet, nor widget production machines #1, 2, &3. The data can be moved locally with no need to fill the internet with gigabytes of garbage. The internet of things could easily be a sea to drown a lot of us, and deliver no value at all in return.
@northstar--yes, there are many variants. It is interesting there are a lot of Linux variants, but there are proprietary real time operating systems (RTOS) on ARM cores from many M2M chip and module vendors. This is good news/bad news--there is a learning curve if you are focused on the end application but want to support multiple hardware platforms, or if you are a hardware vendor and change chipsets, etc. Tomorrow's Part 2 will illustrate some more.
northstar 2/5/2013 4:49:28 PM User Rank Connectivity Master
Re: Power Packed
Yes, Android has a powerful sponsor and a strong ecosystem behind it. But I also expect more to see some other embedded Linux flavors for those M2M devices. There are WiFi modules from Gainspan, Atheros or Redpine that has support for MQX, uVelocity, Micrium just to name few besides Linux for embedded flavors.
There are a lot of directions in the industry right now. Although Android seems attractive, as you know it is mainly a mobile platform. While communicating from mobile devices in some forms falls under the M2M umbrella, a lot of M2M is fixed or on vehicles, and is "embedded". So the M2M platform is not interacting directly with the end-user.
Having said that, I can see the possiblity of monitoring and managing M2M devices via Android applications. I didn't mention it in the article but many of these solutiosn allow software updates over the air (OTA update). You can imagine someone monitoring power lines or wells using an Android device to load a new script or firware to a set of M2M devices.
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