Internet of Things A to Z

11The Industrial Internet of Things

Alexander Willner^1,2

¹Fraunhofer FOKUS, Software-based Networks (NGNI), Berlin, Germany

²Technische Universität Berlin, Next Generation Networks (AV), Berlin, Germany

11.1 Introduction

Within industrial use cases, computers were introduced over the last decades, mainly to fulfill specific requirements, such as meeting hard real-time response times or operating reliably in very rough environments. Their task was, and still is, to automate physical control loops, to process input signals, and trigger actuation signals based on this collected information. These systems are part of the Operational Technology (OT). Respective fields of application include energy, health care, manufacturing, smart cities, and transportation. This development significantly enhanced the efficiency of local processes within these and other application domains and their benefits cannot be argued away.

Nowadays, however, we live in a connected world. Networks of devices, processes, and services constantly exchange data with each other and enable the cooperation for a common task. Under the umbrella of the Internet of Things (IoT) (Ashton, 2009), the number of interconnected devices is expected to grow exponentially toward 30 billion devices until 2020 (Markit, 2016). As described in the former chapters, this development will be a large driver for economic growth within the foreseeable future. For example, Woodsite Capital Partners estimated that IoT-related value-added ...