Software Networks, 2nd Edition

12The Internet of Things

The Internet of Things was born with the idea of connecting wireless and hardwired sensors – found in the home, at work and more or less everywhere in life today – to the Internet. One of the most widely used sensors is RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification), or electronic tags. The Internet of Things enables us to connect anything and everything that is connectable, from objects which are more or less big to smart dust. The concept is simple, but the problems are numerous, because in general, the “things” in question are not sufficiently sophisticated to handle the communications and computations associated with the applications.

We will begin by examining sensor networks, followed by RFID networks and the NFC (Near-Field Communication) interface – which is increasingly being used in the connection of “things” to the Internet – and HIP (Host Identity Protocol), which is one of the standards for interconnection gateways between “things” and the Internet. We will then touch on a few ideas about one of the most rapidly developing types of networks: medical sensor networks, which could potentially affect seven billion people and become an enormous market in the future. Finally, we will look at a case study on the smart city.

Virtualization plays an important part in the Internet of Things, even if objects can rarely be virtualized by themselves. Indeed, sensors need a hardware environment to sense temperature, pressure, light, etc. Virtualization involves ...