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Internet of Actuating Things

Balamuralidhar P, Arpan PalInnovation Labs, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India

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Internet of Things & M2M

Internet of Things– Towards a vision of networking ‘Things’ on Internet– Practically it signifies

o Sensing, Identifying, communicating between physical objects such as home appliances, furniture, vehicles, buildings, components of infrastructures such as roads, utilities and many more…

Machine to Machine (M2M) communications is a part of the above vision

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Scope

Gateway

Service Platform

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Internet of Actuating Things

Cognition

Computing

NetworkingEmbedded Systems

Control

5 - 5 -

Intelligent Infrastructure

Sense

Extract

Analyze

Respond

Learn

Smartening the Infrastructure by Real-Time Monitoring and Management

Monitor

Operational Efficiency, Safety & Security, Information Services, Convenience

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Challenges in Actuating Things

Actuation causes a change in the state of things (can be catastrophic if in-appropriate)

Actuation has associated responsibility– Need authentication, – Timeliness, robustness– Security against un-intended actuations

Action may be triggered by a software agent or human being. Challenges in trusting a software agent.

Energy saving and autonomic capabilities Cooperative Actuation further these challenges

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Erasure coding for Robust Protocol

Erasure Coding: k blocks are encoded to n blocks , introducing (n-k) redundancy. If the number of blocks lost during the transmission m <= (n-k), then original information can be recovered.

Mostly used technique to address packet losses is retransmission. This creates un predictable delays and reduced throughput.

Erasure coding is an alternate way to address this. An apriori estimate of the channel condition can help in planning the redundancy required.

From an IoT perspective, this would be impactful for multicast transmissions ( mass upgrade, mass configuration etc)

Evaluation Robust CoAP is in progress

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Identity based Encryption for Secure IoT

Identity based Encryption system– Here a public key is derived from Identity – Unlike PKI there is no key exchange required during

transactions

In IOT/M2M the number of devices involved are too many. Key management and exchange would be an issue

IBE can be used in such cases. Private keys are embedded in the device. Public key is derived from publicly known identities such as IP address, MAC address, URI etc.

Standardisation in progress - IEEE P1636.3/D1

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Identity Based Encryption Scheme

Encrypted Message

Public Key Generator(PKG)

Get

Mas

ter P

ublic

Key

Receiv

e M

aste

r Pub

lic K

ey

Device 1Device 2

Authe

ntica

te a

nd o

btain

User1

Priv

ate

Key

(Sm

art C

ard)

Get Master Public Key

Receive Master Public Key

Authenticate and obtain

User2Private Key

(Smart Card)

1.Use User2 -ID to generate User2’s Public Key.

2. Sign and Encrypt and send messageto the User2

1.Use User1-ID to generate User1’s Public Key.

2. Sign and Encrypt and send messageto the User1.

Encrypted Message

SET UP

EXTRACT

Encrypt Decrypt

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Some Emerging technologies for actuation

shape memory alloy based actuation– Example: intelligent locking

devices for advanced protection and remote control of assets. of smart devices with embedded intelligence, much smaller form factors and less power consumption (smart micro-protection systems (ixp.tz.net))

Emergence of new applications through new actuation technologies

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Actuation through Bio-mimicry

Ctenophores are small sea creatures that achieve propulsion using thousands of locally controlled ciliated paddles.

electro-chemo-mechanical actuation. The human heart is a flexible network of actuators coordinated with electro-chemo-mechanical waves of contraction.

Stomata are self-controlling variable apertures that work together to solve the gas exchange problem for plants. It can be seen that flexible networks of actuators coordinated using distributed intelligence and sensing provide robust and adaptable performance in the face of complex and varied challenges.

Global ICT Standardization for India (GISFI)

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GISFI

Forum for addressing ICT standardization in India (www.gisfi.org )

Working Groups– Security and Privacy – Future Radio Networks – Internet of Things (IoT) – Service Oriented Network (SEoN) – Green ICT

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Use Cases being considered in IoT WG

IoT WG

Healthcare

Home

Smart Grid

Agriculture

Food Supply Chain

Public Safety

Transportation

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IoT Reference Architecture

Sensor / Devices

Gateway

Service Platform

Applications

IoT Core Network

I1

I2

I3

Robots as Actuating Things in IoT

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Market Projection

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Some Social Applications of Robotics

Public safety – Search & Rescue– Detecting human under debris, water and fire

Surveillance– Campus security (mobile cameras and audio)– Monitoring flora and fauna, forest fires

Agriculture / farming

Remote Infrastructure Monitoring & Management

Remote Healthcare & Assisted Living

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A Motivating Requirement

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Some technologies for search & rescue

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Robots as Mobile Gateways

Mobile data collection– Agriculture monitoring– Mobile Agro-advisory System– Real-time sending of Soil Temperature, Soil Moisture,

Atmospheric Temperature and Atmospheric Humidity

Advantages of Robots as Mobile Gateways– Energy saving through lower communication range– Periodic Sensor auto calibration

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Technology Challenges

Wireless Networking– Variable communication range– Mobility: no to moderate (pedestrian) speeds– Dynamic topology– Reliability & robustness, security– Real-time communication for actuation (downlink)

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Summary

“Actuating Things” have variety of important applications and related challenges

Robots are a popular category of actuators Wireless robotics need attention of researchers and

standardization bodies – Machine to Actuating Machine communications

o Next M2M?

Thank You