IoT Think Tank Compilation
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In the current fragmented development stage of the Internet of Things, no standard can directly achieve unification like Qin Shi Huang, but IoT gateways can, to some extent, “save the country through curves”.
We often use a simple story to explain what a gateway is.
Assuming your name is Xiaobudian, you live in a large courtyard, and your neighbors have many little friends, your parents are your gateway. When you want to play with a certain friend in the courtyard, all you need to do is shout their name, and if they hear you, they will respond and come out to play with you.
However, your parents do not allow you to leave the gate, and any contact you want to have with the outside world must be facilitated by your parents (the gateway) using the phone. If you want to chat with your classmate Xiaoming, who lives far away in another courtyard, he also has parents (Xiaoming’s gateway). But you do not know Xiaoming’s phone number; however, your homeroom teacher has a list of all your classmates and their phone numbers, and your teacher is your DNS server. So you have the following conversation with your parents:
Xiaobudian: Mom (or Dad), can I ask the homeroom teacher for Xiaoming’s phone number? Parent: Sure, just wait. (Then your parents call your homeroom teacher to ask for Xiaoming’s number) They find out that his number is 211.99.99.99
Xiaobudian: Great! Mom (or Dad), can you help me contact Xiaoming?
Parent: No problem. (Then the parent sends a request to the telephone exchange to connect Xiaoming’s home phone, and finally, of course, it is transferred to Xiaoming’s parents, who then pass the call to Xiaoming).
In this way, you established contact with Xiaoming.
To simplify it further, when you want to move from one room to another, you must go through a door.Similarly, sending information from one network to another must go through a “gateway”.
A gateway is a computer system or device that serves as a translator. When using different communication protocols, data formats, or languages, or even completely different architectures, the gateway acts as a translator. Unlike a bridge, which simply relays information, a gateway repackages the received information to meet the needs of the destination system. At the same time, gateways can also provide filtering and security functions.
So what is an IoT gateway?
In the example above, replace the “protagonist” needing to communicate with the outside world—Xiaobudian—with various IoT devices such as smart homes, connected cars, industrial controllers, and it becomes easy to understand the concept of an IoT gateway.
Compared to the Internet era, the communication protocols of the Internet of Things are more diverse, and the fragmentation of objects is very serious, thus highlighting the importance of gateways—IoT gateways can integrate the information collected from different objects and transmit it to the next level, allowing information to be transmitted among various parts.
For example, the forms of home devices are becoming increasingly diverse, some devices have remote control capabilities, such as air conditioners and TVs, while water heaters, microwaves, rice cookers, and refrigerators do not have this capability. Even if these devices can be remotely controlled, their control capabilities and ranges are very limited. Moreover, these devices exist in isolation from each other, which prevents effective resource and information sharing. With the advancement of IoT technology, especially the maturity of IoT gateway technology, the interconnection problem among various household devices in smart homes will be solved.
Televisions, washing machines, air conditioners, refrigerators, and other household appliances; access control, smoke detectors, cameras, and other security devices; table lamps, chandeliers, electric curtains, and other lighting devices, by integrating specific communication modules, form their respective self-organizing network subsystems . Inside the household IoT gateway device, several commonly used self-organizing network communication protocols are integrated, allowing simultaneous communication with devices or subsystems using different protocols. Users only need to operate the gateway to control all smart devices connected to the gateway.
As of 2020, more than 200 billion devices will be connected to the Internet, achieving interconnection within the Internet of Things (IoT).The ability to connect is key to leveraging the advantages of the IoT, as the IoT can gain insights from the data provided by interconnected devices.
Currently, there are still a large number of traditional devices that have not been connected, hosted, or protected. This leaves a lot of useful data idle across many devices, such as HVAC components, vending machines, etc. Therefore, solving the interoperability of traditional systems is imperative to avoid incurring huge costs when replacing all existing infrastructure with next-generation devices that can be securely connected to the network.
In summary, if enterprises want to deploy IoT, it is crucial to collect data from their existing device assets and mine the hidden value behind the data. An excellent IoT gateway solution is essential.
The IoT gateway solution should support:
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Connecting to the cloud and enterprises
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Connecting to sensors and existing embedded controllers
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Preprocessing and filtering selected data for delivery
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Local decision-making, supporting easy interconnection with traditional systems
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Hardware root of trust, data encryption, and software locking for security
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Local computing support for in-device analysis
We take Intel’s IoT gateway solution as a further illustration. This solution includes:
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Intel® processors for various development kits: Intel® Quark™ SoC X1000, Intel®Quark™ SoC X1020D, and Intel® Atom™processor E3826
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Wind River* Intelligent Device Platform XT development environment
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McAfee Embedded Control* security technology
This solution is based on open architecture, ensuring interoperability between systems, allowing for extensive application development and convenient service deployment.
Figure: Intel® Gateway Solution for IoT Software Stack
The highlight of the solution is the collaboration between Intel, McAfee, and WindRiver, which helps users solve several headaches in IoT deployment.
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Communication and Connectivity
In today’s rapidly evolving IoT era, various communication standards and technology standards operate independently. Common sensor network technologies include ZigBee, Z-Wave, RUBEE, WirelessHART, IETF6LowPAN, Wibree, etc. Of course, Intel cannot unify these standards, but through the Intel IoT gateway, a “Intel IoT Communication Protocol Standard” can be indirectly formed, as the Intelligent Device Platform XT supports both wireless and wired connections.
Users do not need to modify the protocols currently in use, including sensor communication and actuator communication protocols; they only need to interface the current IoT interfaces with the Intel IoT gateway interfaces and connect to the cloud, leaving the rest to Intel.
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Security
The Intelligent Device Platform XT supports secure images, secure data, and secure management—protecting devices and data from the boot to the operational and management phases.
Integrated with the Intel IoT Gateway solution, McAfee Embedded Control only supports authorized code execution (application whitelisting) and authorized changes (change control), effectively ensuring the integrity of the system. It also protects the integrity of embedded systems and automatically enforces software change control policies.
McAfee and WindRiver’s industry strength ensures that users can trust data security, avoiding viruses and other issues.
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Manageability
The Intelligent Device Platform XT supports long-term, secure remote manageability, simplifying the deployment, maintenance, and management of remote devices. This software supports industry-standard interfaces, including Open Management Alliance Device Management (OMA DM), Technical Report 069 (TR-069), and web-based configuration interfaces.
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Operating Environment
The Intelligent Device Platform XT supports applications written in various environments, including Lua*, Java*, and OSGi*, supporting portable, extensible, and reusable application development to meet the needs of the Intel IoT Gateway solution.
In conclusion, Intel’s IoT gateway solution is backward compatible with old systems and connects upward to the all-powerful cloud, making its role and status perfectly described as bridging.
This helps enterprises ensure that the associated data generated by devices and systems can be securely transmitted between the cloud and the edge without replacing existing infrastructure. Previously hidden data can also be utilized, which holds significant value for many enterprises and organizations:
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Maintenance personnel and operators can track the real-time operational status of various systems and optimize the systems based on parameters such as specific times and types of work.
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Managers, such as property owners and business managers, can associate data from all assets and analyze and optimize the operational costs of the systems.
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Manufacturers and service agencies can analyze real-time and trend data from the systems to optimize them, achieving higher energy efficiency, performance, and operational cycles.
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Governments and researchers can perform larger-scale analyses on seemingly different but actually related system data, linking the impacts and effects between these systems.
In the current fragmented development stage of the Internet of Things, no standard can directly achieve unification like Qin Shi Huang, but IoT gateways can, to some extent, “save the country through curves”. This article introduces what IoT gateways are and recommends Intel’s IoT gateway solution (this is the key point~)!
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