Kevin Ashton first coined the term Internet of Things in his presentation on automating the supply
chain processes using RFIDs. His idea of the Internet of Things (IoT) was to empower computing
devices and make the human intervention redundant. The two critical behavioral characteristics
achieved by the Internet of Things are interaction with the physical world and the possibility of
communication and analysis of the collected data to drive business processes. The term "Things"
refers to smart objects equipped with one or more sensors or actuators, a limited capacity microprocessor,
a communication device, and a power source. The sensor in the smart object is what gives
it the ability to interact with the physical world. The microprocessor enables the transformation of
the captured data from the sensors at a limited speed and complexity. The communication device
enables the smart object to communicate the sensor reading to the outside world and take input from
other smart objects. As smart objects can be placed in remote locations, constant energy supply is
not always possible, so they require battery power sources for functioning. In the last decade, the
Internet of Things has been interpreted in diverse ways and used in multiple applications ranging
from home automation, building automation, industrial IoT to the smart city.
The Internet of Things is developed based on similar technologies like the machine to machine
communication, telemetry, and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). IoT draws its closest similarity
to WSNs because both these environments focus on data gathering and communication through wireless
radios. The difference lies in the frequency and scale of data gathering and communication and
the fact that the IoT devices perform other tasks like actuating and control.
