[From the last episode: There is more than one type of IoTThe Internet of Things. A broad term covering many different applications where "things" are interconnected through the internet.. Principally, there is a consumer IoT (CIoTConsumer Internet of Things. IoT gadgetry designed for home and personal use.) and an industrial IoT (IIoTIndustrial Internet of Things. A broad collection of factory, automotive, agricultural, medical, and other areas where IoT technology is used.), and the latter can be further subdivided.]
The whole thing with the Industrial IoT (IIoT) is to gain obvious efficiencies. We’ll start with an example from the factory world.
Let’s say that a particular pump is getting near the end of its lifetime. We know that it will wear out someday, but which day? No one knows for sure. So you end up using it as long as possible before switching it out.
But here’s the thing: if you wait too long, then it might fail before you switch it. If you switch it too early, you might be wasting a perfectly good pump. If it fails, then you have to shut down your production line unscheduled and clean up a mess. That can end up being more expensive than the new pump itself.
All pumps cause some kind of vibration (you know that because you can hear the pump whirring). The vibration propagates through the various pipes and even wires connecting to the pump. But no two pumps make exactly the same pattern of vibration. It’s like humans and our voices: we all (with a few exceptions) have vocal cords that vibrate, but each of us has slight differences, which is what gives us individual, unique voices.
In the same way, each pump is going to have its own voice. So a solution here is to put a sensorA device that can measure something about its environment. Examples are movement, light, color, moisture, pressure, and many more. on, say, the pipe going into the pump. The sensor can transmit the vibration pattern to a computer somewhere (in the factory or in the cloudA generic phrase referring to large numbers of computers located somewhere far away and accessed over the internet. For the IoT, computing may be local, done in the same system or building, or in the cloud, with data shipped up to the cloud and then the result shipped back down.). That computer will learn the “signature” vibration of that particular pump. There’s no right or wrong at that point, just like there’s no right or wrong with our normal voice.
But when we get sick, our voices sound different because our sinuses are plugged up or because there’s stuff on our vocal cords. In the same way, if a pump’s normal voice changes, it may well signal that the pump is wearing out and is close to failing.
By knowing that, you can change out your pump not, say, at the time when the last dozen pumps failed or not overly early, but when this exact pump is about to fail. That saves all kinds of money. That’s how the Industrial IoT can help in a factory – by sensing the vibrations, communicating them to someplace local or the cloud for computing whether the vibration is normal. If not, then you can have an alert sent so maintenance can switch out the pump in an orderly fashion, before it fails.
What about other Industrial IoT sectors?
Healthcare:
With healthcare, you have the opportunity not only to be more efficient through, say, the tracking of equipment and medications, but also to do things that haven’t been possible until now. We looked briefly last time at capsules that could course through your body, sending out information in real timeThis is a term that refers to computing or other processing that happens at the same speed as something is actually happening. A familiar example might be spell-check in your word processing program. In the old days, you did a spell-check of the entire document after it was written. Modern programs do spell-check "in real time" - that is, right as you type, it's checking; no waiting until the end and doing the whole document at once. Doing something in real time is often a good thing, but it means you have to do whatever you're doing fast enough to keep up.. That capsule gives close-up, individual information from inside the patient. No more guessing from outside; no more using someone else’s experience to figure out what’s up with this particular person.
Automotive:
With self-driving cars – or even with human-driven cars equipped with advanced helpful technology – we can reduce the rate of accidents and injuries, bringing down healthcare and property replacement costs. Fully automated cars reduce costs to fleet owners like taxi and trucking companies (which also means a loss of those jobs – a whole separate consideration). More traffic can pass more quickly due to closer spacing between vehicles. And people might even stop owning cars, saving maintenance and insurance costs.
The Power Grid:
The Smart Grid is all about generating, moving, and using electric power more efficiently, with less waste and fewer black- or brown-outs. It will give grid operators more tools to keep the lights on as many places as possible. As suggested in the last blog, it could involve some compromise regarding who controls the appliances in your own home – an aspect that hasn’t been thoroughly vetted for its sociological impact and acceptability.
Agriculture:
Farmers can operate more efficiently by minimizing their inputs. Water only when and where the ground is dry; fertilize only when and where nutrients are depleted; apply pesticides more judiciously and less indiscriminately. Some machinery may be automated (another potential loss of admittedly more controversial jobs). Food can be tracked from source to store, monitoring conditions so that, say, frozen meat that has dropped below its minimum acceptable temperature while sitting in a truck can be pulled instead of sickening an unsuspecting consumer.
Aerospace; military:
Equipment – airplanes, tanks, munitions – can bristle with sensors to ensure smooth operation and to protect their human contents (military or civilian) in the event that something goes awry. We briefly mentioned the packs that soldiers carry: they’re jammed with equipment, challenging strong backs. We can make them lighter, or get more equipment for the same weight. Those soldiers can better radio their locations, communicate the locations of hazards or civilians, and position critical equipment. They can send ahead insect-sized sensors to investigate dangerous scenes in a way that a human couldn’t do, or without the risk of sending a human in. (Yes, that does have some creepy civilian implications too.)
In all of these cases, we can either save lots of money, save lives, or do things that aren’t otherwise possible. Or all three of those. For this reason, there is high motivation to deploy the Industrial IoT. Much of that has been underway for years, but there is still much more to do.
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