The presence of embedded devices in IoT ensures real-time monitoring, control, and automation of processes. They also form the core basis for IoT devices to interface with the physical world. In simple terms, embedded systems are the fundamental concept of IoT. Otherwise, there are no “things” within the IoT.
Importance of Embedded Devices in IoT:
Data Collection:
Embedded sensors in IoT are responsible for measuring real-world readings or parameters, such as heart rate, light intensity, humidity, temperature, and more. These devices are capable of continuously gathering information from the specific environment sources surrounding them in the real world. For example, a smart thermostat can collect readings of the surrounding temperature, enabling it to make adjustments accordingly.
With the help of embedded devices, IoT can interact with the environment, or else IoT on their own cannot interact.
Local Processing
Another important aspect of embedded devices in IoT is that they can process data locally rather than sending everything to the cloud. Such a facility enables the IoT device to respond quickly while minimizing bandwidth usage. The process of processing the data locally instead of sending it to a remote server is commonly known as edge computing.
For example, a security camera, along with embedded AI, identifies all faces and motions but only uploads the necessary footage.
Real-Time Control:
The embedded systems’ ability to sense data and act instantly in a time frame of milliseconds makes them applicable across environments that demand reliable and timely operations. As such, embedded devices in IoT are important for ensuring real-time control.
Embedded systems’ ability to control actuators or other associated systems in real time favors them across control and automation. Their role is essential, especially for delivering immediate responses across environments where changes are critical.
Some application areas of embedded systems in IoT for achieving real-time control are as follows,
Embedded devices are widely used across the industrial automation sector for controlling robotic arms with millisecond precision.
Likewise, embedded devices ensure the smooth operation of smart vehicles as they react precisely in real-time while steering or applying breaks.
Benefits include enhancing user experiences as they react swiftly and perform better, making them ideal choices for critical applications, and ensuring high stability with reliability.
Connectivity:
It is important for embedded devices in IoT to connect with other cloud platforms, systems, and devices to facilitate communication and data transmission and reception. Embedded devices are capable of transmitting and receiving data from one device to another, either with a wired or wireless connection. It is possible because they contain built-in communication modules such as LoRa, Zigbee, BLE, Wi-Fi, and more for connecting with other cloud systems or devices. Some of the popular communication technologies include Wi-Fi for ensuring short-range and high-speed communication. Likewise, Bluetooth for short-range and low-power connectivity is widely applicable across smart homes and wearables.
Zigbee or Z-Wave with mesh networks is common across home automation devices. LoRa or NB-IoT with low power and low range are ideal devices for embedding into remote sensors. Ethernet is a more reliable wired connection that is most useful across industrial applications. Cellular (3G/4G/5G) find applications across mobile or widely distributed equipment.
Importance of Connectivity:
Connectivity is crucial for several reasons; primarily, it facilitates real-time monitoring, allowing devices to send live data to control systems or dashboards. Also in remote control, data aggregation, and interoperability.
While remote control enables users to adjust the device’s behavior from anywhere, data aggregation facilitates decision-making and centralized analytics. Interoperability ensures devices to work together by communicating with one another. For example, an agriculture sensor uses LoRa to send data to the cloud about moisture levels in the soil.
As such, connectivity plays an important role in various ways, including the ability to seamlessly integrate with the IoT ecosystem, ensuring scalability across both global and local networks, and providing continuous alerts while maintaining continuous data availability.
In summary, embedded devices in IoT act as an intelligent link in connecting digital devices with the physical world. Their communication, processing, and sensing capabilities enable them to develop smart and innovative services, systems, and environments.