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SMART OBJECTS
Smart objects are any physical objects that contain embedded technology to sense and/or
interact with their environment in a meaningful way by being interconnected and enabling
communication among themselves or an external agent.
Some of the fundamental building blocks of IoT networks are

 Sensors
 Actuators
 Smart Objects

Sensors:
 A sensor does exactly as its name indicates: It senses.
 A sensor measures some physical quantity and converts that measurement reading into
a digital representation.
 That digital representation is typically passed to another device for transformation into
useful data that can be consumed by intelligent devices or humans.
 Sensors are not limited to human-like sensory data.
 They are able to provide an extremely wide spectrum of rich and diverse measurement
data with far greater precision than human senses.
 Sensors provide superhuman sensory capabilities.
 Sensors can be readily embedded in any physical objects that are easily connected to
the Internet by wired or wireless networks, they can interpret their environment and
make intelligent decisions.
Sensors have been grouped into different categories

 Active or passive: Sensors can be categorized based on whether they produce an energy
output and typically require an external power supply (active) or whether they simply
receive energy and typically require no external power supply (passive).

 Invasive or non-invasive: Sensors can be categorized based on whether a sensor is part of

the environment it is measuring (invasive) or external to it (non-invasive).

 Contact or no-contact: Sensors can be categorized based on whether they require physical
contact with what they are measuring (contact) or not (no-contact).

 Absolute or relative: Sensors can be categorized based on whether they measure on an

absolute scale (absolute) or based on a difference with a fixed or variable reference value
(relative).

 Area of application: Sensors can be categorized based on the specific industry or vertical
where they are being used.

 How sensors measure: Sensors can be categorized based on the physical mechanism used
to measure sensory input (for example, thermoelectric, electrochemical, piezoresistive,
optic, electric, fluid mechanic, photoelastic).

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 What sensors measure: Sensors can be categorized based on their applications or what
physical variables they measure.
The physical phenomenon a sensor is measuring is shown in Table-2.1

VTUPulse.com
 A fascinating use case to highlight the power of sensors and IoT is in the area of precision
agriculture (sometimes referred to as smart farming), which uses a variety of technical
advances to improve the efficiency, sustainability, and profitability of traditional farming
practices.
 This includes the use of GPS and satellite aerial imagery for determining field viability;
robots for high-precision planting, harvesting, irrigation, and so on; and real-time analytics
and artificial intelligence to predict optimal crop yield, weather impacts, and soil quality.
Different types of sensors in a smart phone is shown in figure 2.1

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Figure 2.1: Sensors in a smart phone

Actuators:
 Actuators are natural complements to sensors.
 Figure 2.2 demonstrates the symmetry and complementary nature of these two types of
devices.
 Sensors are designed to sense and measure practically any measurable variable in the
physical world.
 They convert their measurements (typically analog) into electric signals or digital
representations that can be consumed by an intelligent agent (a device or a human).
 Actuators, on the others hand, receive some type of control signal (commonly an
electric signal or digital command) that triggers a physical effect, usually some type of
motion, force, and so on.

Figure 2.2 : How Sensors and Actuators Interact with the Physical World
Much like sensors, actuators also vary greatly in function, size, design, and so on. Some
common ways that they can be classified include the following:

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 Type of motion: Actuators can be classified based on the type of motion they
produce (for example, linear, rotary, one/two/three-axes).
 Power: Actuators can be classified based on their power output (for example, high
power, low power, micro power)
 Binary or continuous: Actuators can be classified based on the number of stable-
state outputs.
 Area of application: Actuators can be classified based on the specific industry or
vertical where they are used.
 Type of energy: Actuators can be classified based on their energy type.

Different types of Actuators are presented in Table -2.2

 Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS referred to as micro-machines, can integrate

and combine electric and mechanical elements, such as sensors and actuators, on a very
small (millimeter or less) scale.
 The combination of tiny size, low cost, and the ability to mass produce makes MEMS an
attractive option for a huge number of IoT applications.
Ex: Inkjet printers use micropump MEMS. Smart phones also use MEMS technologies for
things like accelerometers and gyroscopes

Smart Objects
Smart objects are, quite simply, the building blocks of IoT. They are what transform everyday
objects into a network of intelligent objects that are able to learn from and interact with their
environment in a meaningful way. A smart object, is a device that has, at a minimum, the
following four defining characteristics
 Processing Unit: A smart object has some type of processing unit for acquiring data,
processing and analyzing sensing information received by the sensor(s), coordinating
control signals to any actuators, and controlling a variety of functions on the smart
object, including the communication and power systems.
 Sensor(s) and /or actuator(s): A smart object is capable of interacting with the
physical world through sensors and actuators. A smart object does not need to contain

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both sensors and actuators. In fact, a smart object can contain one or multiple sensors
and/or actuators, depending upon the application.
 Communication Device: The communication unit is responsible for connecting a
smart object with other smart objects and the outside world (via the network).
Communication devices for smart objects can be either wired or wireless.
 Power Source: Smart objects have components that need to be powered. Interestingly,
the most significant power consumption usually comes from the communication unit
of a smart object.
Trends in Smart Objects:
The broad generalizations and trends impacting IoT are
 Size is decreasing: Some smart objects are so small they are not even visible to the
naked eye. This reduced size makes smart objects easier to embed in everyday objects.
 Power consumption is decreasing: The different hardware components of a smart
object continually consume less power. Some battery-powered sensors last 10 or more
years without battery replacement.
 Processing power is increasing: Processors are continually getting more powerful and
smaller.
 Communication capabilities are improving: It’s no big surprise that wireless speeds
are continually increasing, but they are also increasing in range. IoT is driving the
development of more and more specialized communication protocols covering a greater
diversity of use cases and environments.
 Communication is being increasingly standardized: There is a strong push in the
industry to develop open standards for IoT communication protocols. In addition, there
are more and more open source efforts to advance IoT

Sensor Networks:
 A sensor/actuator network (SANET), as the name suggests, is a network of sensors that
sense and measure their environment and/or actuators that act on their environment.
 The sensors and/or actuators in a SANET are capable of communicating and
cooperating in a productive manner.
 SANETs offer highly coordinated sensing and actuation capabilities.
 Smart homes are a type of SANET that display this coordination between distributed
sensors and actuators.
 For example, smart homes can have temperature sensors that are strategically
networked with heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) actuators. When a
sensor detects a specified temperature, this can trigger an actuator to take action and
heat or cool the home as needed.
The following are some advantages and disadvantages that a wireless-based solution offers:
Advantages:
 Greater deployment flexibility (especially in extreme environments or hard-to-reach
places)
 Simpler scaling to a large number of nodes
 Lower implementation costs
 Easier long-term maintenance
 Effortless introduction of new sensor/actuator nodes
 Better equipped to handle dynamic/rapid topology changes

Disadvantages:
 Potentially less secure (for example, hijacked access points)