Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em
Engenharia Electrotécnica e de ComputadoresThis thesis was developed based on a scenario in which a CEO of a certain company asked the author to conduct an exploratory work evaluating the potential opportunities and limitations of this emerging area described as the future of the Internet, the Internet of Things (IoT).
The objective is thus to provide the reader with a wide view of the vital points for the implementation and exploitation of the IoT, a technology that promises to deliver a new and wider range of applications to the society.
In this subject there is a need to gather and organize information produced by several researchers and contributors. Due to the fact of being a new area and researchers work independently of each other, the work is scattered and inconsistencies can be found among different projects and publications. As such, in a first stage some definitions are provided and an attempt to clarify concepts is made.
To support and emphasize the exponential growth of IoT, a brief historical overview is provided to the reader. This overview is based on the new trends and expectations that arise every day through news, potential businesses and also in important tools such as Google Trends. Several examples of applications in the context of the IoT, illustrate the benefits, not only in terms of society, but also for business opportunities, safety, and well-being.
The main areas of interest to achieve the IoT such as: hardware, software, modeling, methods of connection, security and integration are studied in this work, in order to provide some insight into current strong and weak points.
As the Internet of Things become a matter of large interest, various research groups are active in exploring and organizing projects in this area. Some of these projects, namely the ones considered the most important, are also presented in this thesis.
Taking into account the facts surrounding this new technology, it becomes quite important to bring them together, clarifying them and trying to open new perspectives for further studies and improvements.
Finally, in order to allow a practical evaluation of the technology, a prototype is developed around the connection of an intelligent object – a small mobile robot – to the Internet.
A set of conclusions and future work directions are then presented which take into account the findings of the bibliographic analysis as well as the acquired experience with the implementation of the prototype
