IoT Application In Health Care
Before the Internet of Things, patients’ interactions with doctors were limited to visits and tele and text communications. There was no way doctors or hospitals could monitor patients’ health continuously and make recommendations accordingly.
Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled devices have made remote monitoring in the healthcare sector possible, unleashing the potential to keep patients safe and healthy and empowering physicians to deliver superlative care. It has also increased patient engagement and satisfaction as interactions with doctors have become easier and more efficient. Furthermore, remote monitoring of patients' health helps reduce the length of hospital stay and prevents re-admissions. IoT also has a major impact on reducing healthcare costs significantly and improving treatment outcomes.
IoT is undoubtedly transforming the healthcare industry by redefining the space of devices and people interaction in delivering healthcare solutions. IoT has applications in healthcare that benefit patients, families, physicians, hospitals, and insurance companies.
IoT for Patients - Devices in the form of wearables like fitness bands and other wirelessly connected devices like blood pressure and heart rate monitoring cuffs, glucometer, etc., give patients access to personalized attention. These devices can be tuned to remind calorie count, exercise check, appointments, blood pressure variations, and much more.
IoT has changed people’s lives, especially elderly patients, by enabling constant tracking of health conditions. This has a major impact on people living alone and their families. On any disturbance or changes in the routine activities of a person, the alert mechanism sends signals to family members and concerned health providers.
IoT for Physicians - By using wearables and other home monitoring equipment embedded with IoT, physicians can keep track of patients’ health more effectively. They can track patients’ adherence to treatment plans or any need for immediate medical attention. IoT enables healthcare professionals to be more watchful and connect with the patients proactively. Data collected from IoT devices can help physicians identify the best treatment process for patients and reach the expected outcomes.
IoT for Hospitals - Apart from monitoring patients’ health, there are many other areas where IoT devices are beneficial in hospitals. IoT devices tagged with sensors are used for tracking the real-time location of medical equipment like wheelchairs, defibrillators, nebulizers, oxygen pumps, and other monitoring equipment. Deployment of the medical staff at different locations can also be analyzed in real-time.
The spread of infections is a major concern for patients in hospitals. IoT-enabled hygiene monitoring devices help in preventing patients from getting infected. IoT devices also help in asset management like pharmacy inventory control and environmental monitoring, for instance, checking refrigerator temperature and humidity and temperature control.
IoT for Health Insurance Companies – There are numerous opportunities for health insurers with IoT-connected intelligent devices. Insurance companies can leverage data captured through health monitoring devices for their underwriting and claims operations. This data will enable them to detect fraud claims and identify prospects for underwriting. IoT devices bring transparency between insurers and customers in the underwriting, pricing, handling of claims, and risk assessment processes. In the light of IoT-captured data-driven decisions in all operation processes, customers will have adequate visibility into underlying thoughts behind every decision made and process outcomes.
Insurers may offer incentives to their customers for using and sharing health data generated by IoT devices. They can reward customers for using IoT devices to keep track of their routine activities and adherence to treatment plans and precautionary health measures. IoT devices can also enable insurance companies to validate claims through the data captured by these devices. This will help insurers to reduce claims significantly.
Redefining Healthcare
The proliferation of healthcare-specific IoT products opens up immense opportunities. And the huge amount of data generated by these connected devices hold the potential to transform healthcare.
IoT has a four-step architecture that is basically staged in a process (See Figure 1). All four stages are connected so that data is captured or processed at one stage and yields the value to the next stage. Integrated values in the process bring intuitions and deliver dynamic business prospects.
Step 1: The first step consists of deploying interconnected devices that include sensors, actuators, monitors, detectors, camera systems, etc. These devices collect the data.
Step 2: Usually, data received from sensors and other devices are in analog form, which needs to be aggregated and converted to digital form for further data processing.
Step 3: Once the data is digitized and aggregated, this is pre-processed, standardized and moved to the data center or Cloud.
Step 4: Final data is managed and analyzed at the required level. Advanced Analytics, applied to this data, brings actionable business insights for effective decision-making.
IoT is redefining healthcare by ensuring better care, improved treatment outcomes and reduced costs for patients, and better processes and workflows, improved performance, and patient experience for healthcare providers.
Figure 1: The four stages of IoT solutions
The major advantages of IoT in healthcare include:
- Cost Reduction: IoT enables patient monitoring in real-time, thus significantly cutting down unnecessary visits to doctors, hospital stays and re-admissions
- Improved Treatment: It enables physicians to make evidence-based informed decisions and brings absolute transparency
- Faster Disease Diagnosis: Continuous patient monitoring and real-time data helps in diagnosing diseases at an early stage or even before the disease develops based on symptoms
- Proactive Treatment: Continuous health monitoring opens the doors for providing proactive medical treatment
- Drugs and Equipment Management: Management of drugs and medical equipment is a major challenge in the healthcare industry. Through connected devices, these are managed and utilized efficiently with reduced costs.
- Error Reduction: Data generated through IoT devices not only help in effective decision making but also ensure smooth healthcare operations with reduced errors, waste, and system costs
Healthcare IoT is not without challenges. IoT-enabled connected devices capture huge amounts of data, including sensitive information, giving rise to concerns about data security.
Implementing apt security measures is crucial. IoT explores new dimensions of patient care through real-time health monitoring and access to patients’ health data. This data is a goldmine for healthcare stakeholders to improve patient’s health and experiences while making revenue opportunities and improving healthcare operations. Being prepared to harness this digital power would prove to be the differentiator in the increasingly connected world.
IoT Applications for Precision Agriculture
Remote Management System for Grain Dryers
Nebraska Engineering Company (NECO) is a global company that specializes in manufacturing agricultural equipment such as high-value grain dryers, grain handling, and aeration equipment for agricultural customers. Their customers are grain farmers who require high-reliability grain dryers for successful operations. These grain producers need efficient solutions for handling, conditioning, drying, and storing grains.
A grain dryer may only run for two months or even two weeks out of the year, but it's a critical part of operations. Our customers absolutely cannot afford grain dryer downtime, said Travis To line, NECO Engineering Manager. They need the capability to know the grain dryer status at all times. At the same time, our customers can't afford to have someone at the dryer at all times to ensure it is doing what it is supposed to do.
If a grain dryer goes down, operations can come to a complete halt.
NECOs solution is a remote management system that supports effective grain drying operations. The system incorporates a Digi ConnectPort® X4 Gateway, which collects live data from a NECO Commander PLC Dryer Control and sends it to Digi Remote Manager built on Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2. Digi Remote Manager then passes the information to NECOs custom web application, COMMAND net.
This system enables farmers, dealers, and NECO personnel to review the data and take appropriate action from any mobile device, wherever they may be. They can also receive alerts based on any condition parameters they choose to set.
Finally, NECO dealers and staff can support customers with remote troubleshooting. Whereas in the past, NECO technicians often had to get on a plane and visit the customer sites to solve problems, find and address issues from their own headquarters, and install updates as needed.
IoT Solutions for Irrigation and Water Management
CropX
CropX, the world's most advanced irrigation software service, is focused on helping farmers reduce water consumption and energy costs and increase crop yields. They are also motivated to make a positive impact on water conservation. Using algorithms based on pattern recognition analysis, the CropXs system delivers the exact amount of water needed to each part of the field.
Instead of watering evenly, the CropX system algorithms thoroughly analyze the field, soil structure, and condition to determine where water is needed. The service saves 10-20% of the water used in irrigation of large fields.
This all happens in the cloud, said Isaac Bent wich, CropX CEO. We needed an easy and secure way to get data from the ground to the cloud and into our application. Digi International offered everything from the Digi XBee® DigiMesh® 2.4 radios to a Digi ConnectPort® X4 gateway with Digi Remote Manager built-in. The end-to-end solution made our decision easy and our path to getting our solution to market faster than we ever imagined.
The Digi gateway curates the data and sends it over a secure connection to Digi Remote Manager. Digi Remote Manager then sends actionable information to CropXs smartphone and web application.
WiseConn
Wisconsin is a California-based company that develops efficient water management solutions. Their flagship product, DropControl, helps farmers maximize their harvest and optimize their irrigation use by precisely monitoring soil moisture, wells, valves, weather stations, and other water systems.
Built using a mesh network of Digi XBee-PRO 900HP radios, the system captures data from low-power sensors deployed state and then transmits it to the farmer's control station. This effectively enables the farmer to see the status of their systems and make adjustments, regardless of their location across the farm.
DropControl consists of a wireless network for monitoring and control as well as a centralized web application. The network nodes are connected to sensors and actuators for monitoring weather conditions, soil moisture, and historical irrigation data. They also provide the connectivity needed to activate, deactivate, and calibrate the irrigation systems pumps, valves, and other components. The nodes communicate to send information to the central DropControl Gateway, which connects the network with a web server.
With 1,500 sites and 300 business operations in Peru, Chile, and California, DropControl is helping many farmers achieve better yields and improve the quality of their crops. At the same time, they can save up to 30 percent on their water consumption and reduce greenhouse gases after installing the DropControl irrigation system.
Related white paper: The Wireless Future: Partnering for What Comes Next
IoT Solution for Field Monitoring in Agriculture
Ranch Systems is a California-based firm devoted to helping orchard and vineyard farmers to protect crops against the range of environmental conditions they may encounter, from temperature changes to wind, sun exposure, and drought. Because the effects of these conditions can be dire, farmers must continually monitor their fields to ensure they adjust irrigation and fertilizer to optimize the quality and yield of their crops.
They found that grape farmers in the Napa and Sonoma valleys had few tools for monitoring fields and taking measures to control the effects of crop conditions. While many had tried various approaches, they had given up on them because they were isolated, difficult systems to use and maintain.
Fruits like grapes mature according to a heat scale, making it essential to know the heat accumulation through the year," said Jacob Christfort, Ranch Systems founder. "And the plants must be irrigated within a very narrow band as you balance between yield and quality.
The growers needed a centralized solution to monitor and orchestrate fertilizing and irrigation.
Ranch Systems resulting solution was Ranch Master, a management platform for tracking and managing six agricultural factors: weather and climate, soil moisture, irrigation, tank/pond monitoring, remote cameras, and alerting. The solution incorporates sensors and controllers with wireless connectivity, Wi-Fi, and cellular utilizing the Digi XBee PRO radio module.
Ranch Master supports RF line-of-sight ranges covering most farm sites and is designed to monitor conditions and instruct the farm's equipment to apply water and fertilizer, open and close tanks and valves, control pumps and engines, and send alerts to notify growers of dangerous conditions.
IoT Application in Smart Manufacturing
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and its usage is exponentially increasing in manufacturing environments. In industry 4.0, the goal of the manufacturing companies is to increase their value and reduce wastage with the use of technology. Manufacturers are constantly focusing on collecting reliable and integrated data, which will help them to make informed decisions. Manufacturing companies investing in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) are doing so to achieve a competitive advantage with an increase in production, control over costs, and data analysis, which will help them address problems in a timely fashion and ultimately drive process improvement.
Manufacturers can focus on enhancing growth opportunities by using modern technologies, which will enable them to respond to the dynamic market conditions appropriately. In IIoT, business models are based on connectivity and collaboration within various processes such as belt timing, raw material input volume, packaging capacity, and others. This leads to higher success, and the analysis of data generated provides insights that help make better business decisions.
IIoT helps in boosting productivity, efficiency, and safety in the workplace. With data-based predictive maintenance, engineers can easily spot any problem in the production line, such as abnormal motors, tank levels, pipe temperatures, or faulty connections, which help engineers avoid downtime and help avoid injuries.
Globally, as the manufacturing industry is going through a transformation, let’s understand how the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is revolutionizing manufacturing.
Few key benefits of IIoT are:
Predictive Maintenance – Undoubtedly, maintenance is expensive and time-consuming. A single breakdown of machinery can hamper the entire system by bringing production to a complete halt, leading to delays in final delivery or loss of perishable raw materials. With IoT, machines can be inspected, and you can fix technical problems before any breakdown occurs. This helps to save many maintenance costs, and you can always plan well ahead regarding maintenance shutdowns.
Cost Optimization – The automated factories have become more and more productive due to the reliable, low-cost, and connected sensors. With IIoT, the machines have features to self-diagnose and repair themselves (in certain limited cases). This helps save costs by avoiding higher payout of fixed machinery on the go and planning and managing the uptime of machines only when required.
Digitalization – Industrial Internet of Things and Smart Manufacturing helps machines across production lines to connect and transfer data from one to another. In the manufacturing industry, IIoT connects assets to systems, processes, and people. It helps to achieve higher productivity, integration of operational processes, and fewer errors. For example, e.g., When one machine starts to work at a higher rate for reasons such as increased raw material inputs, it will send a signal input to all the machines across the production line to start working at a higher rate. This avoids the process of manually increasing the speed of machines across the production line. All these and more such benefits help take manufacturing efficiency to the next level. Integrating all these aspects of IIoT helps in a streamlined, automated, and smart manufacturing process.
Predictive Analytics – Predictive analytics helps address the complexity in the manufacturing industry and automatically deliver the required business information to improve overall product quality. It also helps to transform asset maintenance processes before any breakdown occurs.
Flexibility – The manufacturers have a greater advantage to install, configure, and control manufacturing applications from a centralized location. For example, manufacturing operations can be controlled from anywhere through internet connections. Before this, only giant industrial enterprises could perform this, but now, with the advent of IoT, any manufacturer can use it irrespective of budget and size.
IoT Applications in Smart Cities
Key Drivers for IoT Applications in Smart Cities
There are several reasons for municipalities to move to the wireless communications methods offered by IoT technologies.
- Cost is a key driver in converting from wired solutions to wireless, as it is massively expensive to install and maintain landlines. Additionally, the costs of cellular data plans are dropping, and the robustness and throughput of wireless communications are enabling new use cases that would previously have been cost-prohibitive.
- Efficiency is another important impetus. Service personnel must physically go to the installation site to audit and service the communications infrastructure in most wired solutions. These "truck rolls" are expensive and inefficient since they typically occur on a schedule whether or not a problem exists. By contrast, wireless communications enable remote monitoring and management of IoT deployments. This enables administrators to perform firmware updates and security patches across the entire deployment and get automated notifications in the event of any issues.
- Resource reduction is often a driver, particularly in use cases such as smart street lighting and monitoring assets. These IoT applications make it possible to use sensors to gather data and wireless modules to control resource use, resulting in a dramatic reduction in energy use.
Examples of IoT Applications for Smart Cities
This industry is growing so rapidly that it is difficult to capture the breadth of applications in this industry. In fact, "smart cities" could be considered a collection of industries that includes city lighting, city transit, wastewater management, emergency services, traffic management, and more. In fact, new IoT smart city projects are likely to emerge as the available technologies become more widely adopted and more targeted at the requirements of specific use cases. We will cover city lighting, public transportation, and water management.
City Lighting Applications
Lighting is one of the most prevalent IoT applications for smart cities, and many municipalities today are turning to wireless communications for cost savings and energy reduction.
Digi Remote Manager®, a centralized software platform with a graphical user interface.
The solution incorporates the ruggedized Digi WR44R enterprise-class router, which provides connectivity and data routing for multiple device nodes on the Smart Pole. The result is a comprehensive application supporting multiple uses:
- LED lighting controls
- Surveillance cameras
- Environmental sensors
- Electronic billboards
- Charging stations
- Wi-Fi coverage
See more smart city lighting applications in our city lighting customer stories.
City Transit Applications
Transit systems are another rapidly growing segment for smart city IoT applications. Transit agencies and smart cities realize enormous benefits in cost reduction, safety, routing management, and improved rider experience. Many municipalities saw ridership dropping in recent years; many are experiencing renewed growth with improved visibility into the bus and light rail routing and passenger Wi-Fi connectivity.
For an excellent example, we turn to SMART, the Suburban Mobility Authority for Rapid Transit Authority, which operates a fleet of more than 330 biodiesel and hybrid-electric buses across Michigans Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne Counties. The IoT solution deployed by the SMART transit system includes a range of features, which are enabled by the Digi WR44 R industrial router:
- Upgraded Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) system, with two-way communications between the vehicles and SMARTs dispatch center. This upgrade involved moving from an outdated analog network to cellular communication with voice over IP (VoIP).
- Onboard communications and passenger Wi-Fi, with priority access managed by
- Secure fare collection and mobile ticketing via the WR44 Rs stateful firewall, IPSec VPN, network segmentation, and authentication.
- Network and system monitoring and maintenance, including mass updates and fleet monitoring, via Digi Remote Manager®.These enhancements help transit employees, dispatchers, and riders to experience more reliable connectivity and improved communications. Additionally, with the increase in eco-friendly vehicles, smart cities can achieve air quality. This goal and reduced congestion are further enhanced with improved ridership and fewer city residents jumping into a car each time they need to travel across town.
What Is The Role of IoT In Home Automation?
How can IoT Be Used In Home Automation?
It controls, monitors, and transforms information to other devices without person-to-person and person-to-computer interaction. It enables specific actions to be automatically activated whenever particular circumstances occur.
For example, a bedroom lamp glows automatically when a person enters. Lights of the particular area in the home can be programmed to switch on/off automatically.
It reduces manual efforts, and IoT home automation mobile applications can make it more effortless.
How does an IoT-based Home Automation System Works?
The modern home has automated through the internet, and your home appliances are controlling every day. The user commands over the internet will be obtained by the Wi-Fi modems. A Microcontroller inside the modem has an interface. The system status displays through the LCD, along with the system data. It is a standard IoT-based Home Automation system for managing all your home appliances.
Which Are The IoT Applications For Home Automation?
Here are some applications of IoT home automation that will bring ease to human life, and they can segment the time for other areas.
- Smart Lights part of Home Automation
The lights part of home automation can make turning on/off and adjusting the luminous brightness manageable. Moreover, it can respond to sensitive actions. Set an example for it; if you’re watching television and show it requires darkness around, the lights will be turned off and give you a beautiful experience in your surroundings. Turn off lights automatically each morning when children leave for the academy.
- Smart Doors
Automated doors are operating using IoT applications. Using a sensor of your mobile and the settled program for the house entrance, parking/garage door, and security door can become a smart door using a smart device and face detection application.
Smart doors using IoT can add-on features to sync home lights on and off; alternatively, a person gets in and out of the home.
For example, a smart gate of the car parking garage will sense a person entering the residence area and notify the user to respond. It automatically opens and closes the garage shade.
How Can IoT Help In Smart Water Meter Management?
Role Of IoT & ML In Traffic Monitoring & Management
- Smart home appliances
Life can be simplified using smart home appliances that are highly programmed and operated through the internet and required applications.
A microwave can operate to preheat the food to a particular degree. Smart Alarms can be set up to wake up, and explicit warnings can wake up children with loud music. A vehicle thoroughly diagnoses for lacking parts. It will notify you of service requirements.
- IoT and touch-based home automation
Each home appliance can manage from a single finger touch using IoT based home automation mobile application. Diverse home appliances we are in contact with frequently, like lighting, electronics, devices in the house.
A house is full of appliances that can interconnect with the internet and required devices that operate by the IoT mobile app. A dream home complete with full automatic home appliances can make out with smart home project requirements.
Entertainment stuff like music can be smart in the master room, study room, library, sitting area, balcony area everywhere a dedicated keypad can place, and connect it with an IoT music app to arrange music to choices for each area.
- Smart TV can operate by IoT Apps.
Television is part of the home and entertains residents. Hence, people are in a hectic schedule for work and want technical support from technology like IoT, which makes sense to express like reality. When you plan to watch a movie after the play starts, the lights will dim thoroughly along with the sound system activates. A remote can find when the light switches on and it beeps.
- Routine activities can manage using IoT apps.
Alerts and notifications can help a user to manage their routine accurately. A user receives a mail notification for what he should do at a particular time. Also, a user receives a reminder from the appliances or whomever things are in connection with the IoT app. For instance – an automatic text alert for a broken pipe leaking in the bathroom. The user received a text alert when they left a garage shade open or semi-open. A notification can program to remove trash mails once a week or twice in a week if trash is full of letters. If you have switched on your oven for preheating, you will notice when the oven preheats at a fixed temperature.
- Secure your home using IoT apps
Don’t worry! Home security is the most crucial for everyone. However, the Smart Home Security app will make your home secure even if you’re out of the house, city, or country.
Users can access security video feed remotely using a smartphone from anywhere in the world. A house security camera reacts towards motion, and it detects unauthenticated respond from outsiders will notify you by text.
A user can set the lights of the house to illuminate 100% when a security violation happens. An automatic lock is done after three minutes if a homeowner left home and forgot to lock the main door.
IoT Application In Automotive
With an annual production of more than 70 million units, the automobile sector is one of the biggest manufacturing industries in the world. According to an international estimate, the global turnover of the automobile industry in 2017 was an astonishing 3 trillion dollars, amounting to a combined global GDP of 3.65%.
Yearly car sales have been wavering between the range of 75 to 80 million units for the past four years. However, the total number of annual sales in automotive units is somewhat fixed since 2016. One of the reasons the automotive industry is unable to make a breakthrough in its annual production and sales record is the lack of innovative features in vehicles. Buyers nowadays look for more than 4 tires and a steering wheel in a car. They seek a futuristic vehicle with which they can connect and interact. Internet of Things is one such disruptive technology that is helping the automobile sector to build a batch of next-generation vehicles.
The advent of IoT in the automotive industry has opened new avenues for carmakers and buyers worldwide. With usage at both industrial and commercial levels, IoT in the automotive sector has become a prominent hotspot for variegated multi-purpose applications. The IoT applications have made a deep dent in the global automotive market, from connected cars to automated transport systems.
What is the Internet of Things?
Internet of Things refers to billions of complex devices like electronics, sensors, gateways, actuators, and platform hubs. These tangible devices connect and interact with each other over a wireless network. Connected objects (or things) share data and operate without any intervention by humans.
The potential of IoT can be estimated from a study by Gartner that forecasts connectivity of more than 20 billion IoT devices by the end of the year 2020. A large implementation of IoT was first witnessed in manufacturing companies to execute autonomy and reduce production costs. Later its applications turned towards more commercial and general usage.
Nevertheless, the possibilities that the internet of things brings for the automobile industry are really immense. Different Automotive IoT use cases have popped up that are revolutionizing the way people interact with their vehicles. Let’s explore them one by one:
5 Staggering IoT use cases in Automotive Sector:
1. Fleet Management:
The implementation of IoT in the automotive sector has brought in a huge development in fleet management. Trucks nowadays are integrated with weight measurement, location tracking, and several other sensors.
The volume of sensory data gathered from a large fleet of such trucks is stored in a cloud application. This data is then processed through different analytics features and conceptualized into a visual format. A fleet operator can easily go through this information to monitor different parameters associated with its fleet. Some of the benefits that an IoT infused fleet management system offer to a fleet manager are:
- Real-time location monitoring of the fleet
- Weight/Volume tracking of cargo that the fleet is carrying
- Trucks’ performance statistics like fuel and mileage
- Tracking traffic conditions on the road
- Route management
- Time and Driver management
2. Connected Cars:
The idea of connected cars is not new. In fact, according to an estimation by Gartner, there will be more than 250 million connected cars in the world by the end of the year 2020. These cars are connected over an IoT network called CV2X (cellular vehicle to everything) that connects vehicles and smart transport systems.
Connected cars facilitate the fast transmission of data and increase drivers’ response time through enhanced vehicle communication. Based on the vehicle’s connection with different objects, the CV2X is sub-divided into four categories:
- Vehicle to vehicle (V2V): V2V connection allows vehicles in a proximate range to share data. The data mainly constitutes information related to location, speed, and dynamics. V2V connection helps prevent accidents and allows emergency vehicles like ambulances and fire trucks to move through traffic easily.
- Vehicle to infrastructure (V2I): V2I connection refers to a network of vehicles and road infrastructures. The infrastructure in V2I generally constitutes traffic lights, lane markings, and toll booths. V2I generally facilitates smooth traffic flow and avoids long queues at toll booths or petrol pumps.
- Vehicle to pedestrians (V2P): Through a mobile application, a pedestrian can also connect with the CV2X network. A pedestrian can use this application to locate nearby taxis and monitor the estimated arrival time for transits. They can also connect with the pedestrian walking system and change traffic signals to cross a road.
- Vehicle to the network (V2N): Intelligent Transport System (ITM) and weather forecast department can also connect with the network to alert the drivers about changes in weather conditions or an accident on the road. Moreover, a vehicle can be connected with smartphones. This way, the driver can use voice commands to operate the music system and GPS of the car while driving.
3. Automotive Maintenance System:
Predictive analytics is one of the most startling features of IoT automotive. The sensors embedded in different components of a car collect data and share it to a platform. This data is then processed by an algorithm that can analyze the future outcomes of the component based on its performance.
IoT automotive maintenance system also helps a person to take necessary steps to prevent car parts from sudden breakdown. Just like dashboard indicators of a vehicle, this system alerts the driver about probable malfunctions. However, the alerts are sent to the driver’s mobile way before the problem even occurs. This helps the driver to make cost-effective and time-saving steps to avoid component failure while driving.
The capabilities of predictive maintenance can be implemented to an individual vehicle as well as to a fleet. It is beneficial for load-carrying vehicles that travel for days before reaching their destination. By using the automotive maintenance system, a person can confirm its vehicle's performance and repair its car parts before they break.
4. Autonomous Vehicles:
Autonomous vehicles are a hot topic among automobile makers. Various car manufacturers are developing a fully autonomous car that will assume all driving functions from the driver. Even though developments have been made in this area, a fully independent vehicle will still be developed.
However, semi-autonomous vehicles have been manufactured that partially assist drivers with driving, braking, parking, and lane-changing activities. IoT infused semi-autonomous cars take on-spot decisions while partly controlling the vehicle operations to avoid accidents and reduce the load from the driver. Along with different proximity sensors and cameras, cars are integrated with IoT systems to reduce human error and make driving more comfortable and safe.
5. In-vehicle Infotainment and Telematics:
In-car Wi-Fi Capabilities powered by a 4G LTE connection have enabled telematics features to IoT-based automotive. Telematics refers to the long transmission of computerized data. Using vehicular telematics, a car owner can keep an eagle eye view of his vehicle even remotely.
Through a smartphone-enabled dashboard, car owners can be ensured about its security, surveillance, and safety at all times. External sensors and cameras keep track of the vehicles’ condition and send the data to a mobile application. The Telematics system, along with a real-time alert system, sounds an alarm in the owner’s smartphone if someone tries to enter the vehicle without proper access forcefully. The smart car enabled with IoT also calls concerned authorities immediately, like ambulances or firefighters in an emergency.
Wi-Fi capabilities have also given rise to smart infotainment systems along with other smart car features. Currently, there are various in-built and third-party applications that a person can use to connect his vehicle with mobile. The owners can connect different equipment like music systems and GPS in a car with their smartphone and operate them distantly.
Voice command accessibility in these applications allows a person to play their favorite music, stream a video, or attend calls without even lifting a finger. The GPS and GNSS system in the infotainment systems also offers onboard navigation and comprehensive information about nearby petrol pumps, restaurants, and other points of interest.
Conclusion
Internet of Things, along with other disruptive technologies, is revolutionizing the complete automotive industry. Evolution in this field has brought in trailblazing development in automobiles in terms of connected and automated cars. Its usage has revamped car inspection and maintenance capabilities and presented new mediums of entertainment. Moreover, vehicular telematics allows long-range data transmission that has helped in the emergence of an IoT-powered fleet management system.
IoT applications in the automotive industry are increasing day by day. With the enhancement in the Internet of Things technology, more refined automobile use cases will pop up that will completely change how we interact with our vehicles.
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