IoT Building Blocks | A Basic Overview

The Internet of Things refers to the devices, sensors, and machines that are connected to a network via the Internet. It has four building blocks- sensors, processors, gateways, and applications. Let's understand these building blocks briefly-

• Sensors

It converts nonelectrical input into an electrical signal. It is of two types active and passive sensors. Active sensors emit and use their own energy. They collect real-time data through this emitted energy. The examples of active sensors are GPS, X-rays, radars, etc. Passive sensors use energy from external sources like cameras to differentiate themselves by position, motion, velocity, acceleration, force, pressure, flow, humidity, light, radiation, temperature, and occupation.

• Processors

This is the main part of the IoT system. Hence this is also called the brain of the IoT system. It processes raw data captured by sensors to extract information useful for us. The examples of processors are microcontrollers and microcomputers.

• Gateways

This is the combination of hardware and software used to connect one network to another. It is responsible for bridging sensor nodes with the external Internet or World Wide Web (WWW).

• Applications

It provides a user interface. It also provides the effective utilization of the data collected.

Now let's understand IoT software which is also a building block of IoT. IoT software is a set of programs that facilitates the data collection, processing, storage, and evaluation instructions. These are based on the processed data from the IoT Software. Some examples of IoT software are operating systems, firmware, applications, and middleware.

Some of the functions of IoT software are

• Data Collection: it includes all the data collection aspects of sensing the data, filtering it, measuring it, aggregating it, and in the end managing 2/ the security of the collected data.

• Device Integration: with IoT software, all components within the IoT system are integrated. It manages all the limitations, protocols, and applications of the IoT ecosystem.