Domain Specific IoT Applications

1) Home Automation:

a) Smart Lighting: helps in saving energy by adapting the lighting to the ambient
conditions and switching on/off or diming the light when needed.

b) Smart Appliances: make the management easier and also provide status information to
the users remotely.
c) Intrusion Detection: use security cameras and sensors(PIR sensors and door sensors to
detect intrusion and raise alerts. Alerts can be in the form of SMS or email sent to the user.

d) Smoke/Gas Detectors: Smoke detectors are installed in homes and buildings to detect
smoke that is typically an early sign of fire. Alerts raised by smoke detectors can be in the
form of signals to a fire alarm system. Gas detectors can detect the presence of harmful
gases such as CO, LPG etc.
2) Cities:

a) Smart Parking: make the search for parking space easier and convenient for drivers.
Smart parking are powered by IoT systems that detect the no. of empty parking slots and
send information over internet to smart application back ends.

b) Smart Lighting: for roads, parks and buildings can help in saving energy.
c) Smart Roads: Equipped with sensors can provide information on driving condition,
travel time estimating and alert in case of poor driving conditions, traffic condition and
accidents.

d) Structural Health Monitoring: uses a network of sensors to monitor the vibration

levels in the structures such as bridges and buildings.

e) Surveillance: The video feeds from surveillance cameras can be aggregated in cloud
based scalable storage solution.
f) Emergency Response: IoT systems for fire detection, gas and water leakage
detection can help in generating alerts and minimizing their effects on the critical
Infrastructures.

3) Environment:
a) Weather Monitoring: Systems collect data from a no. of sensors attached and send
the data to cloud based applications and storage back ends. The data collected in cloud
can then be analyzed and visualized by cloud based applications.
b) Air Pollution Monitoring: System can monitor emission of harmful gases(CO2,
CO, NO, NO2 etc.,) by factories and automobiles using gaseous and meteorological
sensors. The collected data can be analyzed to make informed decisions on pollutions
control approaches.

c) Noise Pollution Monitoring: Due to growing urban development, noise levels in

cities have increased and even become alarmingly high in some cities. IoT based noise
pollution monitoring systems use a no. of noise monitoring systems that are deployed at
different places in a city. The data on noise levels from the station is collected on
servers or in the cloud. The collected data is then aggregated to generate noise maps.

d) Forest Fire Detection: Forest fire can cause damage to natural resources, property
and human life. Early detection of forest fire can help in minimizing damage.
 e) River Flood Detection: River floods can cause damage to natural and human
resources and human life. Early warnings of floods can be given by monitoring the
water level and flow rate. IoT based river flood monitoring system uses a no. of sensor
nodes that monitor the water level and flow rate sensors.

4) Energy:
a) Smart Grids: is a data communication network integrated with the electrical grids
that collects and analyze data captured in near-real-time about power transmission,
distribution and consumption. Smart grid technology provides predictive information
and recommendations to utilities, their suppliers, and their customers on how best to
manage power. By using IoT based sensing and measurement technologies, the health
of equipment and integrity of the grid can be evaluated.
b) Renewable Energy Systems: IoT based systems integrated with the transformers at
the point of interconnection measure the electrical variables and how much power is fed
into the grid. For wind energy systems, closed-loop controls can be used to regulate the
voltage at point of interconnection which coordinate wind turbine outputs and provides
power support.

c) Prognostics: In systems such as power grids, real-time information is collected using

specialized electrical sensors called Phasor Measurement Units(PMUs) at the
substations. The information received from PMUs must be monitored in real-time for
estimating the state of the system and for predicting failures.
5) Retail:

a) Inventory Management: IoT systems enable remote monitoring of inventory using

data collected by RFID readers.

b) Smart Payments: Solutions such as contact-less payments powered by technologies

such as Near Field Communication (NFC) and Bluetooth.
c) Smart Vending Machines: Sensors in smart vending machines monitors its
operations and send the data to cloud which can be used for predictive maintenance.

6) Logistics:

a) Route generation & scheduling: IoT based system backed by cloud can provide
first response to the route generation queries and can be scaled upto serve a large
transportation network.
b) Fleet Tracking: Use GPS to track locations of vehicles in real-time.

c) Shipment Monitoring: IoT based shipment monitoring systems use sensors such as
temp, humidity, to monitor the conditions and send data to cloud, where it can be
analyzed to detect food spoilage.
d) Remote Vehicle Diagnostics: Systems use on-board
board IoT devices for collecting data
on Vehicle operaions (speed, RPMetc.,) and status of various vehicle subsystems.

7) Agriculture:

a) Smart Irrigation: to determine moisture amount in soil.

b) Green House Control: To improve productivity green house is an artificial field
that can be grown inside buildings or on the roof tops. It is a controlled environment in
which several types of sensors are fixed to gather data about the soil, environment and
other parameters. The data from the green house is aggregated at a local gateway and
sent to the server via Internet. The data at the server is analyzed and appropriate alerts
are sent to the owner of the green house. This process is illustrated in the figure below.

8) Industry:

a) Machine diagnosis and prognosis The machines used in the industry can be fixed
with sensors. The data from the sensors can be used to diagnose the machines. We can
know if the machine is working up to the expected performance or not. The data
analysis will also let the owner of the machine know when the life of machine will be
over.
b) Indoor Air Quality Monitoring The quality of air for the working personnel inside
the industry is also important. Often time’s leakage of dangerous gases leads to the
death of industry personnel. Sensors can be fixed at different location to monitor the
working environment for any leakage of hazardous gases and notify the appropriate
personnel to deal with it.

9) Health and LifeStyle:

a) Health & Fitness Monitoring With the advent of IoT remote healthcare has become
an viable option for attending to patients. There is no need for patient to visit hospital
for every minor health problem. The doctor can attend to such patients from a remote
location. Different sensors can be fixed on near the patient to monitor the health vitals
of that patient. The data sent by the sensors is monitored by the doctor and appropriate
decisions are made.
b) Wearable Electronics

Now-a-days there are different types of wearable available in the market to monitor
health and lifestyles. Some examples of such wearable are smart watches, smart glasses,
smart patches, smart garments, etc., as shown in the below figure.