This article was first published in the November 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
This article was taken from the preview of The WIRED World in 2016. In November, WIRED publishes its fourth annual trends report, a standalone magazine in which our network of expert writers and influencers predicts what's coming next. Here's a small selection of what to expect.
We have moved beyond the fridge. In the 90s, when the idea of an internet of things (IoT) was first tabled, we were promised that by the turn of the 21st century we would all have refrigerators connected to the internet in our homes. These would be able to tell us when we needed more milk, eggs or cheese and would automatically order them for us. Despite this promise, we are yet to see our fridges do the shopping. We are now more likely to see the IoT associated with the machine that manufactures our fridge, rather than the fridge itself, with a new trend called the industrial internet of things (IIoT).
The ubiquitous availability of bandwidth, computational capacity and near-infinite amounts of storage at our fingertips through the cloud has been key to driving the IIoT. In the past year, we have started to get a glimpse of what is possible through the pursuit of a more efficient gas turbine, real-time fleet maintenance of trucks and oil and gas. The IIoT is, for me, even more exciting than the connected fridge. It is already changing how we design and interact with machinery.
Many of the changes brought about by the IIoT have been subtle, but we can point to many examples where this trend is changing the world around us. Philips CityTouch is one example. CityTouch is an intelligent light-management system for street lighting. It allows entire suburbs and cities to actively control their streetlights in real time. This allows local councils to keep certain streets well lit to accommodate high foot traffic, turn on lighting during adverse weather when ambient light dims to a dangerous level, or even turn lighting down where there are no people around - in an industrial estate, for example. They are also able to change the colour of lights, which can help direct foot and automobile traffic, for example, allowing people to follow the green lights so they can safely get from the football stadium to the train station.
This technology has been possible because CityTouch is using the cloud as the back end that runs the system, extracting business value from data collected from sensors installed in the lights. The rise of the IIoT would not be possible without the cloud. Just consider that the UK has more than 5.6 million street lights alone -- if each were to produce even a small amount of data each day, it would mean a vast amount of information to process, store and manage. The cloud is able to keep up with this rapid growth and help to create new business models. When a street lamp is not only a source of light but also a thermometer, barometer and traffic sensor, the possibilities for this network of devices increases.
Fossil-fuel companies are also using IIoT strategies to manage and gather data from operations in remote, often dangerous, environments to make better decisions on where to prospect for resources. Shell is using data from sensors in its wells to increase oil and gas output. Each sensor generates about a petabyte of data. Shell is estimated to own more than 10,000 oil wells. Managing and analysing this amount of data would have been unthinkable a few years ago, even to industries such as oil and gas, which are used to dealing with large datasets. Now, with the constant flow of intelligence from the sensors in its wells, combined with increased computer power courtesy of the cloud, invasive drilling becomes a last option. Researchers and engineers can spend more time on looking for the right oil fields and less time on drilling for resources that may not be there.
Another sector where we are seeing the rise of IIoT is utilities. The best example of this is the work General Electric is doing. It is one of the world's largest manufacturers of turbines and generates 30 per cent of the world's electricity. It is also using hundreds of sensors and advanced analytics to make its fleet of gas turbines run more efficiently. General Electric estimates that improving productivity by just one per cent could drive hundreds of billions of dollars in savings.
In manufacturing, the IIoT is delivering real-time conditions on the factory floor, making it possible to not only optimise production and eliminate waste but uncover new business opportunities. Tata Motors, one of the largest manufacturers of commercial vehicles, is putting sensors into its trucks and has built a service model, giving owners of large fleets of trucks a better insight into how their vehicles are running, how they are being used and to predict and prevent potential breakdowns.
The sensors in the trucks can be used to monitor driver behaviour, which can be used by insurance companies to help set premiums.
These examples are just a glimpse of the IIoT's potential. We will begin to see new kinds of sensors, with new kinds of workloads. We are beginning to see video cameras being used as a sensor for IIoT workloads. A video camera is no longer just a simple recording device, but a complex sensor that can monitor a vast number of data points at once. In a vehicle this could be a camera pointed at the wheel taking in data on the wear of the tyres, brake pads and disc rotors while at the same time monitoring the car's wheel alignment, suspension and handling. In the traditional IIoT model this would require a sensor on each of these components, but with the video camera as the sensor, all of this data could be ingested and analysed in near real time to help with the ride of the car or preventative maintenance.
Many innovations in IIoT are yet to be realised and the results of all of this will impact consumers' day-to-day lives in ways we can't imagine. Does this mean we will never have connected fridges? I don't think so, but what we have seen is that the explosion in IoT applications has taken a different path to the one we expected.
The IIoT will change how we design machinery and the systems built on them, from manufacturing plants to airports. As such, we will have a more intimate understanding of these systems to be able to achieve higher reliability and efficiency. These changes will certainly affect how we live and interact with our environment.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
