Real-Time Sensor Networks and Systems for the Industrial IoT: What Next?

摘要

The Industrial Internet of Things (Industrial IoT—IIoT) is the emerging core backbone construct for the various cyber-physical systems constituting one of the principal dimensions of the 4th Industrial Revolution. While initially born as a concept inside specific industrial applications of the generic IoT technologies, for the optimization of the operational efficiency in automation and control, it quickly became the vehicle for the achievement of the total convergence of Operational Technologies (OT) with Information Technologies (IT). Today, it is already breaking the traditional borders of automation and control functions in the process and manufacturing industry, towards a wider domain of functions and industries, embraced under the dominant, global initiatives and architectural frameworks of Industry 4.0 (or Industrie 4.0) in Germany, Industrial Internet in the US, Society 5.0 in Japan, and Made-in-China 2025 in China. As real-time embedded systems are quickly achieving ubiquity in people’s everyday life and in industrial environments, and many processes already depend on real-time cyber-physical systems and embedded sensors, IoT integration with cognitive computing and real-time data exchanges is essential for real-time analytics and realization of digital twins in smart environments and services under the various frameworks’ provisions [1,2]. In this context, real-time sensor networks and systems for the Industrial IoT encompass multiple technologies and raise significant design, optimization, integration, and exploitation challenges.