Sound space industry regulation matters for the 4th Industrial Revolution

摘要

The 4th Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0, is underway. The first industrial revolution involved machines powered by steam and water, the second began with the harnessing of electricity, the third was launched with advent of computers and supercomputing, and now the fourth encompasses the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communications, 3D printing, Big Data analytics, autonomous robots, life science developments, and more. What role is there for space and satellite industries in Industry 4.0? Plenty. Take IoT. IoT refers to connected devices that can transmit data with no human assistance or intervention and each such device has a unique identifier that makes it recognizable. IoT devices are broken into five categories: consumer (e.g. home appliances). commercial (e.g. vehicle to vehicle communication), industrial (e.g. precision agriculture), infrastructure (e.g. sensors for smart cities initiatives) and military.