Green Internet of Things (IoT): A Detailed Overview

Energy consumption  has risen to alarming levels over the last decade due to massive digital adoption in 2020.

 

By 2021, the number of linked devices will reach 60 billion, increasing to 100 billion by 2030. As a result, experts anticipate a phenomenal data rate and a massive content size at the cost of unprecedented carbon emissions into the environment.

 

As a result of these massive (CO2) emissions, environmental and health issues, renewable and green technologies are becoming an increasingly attractive research topic in the evolution of technology. 

 

Additionally, current gadget battery technology is a severe challenge, contributing to green technology. 

 

 The five energy-efficient technologies will enable future 5G networks to consume less energy and minimize (CO2) emissions. 

 

( Also Read: Top 10 Internet of Things (IoT) Examples )

 

 

Kevin Ashton came up with the term "Internet of Things" in 1998 during a presentation in which he stated, "The Internet of Things can revolutionize the world, just as the Internet did." Perhaps even more so". 

 

 The Internet of Things (IoT ) has been hailed as one of the most endearing technologies of the last decade. It enables the connection of people and things anywhere, anytime, with anybody and everything, via any link or service. 

 

It provides a framework for sensors and gadgets to communicate fluidly inside an intelligent environment, enabling enhanced and competent services to humans.

 

In general, IoT technology consists of four major components:

 

1. Internet: To enable communication between everything at any time and from any location. It includes cloud computing, intelligent web services, and intellectual property for intelligent products.

2. Hardware: Communication hardware incorporated in devices such as sensors, tags, actuators, and transceivers.

3. Middleware: Used to store data, perform computations, and provide context-awareness.

4. Presentation: To comprehend tools for visualizing and interpreting data across several platforms and applications.

 

( Must Read: Understanding the Concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) )

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Key Technologies of IoT

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IoT is used for various reasons, including data management, data analytics, visualization, heterogeneous network management, application development, and research.

 

It is evident that the verticals are changing due to the IoT, and it is easy to see why this is the next technology revolution. However, IoT research is still in its infancy. 

 

Numerous critical challenges remain to be addressed, including concerns about battery life, technology simplicity, data and context awareness, privacy and security, multiple active things and interference-free connectivity, terminal device cost, scalability, and heterogeneous terminal devices.

 

The Internet Of Things (IoT) is an ecosystem that includes a network for data transport and big data analytics  and Cloud Computing to deliver intelligence. It enables the recognition of behaviours and even explaining actions based on data collected by intelligent objects located throughout growing smarter cities without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.

 

In the IoT ecosystem data collected from Smarter Cities is integrated into Cloud Computing. The cloud computing system is in charge of centralizing the data collected by each sensor and item. Additionally, it enables them to connect and communicate via the establishment of a ubiquitous network.

 

Additionally, the cloud enables the integration of Big Data analysis to understand human dynamics patterns. Finally, human dynamic design provides the tools and feedback mechanisms necessary to motivate behaviour change.

 

(Must Check:  What is IoT? - Learn everything about the Internet of Things)

 

 

Green IoT

 

Green Economy , Green Marketing and well Green IoT are just an expansion of the already existing core concepts. In the tech based era Green IoT presents an environment savvy approach. 

 

The Internet of Things (IoT) encompasses the significant projected expansion of in-network utilization and node count. As a result, it is necessary to lower the resources required to implement all network parts and their energy.

 

Energy consumption is becoming state-of-the-art to ensure the reliability of the Internet of Things and the deployment of an intelligent world. The IoT must be energy efficient to mitigate the greenhouse impact and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from sensors, devices, apps, and services to achieve a sustainable, innovative world.

 

 Green design, green manufacturing, green utilization, and lastly, green disposal are some new words popping up in the IoT realm. 

 

( Must Read: 8 Applications of IoT in Daily Life )

 

Watch this video to learn more about more about Green IoT. 

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Key Technologies of Green IoT 

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Technologies for Green Internet of Things (IoT)

 

Several green technologies, such as green RFID tags, green sensor networks, and green cloud computing networks, are a part of Green IoT.

 

A green wireless sensor network (WSN) is a critical component of enabling green IoT. A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a collection of many sensor nodes that share limited power and storage capacity.

 

 Following are the advantages of a green WSN:- 

 

• Charges and utilizes renewable energy sources.  

• Optimize energy use using energy-efficient strategies.

• Reduce data size and hence storage capacity by utilizing data and context-aware algorithms. 

• Reduce mobility power usage by utilizing energy-efficient routing approaches.

 

Hardware and software considerations should be made for green internet technologies, where hardware solutions provide devices that consume less energy without sacrificing performance.

 

On the other side, software solutions provide energy-efficient designs that maximize resource consumption. Additionally, energy-efficient virtual machine approaches should be used.

 

Smart cities, intelligent energy and grid systems, intelligent infrastructure, intelligent factories, intelligent medical systems, and intelligent logistics are part of IoT infrastructure. 

 

( Also Read: What is a Smart City? )

 

 

Green IoT and Beyond with 5G 

 

 

The IoT ecosystem has accelerated in recent years as a result of information technology trends such as cloud computing and edge cloud, artificial intelligence, and security assurance. 

 

The rapid rise of mobile internet and the advent of IoT provide significant connection difficulties.

 

5G has the potential to be a critical enabler of connection for the Internet of everything; also, this socioeconomic megatrend incorporates reconfigurable design for 5G networks, enabling Internet of Things and mobile broadband communications. 

 

In this context, the fundamental concept of green technology is that IoT-enabled 5G techniques combined with energy harvesting techniques for communication reduce energy usage without reducing service quality.

 

However, 5G has its own set of issues in terms of security, automation, and administration activities required to supply essential IoT solutions. As with 4G-LTE, 5G requires more energy to propagate, making low-power techniques critical for IoT device connectivity. 

 

Similarly, implementing green IoT with 5G introduces additional hurdles in terms of efficiently transporting massive amounts of data.

 

Green IoT aims to create a greener, smarter world, and energy harvesting lays the groundwork for a greener, 5G-enabled IoT ecosystem. The purpose of this special issue is to bring together cutting-edge research on these critical areas of 5G-enabled green IoT systems for a smart future.

( Related blog: 7 Applications of IoT in Defence and Military )

 

 

Green IoT and Future of the economy

 

The Internet of Things (IoT) revolution fuels innovation in every field of science and human life by providing anytime, anywhere access to information in novel ways and contexts and by connecting people, processes, data, and things, as well as places, organizations, and facilities, in unprecedented ways.

 

Despite the various benefits of the Internet of Things (IoT)  the manufacturing, distribution, and use of IoT products and systems are resource and energy intensive, resulting in growing volumes of solid and hazardous waste.

 

To mitigate the possible detrimental impact of technological advancement on people and the environment, it is required to successfully address issues such as increased energy consumption, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the consumption of natural and non-renewable raw materials. Clean energy is the future. 

 

This is why we should strive for a greener future in which technology, IoT, and economy are all replaced by green technology, green IoT, and green economy, respectively, which implies a whole world of potentially remarkable improvements in human well-being and thus contributes to a sustainable smart world.

 

It has been demonstrated that the Green IoT has the potential to transform and deliver numerous benefits (among which are environmental protection, increased customer satisfaction, and increased profit) in a variety of sectors by leveraging digital technologies , approaches and solutions while also eliminating or mitigating negative impacts on human health and the environment.

 

(Related Blog: 8 Applications of IoT in Daily Life )

 

 

Challenges and Future Research Direction

 

Although significant research efforts are being made to develop green IoT technologies, green IoT technology is still in infancy. 

 

• Applications should be environmentally friendly to have a minimal impact on the environment.

• Reliability of green IoT models for energy usage.

• Context-awareness using an energy-efficient Internet of Things technology. 

• Both the devices and the protocols used to communicate should be energy efficient, consuming less power.

• Decreased complexity of green IoT infrastructure.

• The trade-off between dynamic spectrum sensing efficiency and spectrum management efficiency.

• Energy-efficient IoT mechanisms such as wind, sun, vibration, and thermal make IoT viable.

• Efficient cloud management in terms of electricity use.

• Security mechanisms that are effective, such as encryption and control commands

 

( Must read: IoT in Mining Industry - Examples, Advantages and Drawbacks )

 

 

Conclusion



Green IoT is the future, especially in times when the world is striking out new ways to tackle climate change; this new realm presents multiple opportunities to industries. Industry 4.0 and the future of the economy ; will be shaped by Green IoT.