Summary: The Importance Of Sensors

THE IMPORTANCE OF SENSORS IN IOT APPLICATIONS

Sani Theo

In the last issue, we talked about the latest sensors and their applications. In this article we will focus on sensors that are used in Internet of Things (IoTs). When you talked about IoT applications, sensors and IoT platforms are very important. So, this article also covers a brief detail on IoT platforms.

Sensor is often the first thing people think of when you talk about IoT. It is because sensor hardware is doing the critical work of monitoring the processes, taking the measurements, collecting the data and transmitting the data. So, one of the most important parts in IoT setup is the sensors.

The Internet of Things (IoT) market is booming and the major components which will have

It is clearly evident from the IoT architecture as shown in Fig.1 that the bottom layer of the architecture consists of sensor connectivity and network which collects information. The bottom layer is an essential part of an IoT system and is responsible for collecting raw information to the users. This layer also has the network connectivity to the next layer which is the gateway and network layer.

The main purpose of sensors are to collect data from the surrounding and environment.

Sensors or in other words “Things” of the system form the front end of the IoT systems. Sensors are connected directly or indirectly to IoT networks after signal conversion and processing. But every sensor is not the same and different IoT applications require a specific type of sensor. For instances, if the sensors are digital, it is straight forward and easy to interface with microcontroller using Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) bus. But if the sensors are analogue, either analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) or Sigma-Delta modulator is used to convert the data to the SPI output. We take a look at some common but different sensors and their

Temperature sensors. These devices measured the amount of heat energy generated from an object or surrounding area. These sensors find application in airconditioners, refrigerators and similar devices used for environmental control. They are also used in manufacturing processes, agriculture and health industry. These devices can be used almost in every IoT environment, from manufacturing to agricultural. In manufacturing, the sensors can used to monitor the temperature of a machine. In agriculture, sensors can be used to monitor the temperature of soil, water and plants. These sensors include thermocouples, thermistors, resistor temperature detectors (RTDs) and integrated circuits (ICs). Some common types of temperature sensors are shown in