Issue link: https://resources.mouser.com/i/1442808
6 4.0 G radually, we are getting used to waking up in a world where a tiny bedside gadget greets us in the morning, triggers the coffee maker to start brewing according to our preset preferences, and by communicating with our smart wristband even announces how well we slept the previous night. These everyday conveniences are a result of multiple technologies converging to make the Internet of Things (IoT) a household terminology. However, these conveniences get magnified by several degrees into serious cost-savings and new business opportunities when applied on a large scale in enterprise and factory environments. According to a study by analyst firm Aberdeen Research, unplanned downtime can cost a company as much as $260,000 (USD) an hour. When machines in the factory floor become capable of communicating their temperature and efficiency levels, an impending snag can be predicted and remedied before the machine goes down, thus saving thousands of dollars. This example is one of the many use cases of the Industrial IoT (IIoT) that justifies it as a "killer application" for industrial use. Given the massive stature of its benefits, the IIoT is also dubbed as the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" and often tied with Industry 4.0. However, while the Industry 4.0 is focused mainly on the manufacturing sector, the IIoT is much more pervasive and applicable across industry verticals such as transportation, energy, manufacturing, oil and gas, healthcare, building automation, and others. From Automation to Autonomy Since the early 1990s, industries have seen and benefitted from the technologies empowering industrial automation. Originally, industrial control systems, supervisory control and data acquisitions (SCADAs), and programmable logic controllers had been central to the design of automated control and supervisory industrial gears. However, in the past decade, the effect of Moore's Law has drastically improved electronics design, enabling low-cost, low- power miniature sensors and actuators. Industrial equipment, such as turbines and oil pumps, generate valuable operational data when equipped with various sensors (like those for temperature, pressure, acceleration, location, and other measurable elements). Advances in wireless and Internet connectivity now allow for secure transport of sensor data to computational platforms for analytics. The combined effect of these technologies has created an inflection point to design closed-loop systems that can act upon this machine data―that is, near the source―in real-time. The IIoT is thus leading the industrial evolution from automation to autonomous decisions and real-time actions. Enabling Technologies Enhance Industrial IoT Applications By Sravani Bhattacharjee for Mouser Electronics Significant advances are occurring in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) as more enabling technologies converge. How are these enabling technologies shaping IIoT applications such as deep learning, neural networks, cobots, and digital twins? How will they fuel the IIoT into the future?