Category Archives: Nano Network

IoT Platform – MainFlux

Description

  • It is on premise and cloud (or hybrid) based IoT Platform that provides:
  1. Device management
  2. Data aggregation and data management
  3. Connectivity and message routing
  4. Event management
  5. User Interface
  6. Core analytics
  • It is developed by considering following three main entities:
  1. Users : These are real users who can access and manage resources (CRUD).
  2. Things : These are devices & applications part of the IoT solution.
  3. Channels : These are communication channels to exchange messages.
  • It uses *NATS as a main messaging system.
  • It can be run on gateway as well as on cloud at the same time. It provides below services to deploy on gateway for having communication with MainFlux on cloud.
  1. Agents: It is a service to manage a gateway that is connected to MainFlux on cloud. It allows you to send commands to the gateway and receive responses.
  2. Export: It is a service that allows sending messages from one MainFlux cloud to another. It also allows sending messages from the gateway to MainFlux cloud.
  • MainFlux provides following major functionalities:
  1. Provisioning: It is a configuration of IoT Platform for creating & setting-up different entities (users, channels & things).
  2. Messaging: Publishing messages from things to channels using protocols (HTTP/MQTT/CoAP/WebSocket)
  3. Storage: Supporting multiple databases (CassandraDB/MongoDB/InfluxDB/PostgreSQL) to store messages.
  4. Security: Establishes secure connections when users or things are communicating with other entities proper certificates are required to set.
  5. Authentication: Using keys or TLS mutual authentication.
  6. Authorization: Setting policies to control permissions for users, things and channels. Mainflux uses *Ory Keto server.
  7. Group based authentication: Allows group based authentication for users & things.
  8. Bootstrap: Supports self restarting process based on conditions set. Devices can trigger bootstrapping if conditions are matched.
  9. Tracing: Supports for generating profiling and monitoring applications as well as helps in debugging. Mainflux uses the *Jaeger tracing framework. It also uses Grafana, Prometheus and OpenTracing for instrumentation purposes.
  10. Twin Services: Supports digital twins functionality.
  11. Benchmarking: To generate large traffic & measure performance third party tool MZBench is used.
  12. Container-based deployment using Docker and Kubernetes.

MainFlux architecture contains following services mentioned in table 1.0

ServiceDescription
usersThis service provides APIs to Manages users by allowing following major activities: New Account Registration Obtaining access tokens and verify them
thingsThis service provides APIs to manage resources (things & channels) by allowing following activities: Provision new things Create new channels Connect things and channels
http-adapterThis service provides APIs to send messages.
mqtt-adapterThis service provides MQTT APIs to send messages.
coap-adapterThis service provides CoAP APIs to send messages.
opcua-adapterThis service provides OPCUA APIs to exchange data. This sits between Mainflux IoT System & OPC-US server.
lora-adapterThis service provides Lora APIs to exchange data. This sits between Mainflux IoT System & OPC-US server. It uses MQTT protocols.
mainflux-cliThis service provides APIs for command line interface. Cli makes it easy to manage users, things, channels and messages.
Table 1.0

*NATS : It is an open source messaging system. It provides servers and also has client libraries (multiple languages) for interacting with servers. It is scalable and high in performance. It is also used in cloud based solutions.

*OPCUA(OPC Unified Architecture) is an open standard to exchange data from sensors to cloud applications. It is cross platform.

*Ory Keto is a permission and authorization server.

*Jaeger tracing system is an open-source tracing system for microservices

Is it open source?

Yes

https://github.com/mainflux/mainflux

Supported Messaging & Security protocols

  • HTTP/HTTPS
  • MQTT
  • WebSocket
  • CoAP
  • TLS

Supported Networks

  • BLE
  • Ethernet (eth0)
  • LoRaWAN

Supported technologies & tools

  • Docker
  • Kubernetes
  • Swagger

Supported Languages

  • Go
  • *Protobuf (Protocol Buffers)

*Protobuf : It is a mechanism that allows us to serialize and de-serialize data. It is language & platform neutral so that different programs written in different languages on different platforms can send & receive data without writing additional code. It has its own compiler and specification.

Supported Databases

  • CassandraDB
  • MongoDB
  • InfluxDB
  • PostgreSQL

Supported OS

Supports all major OS

Domains where it is used and can be used

Applicable in all domains where IoT solution can be implemented.

IoT Platform – OpenRemote

Description

  • OpenRemote IoT platforms enables connecting various network connected assets/entities/things to mobile and Web application.
  • OpenRemote platform architecture is split among following 6 major categories of IoT Solutions:
  1. Frontend
  2. Services (Manager)
  3. Agents
  4. Security
  5. Edge Gateway
  6. Console

Below table describes solutions provided by OpenRemote for above mentioned categories:

IoT Solution CategoriesFeatures/Tools provided by OpenRemote
FrontendFrontend simplifies creation and development of user interfaces that includes:
– Web Components & Templates for developing
browser based application & administration tool.
– Smartphone Apps for both Android & iOS

It also has some dedicated/pre-built frontend applications like:
– Multi tenancy based monitoring dashboard
– Home automation/Smart City based control panel
– Mapping all assets on map using asset model.
Services (Manager)Manager provides APIs of services or *headless applications to monitor & administrate the system. It provides following services:
– Asset management service
– State & Historical Data service
– Rules Engine
– Event Processing Engine
– Messaging Service
– Streaming Service

It provides APIs for following technologies:
– REST based HTTP APIs
– Websocket event based APIs
– MQTT event or protocol based APIs

Rules engines allows to write and understand the rules written using:
– Groovy
– JavaScript
– JSON
AgentsIt links the external devices or services with OpenRemote system. Agents supports proprietary and open standard protocols. It contains following two major components:
– Device Management
– Protocols Adapter
SecurityIt provides pre-integrated Keycloak based Identity & access management security that includes:
– Authentication (multi tenants authentication),
Single sign-on etc and also supports OAuth
authentication.
– Authorization
– Identity Management
Edge Gateway– It is a OpenRemote manager that connects to central
OpeRemote manager using Websocket API with proper
authentication mechanism.
– It also supports Keycloak identity management
solution.
– Edge Gateway has very limited hardware.
ConsoleIt is native mobile applications those are used by OpenRemote Web Component.
Table 1.0

* Headless Application functions without frontend or it exposes APIs.

Is it open source?

Yes

https://github.com/openremote/openremote

Supported Messaging & Security protocols

  • HTTP
  • *KNX (Konnex)
  • MQTT
  • *Simulator
  • *SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol)
  • Serial
  • TCP
  • UDP
  • SSL
  • TLS

Note:

*KNX is OSI-based network communications protocol that is primarily designed and developed for building & home automation. And it is managed by the KNX Association.

*Simulator: It simulates a connection to an external services so that development can be done without the availability of actual

*SNMP manages & monitors of devices connected in network.

Supported Networks

  • Bluetooth Mesh
  • Z-Wave
  • LoRa etc.

Supported technologies

  • Websocket
  • Velbus( A home automation system)
  • Docker
  • NodeJS
  • REST

Supported Languages

  • Java
  • TypeScript
  • Groovy
  • CSS
  • Swift
  • Kotlin

Supported Databases

  • PostgreSQL with GIS and JSON extension

Supported OS

  • Supports all major operating systems

Domains where it is used and can be used

  • Energy Management
  • Asset Management
  • Smart City & Mobility

IoT Platform – Kaa

Description

  • It is an IoT Platform which is available in following forms:
  1. In-premise solution (Anyone can use it for their specialized or customized solution)
  2. Cloud based solution (Kaa provides Platform as a service solution – PaaS for their customization solution)
  • Below are the two major characteristics of Kaa architecture:
  1. Modular Architecture
  2. *Microservice Architecture

This type of architecture offers below benefits:

  1. Scalability
  2. Extensibility
  • This platform offers below features:
FeatureDescription
Device management– Digital twining and records of such devices
– Filtering & Grouping of devices
– Accessing credentials and metadata of devices
CommunicationEstablishing communication between Device & Gateway to address below requirements:
– Authentication & Authorization
– Data exchange
– Multiplexing
Data collectionCollection & Storage of below types of data and automatic remote transmission (telemetry)
– Time Series
– Device Logs
– Alerts
Configuration managementDevice and overall system configuration data in small & large scale deployment
Command invocationSending on demand or time based commands remotely.
Data analyticsQuerying mechanism to analyze & visualize the data.
Software updatesContinuous software up-gradation
VisualizationWeb interfaces for below requirements:
– Data Visualization
– Device Management
– Platform Administration
Also provides customizable dashboard
*Multi-tenancySupport for accessing solution by multiple tenants
InfrastructureManaging and monitoring clustering operations
Table 1.0

*Microservice architecture enables split a large solution into separate small multiple services where each service is responsible for specific functionality.

*Multi-tenancy is an architecture where a single instance of software is used by multiple tenants (group of users). Multi-tenancy architecture is different from multi-instances architecture.

Is it open source?

Yes, but cloud solution is subscription based.

https://github.com/kaaproject/kaa

Supported Messaging & Security protocols

  • MQTT
  • HTTPS
  • TLS

Supported Networks

  • Sigfox, LoRa, NB-IoT, …),Near Field (WiFi, BLE, Z-Wave, …) Cellular (2G/3G/4G/…)
  • Wired (Ethernet)

Supported technologies

  • NodeJS, REST API, WebSockets
  • Business tools like SAP, Salesforce, etc

Supported Languages

  • Java, Go, and TypeScript (NodeJS),
  • Platform users implement their compatible and integrated microservices also in Python, Rust, Scala, etc.

Supported Databases

  • Databases like Cassandra, MongoDB, InfluxDB, and others.

Supported OS

  • All major OS are supported.

Industries where it is used and can be used

  • Automotive
  • Agriculture
  • Healthcare
  • Logistics
  • Telecom
  • Wearables
  • Consumer Electronics
  • Renewable Energy etcs.

IoT- Basics of Nano-network

  1. What is nano-machine?

If device size is measured in a few nano-meters or a few micrometers is called nano-machine.

2. What is nano-network?

A set of interconnected nano-machines is called nano-network.

3. What are the basic tasks performed by nano-network?

It Performs below tasks:

  • Sensing
  • Actuation
  • Computing
  • Storing

4. What are the areas where nono-network is used?

  • Military
  • Biomedical
  • Industry
  • Environmental Research etc

5. What types of communication technologies are used in nano-networks?

  • Molecules based data transmission & reception
  • Electromagnetic radiation based data transmission & reception

6. What types of frequencies are used in nano-network?

It works in tera-hertz frequencies. The frequency range is from 0.1 THz to 100 Thz.