Engineering connections

REMEMBER when the estimated number of connected devices in 2005 was around six billion, followed about five years later with the acronym “IoT” achieving buzzword/hype status? Now fast forward to next year, when that number is expected to skyrocket to a staggering 75 billion, or roughly nine devices per person on the planet. That’s a lot of devices — and a lot of design.

The expectations around the Internet of Things seem to rise exponentially with each new iteration of a device, platform, or communications technology. Can it be faster, smaller, and cheaper? Can it be simple to implement and integrate? Oh, and by the way, does it have bulletproof security that’s transparent to the user? Tall orders, to say the least.

One of the biggest hurdles is ensuring secure authentication and unique identification for each connected IoT device. Without that foundation of trusted communication, the whole system falls apart. And even once you’ve got that locked down, integrating all the data and devices with regular business applications and processes remains a major challenge.

Then there’s the connectivity issues — maintaining reliable, seamless wireless links for IoT gadgets, even in tough environments? That’s no easy task. On top of that, you’ve got to protect all that IoT data from cyber threats and ensure user privacy is airtight. The lack of common standards for IoT devices and protocols just compounds the compatibility and interoperability nightmares.

Many of these connected devices also have pretty weak or non-existent authentication, leaving them vulnerable to attacks. Securing the embedded software and firmware in those resourceconstrained IoT products? That’s a whole other level of complexity. Scaling up IoT systems to handle growing numbers of devices and mountains of data without performance degradation? That’s a major challenge too.

Finally, (maybe), the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is driving the mainstream adoption of IoT technology, but also introducing new design complexities that need to be addressed.

Despite these and other daunting obstacles, engineers continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible in the IoT space. As the number of connected devices skyrockets, the challenges will only become more complex. But talented minds are tackling these challenges with innovative new components and tools, while reaching for resources like this Handbook…and maybe some AI.

Aimee Kalnoskas
Editor-in-chief