GREEN TOMORROW WITH INTERNET OF THINGS

FB6706 Executive Discovery and Network -- Ir Dr the Hon LO Wai Kwok, BBS, MH, JP (Oct 28, 2014) (Group 3) DENG, Zheruning HE, Ye LEUNG, Chi Kin NOGOVITSYN, Dmitry WONG, Cypress

GREEN TOMORROW WITH INTERNET OF THINGS

WHAT IS INTERNET OF THINGS? …………….….... 1-3

WHY DO WE NEED IOT/G-IOT? …………...….. 4-5

HOW CAN IOT ACHIEVE A GREENER TORMORROW? …………………..……...….. 6-9

CHALLENGES OF G-IOT? ………………………….….. 10-11

CONCLUSION ………………………….….. 12

GREEN Internet of Things (G-IoT)?
What can be popping up in your mind when you hear the term “Internet of Things (IoT)”? refers to the Machine-to-Machine Technology, the Industrial Internet, Internet of Everything, and probably a few other phrases. Kevin Ashton first came up with Internet of Things in The idea simply

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1998, which involved wireless communications and networking; and the concept has been attracting extensive attention recently. IoT does go beyond machine-to-machine communications (M2M) and covers a variety of protocols, domains, and applications[1]. It is different with human-to-human or human-to-machine interaction. The interconnection of these

embedded devices (including smart objects), is expected to conduct in automation in nearly all fields, while also enabling advanced applications like a Smart Grid[2]. The Honorable Sir Charles Kuen Kao, was born in 1933, known as the “Father of Fiber Optics Communications”, was jointly awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for “groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication.”[3]

Simply put, IoT is a network of physical objects (i.e. refrigerators) that contain embedded technology (like sensors and Wi-Fi) to communicate and sense

or interact with their internal states or the external environment, for example, that tells one’s smartphone when he/she has run out of milk. To roundup, you can think of the Internet of Things as a way for

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“everyday objects to talk to each other and to talk to you”. On the other hand, this vast network of new online devices could also end up harming the environment; therefore, the question here is what do we need from IoT to make our world a greener place to live? The Green Internet of Things (G-IoT) is predicted to introduce significant changes in our daily life and by using the green ambient intelligence to minimize the use of hazardous materials, maximize energy efficiency, and encourage recycling and/or use of biodegradable products without negatively affecting productivity.

To get a better understanding of what IoT may bring in our daily lives, we (EDN Group 3) made a special trip to the IoT Center of Excellence locates at the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks on Nov 16th. We explored ourselves into five confined zones: Manufacturing, Logistics, Healthcare, Retail and Smart City.

The IoT Centre was set up at the Hong Kong Science Park by GS1 Hong Kong, a non –profit industry support organization, with principal backing from the SAR Government through the Technology and

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Innovation Commission. One of the Centre’s visions is to become an ‘industry support platform’ that enables Hong Kong’s development of the Internet of Things (IoT) for industry’s continuous development and increased competitiveness. Each zone (Manufacturing, Logistics, Retail, Healthcare and Smart City) contains displays that highlight IoT-related technologies, allowing visitors to better appreciate IoT in respective

scenarios.

The center will also help demonstrate the use of technologies suchas RFID, Near Field Communicati on and Quick Response codes, which are already having a positive impact on business processes.

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Second question is that why should we care about it? As Dr. Kwok has mentioned in his speech and presentation during his visit that the amount of carbon CO2 emissions and pollution have been going up step by step, together with the growth of the GDP indicators of major nations. We cannot agree more with Dr. Kwok that a lot more can be done in the effort of environmental protection Worldwide and particular in China. Perhaps with the coming of Internet of Things our society will be able to solve many of today environmental problems. Until now, IoT is a network of devices still has not been fully developed and is fragmented. In order for IoT to be fully realized, there needs to be a platform on which all the devices can connect directly.

Global warming causing by the Greenhouse gases,

and rises in CO2 emission levels have been problems existing globally through ages, and we can foresee the consequences that brings along. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the Earth’s Surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past century, with accelerated warming during the past two decades. There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities. Sustainability, being the common goal of enterprise today, is no longer a cost of doing business. We know

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that the fact of IoT is a catalyst for new wisdom, innovation and process that helps to drive for market opportunity and financial value. Very often, efficiency gained during the sustainability journey brings profitability, needless to say the positive impact on corporate identity. However, it is not without challenge when trying to manage this win-win situation.

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To adopt eco-friendly practices in the existing business arena, all I.T leaders are probing into different areas to bring greener technologies and more environmentally responsible strategies to boost the efficiency and reduce costs by going green in their companies. Enabling technologies like Radio-frequency Identification (RFID), sensor networks, biometrics and nanotechnologies are becoming very common, bringing the IoT into real implementations addressing different applications in which closely interconnect our world through green networks. The concept of smart grid with alternative and renewable energy will contribute

to reduce emissions and pollutions, exploit environmental conservation and surveillance, and minimize operational costs and power consumption. The following chart is chosen from Libelium – a wireless sensors network hardware manufacturer.

Numerous smart grid sensors are required in the entire power grid to support a smarter urban and natural disaster management such as landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters. Automated

traffic management within cities can effectively notices and governs the flow of traffic based on the dynamic road conditions, plus that vehicles chipped with sensors can communicate each other will reduce accidents. Parking applications can smartly guide cars to open spots that will possibly eliminate wasted time and energy and definitely cutting back on CO2 emissions. General Electric developed a platform with apps for machines and connected devices that tap into information gathered from sensors. Wind Turbine is one of the examples that companies add sensors and software to collect and analyze massive amount of data, and decide the best time to supply power. Aspects like precision farming, smart irrigation and others may enable significant opportunities for savings, given that as much as 60 percent of water diverted or pumped for irrigation is wasted. Such companies as “WaterBee” have already developed working commercial grade

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smart Irrigations systems. The system accumulates the date from the soil via wireless sensors in order to water different parts of the field depending on the soil condition. This helps to significantly reduce water wastage. “WaterBee” actually reports that by using its prototype, fourteen sites in Europe were able to reduce their water usage on average by 40 percent.

Figures obtained from website www.forbes.com/energy showing that the overall societal benefits of the wind resource to the state of Texas, USA add up to about USD $3.3 billion annually, and the gross annual savings to consumers are This is resulted in reducing pollution such as sulfur asthma levels, emphysema, increase levels of damage to crops and trees, and a precursor of acid rain) pollution, nitrogen oxide (NO2 – a precursor to ground level ozone) pollution and CO2 (climate change) emissions.[4] Apart from wind power, anaerobic digestion, geothermal power, hydropower, solar energy, biomass power, tidal power, wave power and nuclear transmutation are considered as “Green Energy” category. Another examples can be developed in G-IoT are Cloud computing and Mobile Internet which can make real-time sensing and connecting possible. estimated at USD $1.2 billion. overall costs and avoided dioxide (SO2 – increased and bronchitis which leads to hospitalization; as well as

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Another way of technological advancement on the crop field is GPS system integration onto tractors and harvesters. Seeding equipment with a connection to a GPS controlled system, can prevent wasteful overlap or planting through waterways. It can also manage crop-protection and

fertilizer-distribution tools, leading to precise application and less waste. The

savings of time and fuel these tools can allow a substantial environmental and have an economic impact.

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Natural Daylight Utilization and office energy management are correlated in both energy savings and improved visual comfort. If connection with well-designed lighting system, it will reduce a portion of electric lighting load for achieve energy savings and lowering the heat gain from electric lamps. A further benefit of daylight is that it usually implies a good visual link between indoors and outdoors. There is evidence that this quality is essential for the well-being of occupants, especially in larger non-domestic buildings. A success daylighting design needs the Integration with artificial lighting control, like light sensor. When daylight provides sufficiently bright of the room, sensor will dim or switch off the light and achieve energy saving. Ventilation, lighting, air conditioning, and heating contribute a cozy office environment, also lead to enormous energy consumption. Installing the

occupancy sensors and photocells on the celling allows the lights and air-conditioning to be turned on automatically at the predefined illumination level and temperature when people occupy the office, and to be turned off automatically when people leave the office. According to U.S. environmental Protection
Agency, controlling space by using sensors could help the office to save energy up to 90 percent.

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Despite of the positive impacts on 26 different environment areas from the Corporate Social Responsibility indicators, there are still challenges when dealing with the implementation of G-IoT.

[5]

The 'Green Internet of Things' (G-IoT) will dramatically increase this number by the end of the decade. Can the aforementioned technologies keep up with the energy and resource demands? G-IoT communication system is dependent upon the massive sensor nodes to intelligently collect monitoring data in the IoT domain. "Clothes, cars, trains, tractors, body sensors, and tracking tags. By the end of this decade, analysts say, 50 billion things such as these will connect to mobile networks. They’ll consume 1000 times as much data as today’s mobile gadgets, at rates 10 to 100 times as fast as existing networks can support.[6]"

E-waste will be another issue as if just 10% of IoT devices are trashed per year beginning in 2021; this could mean this may create 2 plus billion new e-waste items annually. Granted, most of these will be much smaller than today's e-waste items and many will be embedded in larger waste items, but the impact could still be significant [7]. For instance, batteries could be a huge part of IoT's e-waste stream. Energy harvesting

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that refers to the ability of devices to source power from their environments; represents a more sustainable alternative. [8]

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To summarize, despite of the challenges that we have raised, incredible growth in technological advancement in recent years, has led to a huge increase of production volumes and GDP per capita – the actual price that we are paying for all of this is our environment. Owing to that, the green technologies will share two common adjectives – smarter and greener, and their concept will definitely give a push for renewable energies and energy efficiency, the main levers for reducing emissions, can spur innovation and create jobs. Simply saying, we do want to live in such a “smarter and greener” planet that keeps us safer, and improves our achieving a more for our next mankind’s chances at sustainable platform generations.

REFERENCES
1. J. Höller, V. Tsiatsis, C. Mulligan, S. Karnouskos, S. Avesand, D. Boyle: From Machine-to-Machine to the Internet of Things: Introduction to a New Age of Intelligence. Elsevier, 2014, ISBN 978-0-12-407684-6. 2. 3. O. Monnier: A smarter grid with the Internet of Things. Texas Instruments, 2013. "The father of optical fiber – Prof. C. K. Kao" (in(Chinese)(English)). Networkchinese.com. Retrieved October 8, 2009. 4. Peter Kelly-Detwiler, “Benefits of Texas Wind Energy Estimated to Exceed $303 Billion Annually”, 11/10/2014 5. Source: Sustainability Report 2014, Fuji Xerox (Hong Kong) Limited 6. Ariel Bleicher, “Millimeter Waves May be the Future of 5G Phones”, 06/13/2013 7. Matt, “50 Billion Connected Devices by 2020?”, 05/20/2014 8. Matt, "Energy Harvesting Powers Small Wireless Devices”, 07/24/2014

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