The Internet of Things

The Internet is, of course, now universal, with over 625 million hosts currently registered according to the Jan 09 ISC Domain Survey. Even with the advent of Internet enabled end devices such as 2.5/3G mobile phones, the majority of these connections will be computers of some kind.

But, what if you could connect almost any device to the Internet, medical devices, cars, toys, weather stations your home even? The possibilities for opening up new classes of applications are mind bloggling. Since the early days of the Internet there have always been people connecting 'odd ball' devices to the Internet, the Internet fridge is just one example.

Pretty much any electronics hobby enthusiast can rustle up a circuit with some form of sensor board and wire it to an Internet connected PC. Also, numerous companies have manufactured data loggers and instrumentation devices for years, and most of these can connect to PCs. The key to enabling this vision is standards and interoperability. Sun's approach does just that, focusing on bringing together Open Source standards and hardware, Java, ad-hoc networking and the Internet.

This is where Sun Microsystems is heading with its Sun SPOT vision. Sun SPOT is a SunLabs research project that kicked off in 2003. This work has led to Sun selling a Sun SPOT Developer Kit to the public, mainly to drive interest in potential applications. The video below outlines Sun's vision.

The key innovation is not only have Sun made the SDK Open Source, but the OS (Squawk) and, believe or not, the hardware. This means that anyone's free to download the SunSPOT bill of materials, circuit designs, schematics and drawings, send them to an outsource electronics fabricator (of which there are loads who will build you small batch runs) and you can have your very own custom device.

One of the major advantages of the platform is the fact all development is done in Java. Anyone who's had experience of developing for embedded systems knows that specific architecture, software engineering and programming skills are required. Sun have put effort into ensuring that any skilled Java Developer can pick up a Sun SPOT device and get going straight away without any embedded systems background. It's important to note that Sun SPOTS are much more that your typical data logger device, they're a computing platform in their own right. The ability to create ad-hoc mesh networks of these devices, coupled with Agent-Based software architectures is what makes these devices so unique.

So what are the potential applications. I work in the Defence industry and I can see applications in military and security. For example, imagine parachuting dozens of these devices across a theatre of operations, each fitted with an array of sensors. They would also have the ability to network with each and other military systems when they are in range, for example warning a squad of troops of potential suspicious activity in an area.

Applications that require remote data acquisition and logging are also obvious candidates. SunLabs have an experimental environmental monitoring solution called Canopee deployed to Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR) in India.

Sun are hoping to repeat their successfully strategy of getting Java onto just about any device you can think of, from mobile phones to digital tv set-top boxes. Their goal is to open up and accelerate the market for wireless sensor based applications by standardizing the hardware and reducing software implementation effort. It will also be interesting to see how this technology starts to converge with RFID.

Currently, most applications are in Universities and Research Labs, but given the momentum behind Java and the Open Source nature of the whole platform, I believe we could soon be seeing SunSPOT applications opening up in the near future.