Vision and Challenges for Realising the Internet of Things

In the vision of Internet of Things, it is foreseeable
that any “thing” will have at least one
unique way of identification (directly by a
“Unique Identifier” or indirectly by some
“Virtual Identifier” techniques), creating an
addressable continuum of “things” such as
computers, sensors, people, actuators, refrigerators,
TVs, vehicles, mobile phones,
clothes, food, medicines, books, passports,
luggage, etc. Having the capability of addressing
and communicating with each other and
verifying their identities, all these “things”
will be able to exchange information and, if
necessary, be deterministic. It is also desirable
that some “things” have multiple virtual
addresses and identities to participate in different
contexts and situations under different
“personalities”.
Many “things” will be able to have communications
capabilities embedded within them
and will be able to create a local communication
network in an ambient environment
together with other “things”. These ad-hoc
networks will connect with other communication
networks, locally and globally and the
functionalities of the “things” will be influenced
by the communications capabilities
and by the context. “Things” could retrieve
reference information and start to utilize new
communication means based on their environment.
CERP-IoT – Cluster of European Research Projects on the Internet of Things
47