IOT ARCHITECTURE WITH EMBEDDED AI

Vaibhav Shankarrao Pawar

MSc Computer Science
Yeshwant Mahavidhyalaya Nanded, Maharashtra
Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada University Nanded, Maharashtra
Contact : 9850171672
Email : pawarvaibhav533@gmail.com

ABSTRACT revolution”. The concern that arises then is

to handle the huge data generated with the
much weaker existing computation power.
Functioning of the Internet is
The research in data science and artificial
persistently transforming from the Internet
intelligence (AI) has been striving to give an
of Computers (IoC) to the “Internet of
answer to this problem. Thus, IoT with AI
Things (IoT).” Furthermore, massively
can become a huge breakthrough. This is not
interconnected systems, also known as
just about saving money, smart things,
Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) are emerging
reducing human effort or any trending hype.
from the assimilation of many facets like
This is much more than that - easing human
infrastructure, embedded devices, smart
life. There are, however, some serious issues
objects, humans and physical environments.
like the security concerns and ethical issues
What we are heading to is a huge “Internet
which will go on plaguing IoT. The big
of Everything in a Smart Cyber Physical
picture is not how fascinating IoT with AI
Earth.” IoT and CPS conjugated with “data
seems, but how the common people perceive
science” may emerge as the next “smart
it - a boon, a burden or a threat.

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 INTRODUCTION
We are quite fascinated by the word
smart”. But, what we have today is still far
from being smart like a human. Let us
consider the example of a smartphone,
although it is “smart”, it cannot do much
automatically. For example, it is not able to
put notifications or message alerts in ‘silent
mode’ automatically when the owner is
driving. It would be smarter if it could at
least reduce distractions caused by the alerts
when the owner is driving. This requires
some kind of wireless connection between
the person, his/her smartphone and the car.
In another situation, if the owner falls sick,
the smart phone should make an emergency
call to a family member or a hospital nearby.
It will again need certain connections and
information (about the family members and
hospitals) to facilitate this. If we go on
giving examples like this, we will see nearly
everything present in the physical world
need to be connected to everything else to
meet some requirements or the other. To
make these things “smart”, we will need
artificial intelligence .
AI is a technology that targets at
making computers do human like
reasoning. This development will accelerate
the digital transformation of industries. Be
it humans, animals, plants, machines,
appliances, soil, stones, lakes, buildings or
anything one can think of, connecting them
together and making “smart decisions” can
make the world an autonomous place. To
make the world and its physical objects
actually autonomous, we need a machine
learning (ML) [1] emulating human learning
as well as a data analysis (DA) [2] module in
the system. ML would create techniques to
facilitate learning in various
components/devices of the network to
make them automatic and self standing,
whereas DA would evaluate/analyse all the
data that is generated over time to find out
the past trends and be more
efficient/effective in future. This trend has
been growing and now efforts are being
made to incorporate ML and DA into
sensors [3] and embedded systems [4] of
the smart systems. The technology behind
AI is really intriguing and what it will turn
into forces us to rethink everything we
know about the meaning and purpose of
life and work. The pace at which ML and DA
are driving AI, calls for a good need to
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discuss trends, challenges and threats that
will grow gradually.
One of the greatest ideas behind this
trend is the Internet of Things (IoT) [5]
which anticipates a world saturated with
installed intelligent gadgets, frequently
called “smart objects” [6], interconnected
through the Internet or other
communication mediums like Bluetooth,
infrared, etc. These connections will be
humanhuman, human-physical things, and
physical things-physical things. Internet of
Everything [7] is also a similar idea that
suggests that every living, non-living or
virtual object is connected to each other
through some communication medium.
ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the
science of instilling intelligence in machines
so that they are capable of doing tasks that
traditionally required the human mind. AI
based systems are evolving rapidly in terms
of application, adaptation, processing speed
and capabilities. Machines are increasingly
becoming capable of taking on less-routine
tasks. While, humans intelligence is actually
When these concepts are deployed to the
physical world, what we get is a Cyber
Physical System (CPS) [8]. Such a world
would be data wealthy, using which
knowledge could be extracted. Various
disciplines like Database Management
System (DBMS) [9], Pattern Recognition
(PR) [10], Data Mining (DM) [2], Machine
Learning (ML) [1], Big Data Analytics (BD)
[11] will need improvised methods to deal
with the data, overlapping largely in their
scope. This article mainly revolves around
intuitions, challenges and applications of
artificial intelligence in the concepts of
Internet of Things, Cyber Physical Systems
and Internet of Everything.
‘taking’ a perfect decision at the appropriate
time, AI is merely about ‘choosing’ a right
decision at the appropriate time. To put it
plainly, the creativity in decision that
humans can take is lacking in AI. It may be
argued that human ingenuity will always
change the role of productive work, but, AI
based systems have quite elegantly reduced
repetition of human efforts and could give
results in comparatively low time. Most of
the ongoing works in AI can be termed as
‘Narrow AI’. This means that only certain
tasks are enhanced by technology. However,
we are aiming for something much more
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than that. Hence, many fields
conjugated to drive the AI development.
Various domains like philosophy,
computer science, mathematics, statistics,
biology, physics, sociology, psychology and
many more have come up together to boost
the interdisciplinary nature of AI.
Intelligence, comes from all the data
generated in each of these
domains. Analysis of this data is important
to bring out the principles behind it. Human
brain is capable of doing it easily, but it
takes a long time. This is because, the data
in real world, has some unwelcome
properties:
• Huge volume
• Unstructured nature
• Varied data sources
• Needs real-time processing
• Changes continuously
There are other properties too like
volatility, virility, etc. AI can be regarded as
a technique to use the data in an efficient
manner so that it is understandable to the
people who provide it, modifiable (in case of
errors), holds usefulness in the present
scenario and is meaningful.
AI, therefore, relies heavily on data
science techniques. To state in a broader
have way, data science is the science of
developing tools and methods to analyze
large volumes of data and gain information
from it. The discipline is therefore, an
amalgamation of many other research areas.
For developing tools, the ideas mainly come
from computer science which are primarily
concerned with algorithmic efficiency and
storage scalability. For analysis, the ideas
come from much more varied sources.
Methodologies are borrowed from both the
basic sciences (like physics, statistics, graph
theory) as well as the social sciences (like
economics, sociology, political science).
Specific techniques which are naturally
interdisciplinary are also very popular in
data science, such as pattern recognition
[10], machine learning [2], data mining [12],
database management systems [9] and big
data analytics [13, 14].
INTERNET OF THINGS
Even a few decades back, nobody
could have imagined having a video chat
with their families in a different continent.
Nowadays, it is a common thing. All of
these is due to technology getting cheaper,
and devices emerging with new and
improved capabilities. People
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can get things done with a click on their devices using some smart objects attached to
smartphone, be it sending emails, paying both which are capable of sending, receiving
bills, transferring money or booking a cab. and analysing data. These smart objects
What we had since 1991 was represent the entity (a human or a physical
“Internet of Computers (IoC)” and it thing), it is attached to, in the network.
gradually grew in size as more and more
people started using it. With the advent of ARCHITECTURE OF
pocket phones and connected devices, the
IOT
Internet of Devices started and eventually
Architecture of IoT [8] is broadly classified
grew larger as mobile phones, computers,
into 4 layers.
laptops and tablets became cheaper and
1. Sensor Layer : This is lowest layer
more accessible to the common man.
of IOT Architecture, which consists
Gartner, Inc. forecasted that 6.4 billion
of sensor networks, embedded
connected things will be in use worldwide in
systems, RFID tags and readers or
2016, up 30 percent from 2015, and will
other soft sensor s which are
reach 20.8 billion by 2020 [24]. In 2016,
different forms of sensors deployed
more than 5.5 million new things got
in the field. Each of these sensors has
connected every day, thus, emerging the
identification and information
huge scope for Internet of Things. Since
storage (e.g. RFID tags), information
various things are continuously connecting
collection (e.g. sensor networks), etc.
to form an IoT, there are various disciplines
2. Gateway and Network Layer :
that get associated with IoT. Therefore, IoT
This layer is responsible for
can also be thought of as a combination of
transferring the information collected
various domains. Figure 1 gives a
by sensors to the next layer. It should
representative list of some domains (most of
support scalable, flexible, standards
these overlap with each other in terms of
universal protocol for transferring
concepts and techniques) constituting the
data from heterogeneous devices
IoT. Internet of things is just a connected
(Different types of sensor nodes).
system of physical things (like appliances,
This Layer should have high
crop fields, plants, animals, etc.) and
performance and robust network. It
humans. Humans are connected to these

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 should also support multiple can sense its surroundings, transmit, store
organizations to communicate and process the data gathered and act
independently. accordingly. The last step of acting
3. Management Service Layer : This accordingly is entirely dependent on the
layer acts as an interface between the processing step. The true smartness of an
Gateway - Network layer and the IoT service is determined by the level of
application layer; in bidirectional processing or acting that it can perform. A
mode. It is responsible for device non-smart IoT
management and information
management and responsible for system will have limited capability and will
capturing large amount of the raw be unable to evolve with the data. However,
data and extracting relevant a smarter IoT system will have artificial
information from the stored data as intelligence and may serve the actual goal of
well from the real time data. Security automation and adaptation. In this context,
and privacy of the data should be few examples of existing IoT services with
ensured. the working of AI behind them are discussed
4. Application Layer : This is the top here.
most layer of IoT which provides a
user interface to access various 1. Voice Assistants : These are
applications to different users. The
cloud-based voice services which act as
applications can be used in various
table-top personal assistants for users. They
sectors like transportation, health
perform various tasks through third-party
care, agriculture, supply chain,
applications and other smart devices in their
government, retail etc.
proximity. They are capable of answering
queries, calling cabs, making restaurant

AI ENABLED IOT reservations, playing music, switching smart

lights on/off, and many more tasks based on
IoT is a vast concept encompassing too
the user’s voice commands. Few of the well
many sensors, actuators, data storage and
known voice assistants are :
data processing capabilities interconnected
by the Internet. Thus any IoT enabled device

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• Alexa is the voice assistant from Amazon,
which is used in products like Amazon
Echo, Amazon Tap, etc. There is a specific
set of skills known as the Alexa Skills Kit
(ASK) that can be modified and updated to
personalize or improve certain skills.
• Siri from Apple Inc. is used in Apple
Homepod which serves a similar purpose.
• Google Assistant used in Google Home
has additional features where it can
recognize upto six different users and pull
their respective details to converse with
them.
These voice assistants are capable of
performing multiple tasks mostly due to the
application of various subfields of AI.
Automatic far-field voice recognition, wake
word detection, speech to text conversion,
natural language processing and
understanding, contextual reasoning,
dialogue management, question answering,
conversational AI, etc. are performed
continuously to make the voice assistants
perform functions real time.
2. Robots : Recent advancements in this
field of robotics has led to the creation of
robots who have increased human likeness
and are able to interact with humans while
understanding, reciprocating and expressing
certain human emotions. Robots are IoTs in
themselves since they contain multiple
sensors and actuators along with AI that
helps them continuously learn and adapt
themselves over time.
• Pepper from SoftBank Robotics is a
human-shaped robot which is termed as a
humanoid companion which can interact
with humans. It is able to understand a
human’s emotion through his/her facial
expression, body movement, tone of voice,
words used, etc. It can identify four human
emotions, namely joy, sadness, anger and
surprise, and reciprocates appropriately
through movement, touch, words and
display on its screen. It is able to move
around and interact with humans and other
devices in its vicinity. Pepper is
commercially used in various stores to
interact with customers.
• Sophia from Hanson Robotics is a social
humanoid robot which is incredibly human-
like and can express emotions through more
than 50 facial expressions. During a
conversation, it is able to maintain eye
contact with the human while conversing.
Sophia is world’s first robot to get a
country’s full citizenship. She has even
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given multiple interviews and sang in a • Smart Oven by June aims to cook food
concert. perfectly everytime. It has an HD camera
• Robotic Kitchen from Moley Robotics is and food thermometer which helps to
an advanced fully functional robot automatically monitor the food being
integrated into a kitchen. It has robotic arms, cooked inside the oven, and can switch
oven, hob and a touchscreen unit for human cooking modes if necessary. This oven can
interaction and is able to prepare food of be operated through Alexa and can
expert quality from its recipe library. recommend and configure automatic cook
program by analysing the likings of the user.
Application of natural language • SkyBell is an HD WiFi doorbell from
processing, computer vision, shape Honeywell that allows the user to answer the
recognition, object recognition, detection & door through a smartphone or a voice
tracking, blockchain technology to analyse assistant. The video camera at the doorbell
inputs & responses, facial recognition, voice sends an alert and live feed to the home
recognition, speech-to-text technology, owner’s phone to alert him/her about the
obstacle recognition, haptics, etc. have been person at the door. The owner can converse
widely used in these robots to enable them with the person through SkyBell even from
function effectively. a remote location. This has helped keep
trespassers and burglars at bay.

3. Smart Devices : In an IoT apart • Smart Lights by Deako can be controlled

remotely through smartphones and Alexa or
from the voice assistants and robots, there
Google assistant. They are connected via the
are smart objects/devices that are present
Internet and can receive software upgrades
which make the task simpler for humans.
from time to time.
Smart objects that are AI enabled use
• Automotive AI by Affectiva is an in-cabin
applications of object identification, facial
sensing AI that can be used in robo-taxis and
recognition, voice recognition, speech and
highly automated vehicles. It detects
expression identification, deep neural
emotional and cognitive state of the
networks, transfer learning, computer vision,
occupants in the vehicle from their face and
etc.
voice through in-cabin cameras and
microphones.

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4. Industrial IOT : Apart from being
used inside smart homes, IoT has a huge
application area in the various industrial
sectors. These solutions perform statistical
and financial analysis of a company as a
whole and finally provide predictions using
some AI and machine learning algorithms.
• Primer is a product from Alluvium which
provides industrial solutions. Primer creates
a real time Stability Score analysis based on
the data collected, the sensors in the system
and assets. It aims to detect potential issues
well beforehand and helps operators identify
the anomalies and make necessary changes
from something as small as a sensor to the
entire facility.
• Plutoshift is another industrial IoT based
solution. It enables industrial companies to
continuously track the performance of their
assets, measures financial impact and
provides support for informed decision
making.
Thus, the opportunities and potential
of both AI and IoT can advance when they
are combined. As IoT generates data, ML
and BDA carry the potential to find insights
of huge value in the data. Without the AI,
the data that the IoT generates remains
useless. IoT needs to depend on AI as it is
impossible for any human to find
information in the data that IoT generates.
Moreover, if a new pattern in data is
detected, the machine will be capable
enough to learn by itself which will be
impossible for a non-AI IoT system to do.
Challenges
IoT may seem fascinating to talk
about. We argue that most of the technical
challenges have been addressed like having
the ultra-low power microcontrollers,
advanced sensors, wireless technologies etc.,
but still we are speculating about the IoT
rocket to take off. There are still some major
issues which have held the world to be
encompassed by this IoT yet.
After all the idea has been
developed, the gap between an idea and a
working prototype is huge. Even if the
working prototype is set, one may need
resources to develop the prototype. Even if
one is able to strive past all of this, the
question that stands now is how do we know
if this hot new technology will succeed or
fail. Most of us, even experts in that
particular domain, get it wrong most of the
time. Recent IoT trends indicate that data is
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coming at a faster speed, from various
sources in various forms. It obviously
exceeds the abilities of an information
system to imbibe, store, analyze, and
process it. It is not hard to find databases
with some petabytes of data, but the main
objective is to not let all of these data go to
waste. Therefore, efforts are being made to
recognize and extract meaningful
information (patterns, structure, underlying
relationships, etc.) from them. This task is
quite complicated and it needs advanced
storage and processing techniques due to the
unimaginable volumes of data. In this
scenario, new algorithms are being devised
and wellknown techniques are being
revisited and tailored in the fields of Pattern
Recognition, Machine Learning, Data
Mining, etc. to handle the new challenges
posed by these data. There are other
concerns too regarding such a union of
technologies. The field of AI needs
more development with the advent of such
IoT-CPS infrastructure. As example cases,
we can discuss some issues. Complex
adaptive AI systems may lead to self
sustaining malicious evolution of systems
that can mimic a cancerous growth in human
body. We would therefore need more
research to combat such systems using
superior evolving AI systems. Cyber-
security will also be a major concern as in
this age of technology, there will be cyber
wars. Any autonomous system will be used
for malicious reasons if hacked. Such
vulnerabilities of AI systems should be
checked so that they stay safeguarded
against such attacks. Mock attacking AI
systems should be developed that would
immunize the existing safeguarding AI
system. There should also be systems that
would predict the new type of attacks that
can arise. Any organization must develop
systems to quickly recover from cyber
events that disrupt usual business operations.
Critical information that may be maliciously
used against an individual should be
automatically identified and should be kept
private even if people share it publicly. AI
systems can be used to ensure such privacy
as well.
CONCLUSION
People will be wearing intelligent
gadgets, eating intelligent capsules that
judge the impact of the medicine on the
body, living inside intelligent homes, and so
on. This sounds like a science fiction, but
this is what all the present research is about.
Everything will be smart and will be
connected to the Internet. All branches of
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science will collaborate to create something
of a big value. We will have a ‘smart cyber
revolution’. However, there is still a debate
on whether we are heading towards a
creative destruction or not..
For instance, machines are now able
to take on less-routine tasks, and this
transition is occurring during an era in
which many workers are already struggling.
Nonetheless, with the right policies we can
get the best of both worlds: automation
without rampant unemployment.
Eventually, human ingenuity changes the
role of productive work. Educational
opportunities will be promoted and there
will be more skilled labor with re-skilling
and up-skilling. As we will continuously
deploy AI models in the wild we will be
forced to re-examine the effects of such
automation on the conditions of human life.
Although these systems bring myriad
benefits, they also contain inherent risks,
such as privacy breach, codifying and
entrenching biases, reducing accountability
and hindering due process and increasing the
information asymmetry between data
producers and data holders.

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