Future Internet: The Internet of Things-A Literature Review

Internet today is the backbone of virtual communication worldwide. It is expanding its horizon with a fast pace. Internet is rightly defined as “network of networks”. It is, in most simple terms, a means of establishing a connection between your computer and any other computer globally through servers and some dedicated routers. The major form of communication of current Internet is among humans (i.e. human-to-human). The next upcoming form of communication that uses Internet as the underlying technology is The Internet of Things (IoT). IoT extends the capabilities of Internet to enable machine-to-machine communication (M2M).Therefore, IoT can be said to provide communication among everyone and everything. IoT enables us to embed some sort of intelligence in the objects that are or can be connected to the Internet in order to exchange information, hence communicate, invoke certain actions based on inputs, take decisions and provide useful services. In this paper, the basic underlying workflow of IoT is discussed and the architecture of IoT is explained. The paper also highlights the most useful technologies of these days, which employ IoT for their functioning. Further, the applications and features of IoT are mentioned in the paper. Lastly, the issues and challenges in implementing the IoT are briefly discussed. The IoT today is gaining a lot of recognition due to its potential that is yet to be extracted by the industry, academia and government as well. These sectors can bring huge economic and professional benefits by employing IoT in the right manner.