PART 1 - IOT POSITIONING CANVAS

The Building Blocks

To start off, IoT service chain can be separated into 5 key building blocks. The enabling technologies, smart objects, communication platform, ingestion & analytic platform and finally the information consumption and interaction platform. 

Smart Objects  and ENABLING TECH

The smart objects themselves can be classified into the following type of capabilities (following the works of . Kortuem, G., Kawsar, F., Fitton, D., Sundramoorthy, V.: Smart objects as building blocks for the internet of things. Internet Computing, IEEE 14(1), 44–51 (2010) :

1. Sensing only
   
2. Interactive system
   
3. Process execution (follow script)
4. Decision execution (actions based contextual inputs)

The objects themselves displays different capabilities depending on what has been packaged on the smart devices, e.g. sensors,  actuators, GPS chips, etc. It follows that when we go down the list above from sensing to decision making, the smart objects themselves gets 'smarter'. This when mapped into the following mobility classes for each smart objects provides an idea of how each smart objects can be classified and positioned:

1. Stationary smart objects - for fixed location deployments
   
2. Mobile or semi-mobile smart objects - for attachment to mobile objects or being mobile in itself
   
3. Autonomous smart objects -self-driving car

The following table provides an example of each type of IoT devices currently offered in the market. NOTE: some of the objects could have a combination of capabilities. 

WPAN AND LPWAN for IOT

Most IoT deployment currently favors the use of Bluetooth low energy and Wifi for connectivity purpose. Hard wiring will be uncommon except for perhaps stationary use cases. As the LPWAN technology matures, more geographical dispersed IoT devices will also be deployed. 

Communications PATH

Chances are smart objects will not be interacting with human counterparts directly but other non-human entities such as a FMD or application system. This being either unidirectional or bidirectional is as follows:

As shown on the table above, there are 2 main types of D2D, e.g. FMD-IoT, IoT-IoT or FMD-FMD. D2D communication will typically be established by way of WPAN communication technologies such as Bluetooth and Wifi. It is also possible that management of IoT devices be delegated to an application service rather than through an FMD, this is useful for the case where security, automation, multi-device management and higher intelligence are required for IoT action input. This D2S (or S2D) scenario requires application server service - be it on cloud or on private setup or. The choice communication technology and path will have dependency on actual use cases. 

DECOUPLED VALUE CHAIN

As in the case of OTT, the value chain for IoT is separated between the physical and digital information generated. Hence, the 'sensing' only smart objects are really just 'dumb data generators'. The aggregate information presented will be used in combination with other data to provide higher level intelligence and usefulness - making the digital  part of the chain more valuable. 
Most early smart object deployments in the near future  will be in very primitive forms - i.e. offering sensing only capabilities. This meant that other platforms are required for the data generated to be processed, useful information produced and finally delivered for consumption by a person or machine. This decoupled value proposition is necessary where the 'dumb' IoT devices itself lacks sophistication to provide intelligence and therefore requires higher plane services such as:

1. Analytics and intelligence - Cloud or private hosted application services 
2. Consumption and interactive interfaces - Follow-me device

Data ingestion and analytic platform is where the value  stream creation begins - by allowing data to be  aggregated, bench-marked, categorized and analyzed. As data traverses and passes on for human consumption through FMD's, it allows the creation of subsequent value stream services such as smart collaboration and smart assist.

IoT POSITIONING CANVAS

Example of currently available Smart object offerings are highlighted in the Smart Objects section.