The Internet of Things (IoT) is a collective term for technologies and solutions that include digital devices with processing power which collect data and are connected to a network (in practice, the internet). The data is collected from the surroundings, machines, objects or installations. It could be weather data or different states, such as a component starting to wear out or a door being left open.
IoT can be anything from alarms, smoke detectors, sensors in cars, sensors on large industrial machinery or vessels, to toys, refrigerators or electricity meters.
At the end of 2014, there were almost 4 billion IoT devices (almost 11 billion if computers are included), while in 2020, there are around 30 billion devices, including computers.
IoT is one of the technologies that make up Industry 4.0 and is an important part of the future of energy use, power generation and power distribution grids.
At Cegal, we have extensive experience of streaming data from different types of sensors to an analytical platform which is adapted for IoT analyses. We have for example created a solution for one of our customers where we stream live data from hydropower turbines and plot the various measurement points in order to visualise start-up, shutdown and deviations in patterns. The solution forms the basis for identifying deviations in the measurement points and creating a basis for preventive maintenance.