Water & Wastewater Treatment

www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | FEBRUARY 2015 | 33 In the know Technically speaking: connected water management T he possibilities of a connected world are almost limitless. There are already more ma- chines connected to the internet than people, and many more connected products will enter our lives over the next few years as embedded micro- electronics proliferate in everyday things. Personal tness monitors, white goods, cars, turbo-generators and water quality sensors, to pick a few examples. This phenomenon is called the Internet of Things (IoT) and the intel- ligent systems which will be created will change our lives in profound ways. This article sets out to explain what the IoT is, and illustrate some applications in the water industry. The term 'Internet of Things' is not new; it is attributed to Kevin Ashton of Google in 1999, but has captured people's imagination and supported lots of new conferences in 2014. It even replaced Big Data at the peak of 'in‰ ated expectations' in Gartner's 2014 Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle (right). Other terms which are used synonymously with IoT are machine- to-machine (M2M) communications, Web of Things, Industry 4.0, Industri- al Internet (of Things), smart systems, pervasive computing and intelligent systems. All terms which re‰ ect the Getting connected The Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential to revolutionise the water industry, as more and more of its technology is connected to the web idea that intelligent so" ware embed- ded in Things are able to communi- cate their state, condition and actions to other machines and humans, and will create value which has not been possible or economic hitherto. There are many projections for the potential value generated by IoT. One of the more extreme, from US IT company Cisco, predicts a value of US$14.4 trillion for companies and industries globally over the next decade. This gure represents the potential economic and social bene t arising from new connected applica- tions and new service-orientated business models. IoT spans many vertical markets. For the purposes of this article, it is useful to think about four main sectors: consumer goods, industrial equipment and processes, vehicle telematics and smart infrastructure. Our future cities will be highly de- pendent on integrated systems deliv- ering smart street-lighting, electricity grids, smart gas, water and transpor- tation networks. Inevitably, there will be completely new applications, busi- nesses and industry sectors created which haven't even been included in the number above, and some of that new value will bring bene ts to the water sector. IoT is driven by a convergence of ve technologies which, when combined and integrated, create new applications which were not previous- ly practical or cost-eš ective. It can be thought of as a natural extension of SCADA, telemetry, industrial automa- tion and enterprise decision support all rolled into one, but it oš ers so much more than SCADA and there are important diš erences and advantages which are discussed below. The fi ve key technologies are: • Low-cost sensors, actuators and embedded edge devices • Microelectronic sensors have proliferated in all measurement and sensing elds. Mass-market applications such as smartphones LAURIE REYNOLDS MANAGING DIRECTOR, AQUAMATIX Gartner's 2014 Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle: IoT is now the most 'hyped' technology

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