Reimagining Research 2018
The Internet of Things (IoT ) is a disruptive technology with great potential. It also
brings technical complexity. IoT applications must seek to create seamless and
secure experiences in life, and at work, for the end-user. The success of IoT depends
critically on the availability of fit-for-purpose end applications.
The focus of TCS research was therefore to enable creation, deployment, and
administration of high quality IoT applications. The key stakeholder for us was the
application developer and the goal was to provide necessary platforms and tools
for the application developer and architect. We built the TCS Connected Universe
Platform with a suite of services and basic building blocks. We also baked in
the right kind of engineering properties to meet the needs of enterprise-grade
applications. But we were faced with some tough choices along the way!
IN
B
R
IE
F
The Internet of Things (IoT) is
a disruptor with many impact
dimensions. For many businesses,
the possibility of smart products
gives the opportunity to create
new business models, requiring
fundamentally new designs and
strategies. For large manufacturers,
IoT accelerates servitization of
products; they can stay connected
with their product even after it
leaves the shop floor and provide
services around it. IoT can drive
operational efficiencies in almost
every sphere: visibility through
the supply chain, monitoring
of devices and optimization of
resources/allocation around these,
proactive maintenance, and more.
For an individual, IoT can bring
personalization of services, creating
much value in areas such as health
and safety.
TCS’ IoT journey began 15 years
ago. It began in the realm of radio-
frequency identification (RFID).
It continued through ubiquitous
computing, which was deemed
a leap from mobility. For more
than a decade now, we have been
investing in significant research
effort on many aspects of IoT.
Focus on IoT
applications
We had an early realization that
the success of IoT and its benefit to
end-users would critically depend
on availability of fit-for-purpose
end applications. IoT applications
P
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te
ep
M
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The
Connected
Universe
Digitization of Society
Using The Internet of Things
Reimagining Research 2018
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The Connected Universe
Fact File
TCS Research: Internet of Things
Outcomes: Internet of Things Platform
Principal Investigator: Prateep Misra
Academic Partners: None
Techniques used: Cloud computing, Embedded Systems, Web
technologies, Stream Processing, Big Data
Industries benefited: Manufacturing, Utilities, Energy & Resources,
Transportation, Life Science, Healthcare, HiTech, Retail
Patents: 6 filed, 4 granted
Papers: 4
are meant to deliver the desired
service and user experience to the
end-user, while abstracting all the
complexities of the underlying
technology. For the end-user, IoT
technology is seamless and hidden
and is an integral part of the user’s
life, work, or environment. Our
focus of research was therefore to
enable creation, deployment, and
administration of high-quality IoT
applications. The key stakeholder
for us was the application developer
and the goal was to provide
necessary platforms and tools for
the application developer and
architect.1
What IoT applications
need to achieve
The most common goals of IoT
applications can be summarized
and grouped under the following
abstract buckets.
Real world visibility: IoT
applications need to get visibility
into what is happening in the real
world. Visibility is achieved using
sensors that observe the real world,
and transmission and telemetry
of these observations from the
real world to the servers/computers
hosting the IoT applications.
Visibility into what is happening
now as well as what has happened
in the past is needed.
Understanding the real world: IoT
applications need to build models
of the real world. Once the models
are built, these can be used to
predict future possible scenarios
as well as infer or estimate those
parts of the real world that cannot
be sensed or observed otherwise.
Building models requires both
current observation data as well as
past data. Data acquisition and data
engineering are prerequisites for
building models.
Changing the world: Once the real
world is understood and modeled,
IoT applications try to steer the real
world toward some desired states.
These are achieved by sending
commands or signals to systems,
plants, and actuators so that they
can effect some changes in the
physical world.
1 Tata Consultancy Services, Unlocking the Value of the Internet of Things (IoT) – A Platform
Approach, 2014.
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Reimagining Research 2018
Building blocks of an
IoT application
In order to achieve these goals,
the following functional blocks are
common in IoT applications.
Data ingestion: Applications need
to acquire data from devices and
sensors attached to the physical
world. The ability to interface with
various heterogeneous edge devices,
understand the structure and
semantics of the ingested data, and
transform the same to usable formats
is the first step in any IoT application.
Data management: Once data is
captured, it needs to be persisted in
appropriate databases, along with
all the necessary metadata, so that
it can be queried for visualization,
reporting, and model building at
any point in time.
Real time analytics: Data from
the physical world needs to be
processed, filtered, transformed,
joined, and analyzed in real-time
even before it is persisted in a
database. Situations and conditions,
and interesting patterns in
streaming data, need to be acted
upon as they happen.
Device management: The devices
that are attached to the physical
world need to be monitored,
managed, updated, secured,
and queried.
Analytical model building and
model execution: Using data
captured and stored within the
applications, analytical models
need to be built. The models, once
built, can be used for descriptive,
predictive, and prescriptive
analytical tasks. These tasks
consist of software programs that
typically run on stored data, either
periodically or on event-driven
basis.
TCS
Connected
Universe
Platform
ENERGY
Smart Metering, Home
Energy Management,
Wind Turbines speed
Forecasting
RETAIL
Store loT, Smart Badge,
Mobile PoS Solutions,
Remote Diagnostics &
Management
HEALTHCARE
Wellness,
Cardiac Device Diagnosis,
Healthcare Equipment Monitoring
INSURANCE
Connected Auto, Driving
Behaviour Analysis,
Connected Smart Home
INFRASTRUCTURE
Smart City Service,
Cross-Vertical Applications
ENVIRONMENT & FARMING
mKrishi - Soil Monitoring and
Tracking, Agriculture
Advisory Solutions
INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION
Remote Asset Monitoring
Solution for Air Chiller,
Pump Monitoring, Pipelines
TRANSPORTATION
Fleet Management, Tracking,
Rail Operation Optimization,
Logistics, Infotainment
Figure 1: TCS explores the value of Internet of Things with applications for every industry
Interfacing with
heterogeneous
devices,
understanding the
ingested data, and
transforming it for
use, are the first
steps in any IoT
application.
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The Connected Universe
The connected universe
platform
Based on our understanding
of IoT applications and their
requirements, we started building a
platform that would provide a suite
of services to lay the basic building
blocks. The objective was to provide
these services through well-defined
interfaces or APIs. The APIs would
encapsulate all unnecessary details
of technology and implementation.
The APIs would be such that
they could be called from any
computing platform using any
programming language.
We called this platform the TCS
Connected Universe Platform
(TCUP).2
The services of the platform
were designed in the form of a
collection of micro-services. The
micro-services were designed
in such a way that they were
self-contained, independently
developed and deployed, and
not dependent on any other
micro-service. Each micro-service
could be used independently and
could be stitched together by an
application, to create more complex
functionality.
Mobile Devices
Device Agents
Sensor Data
Management
Device
Management
Analytics
Message Routing
& Rule Engine
Apps
Developers
Clients
Portals
Enterprise Apps
LWM2M
Gateway Devices Cloud Services
Things with Embeded Sensors
http(s),tcp, udp, mqtt, OPC-UA, Modbus, Continua
Figure 2: Architecture of the TCS Connected Universe Platform
2 Tata Consultancy Services, TCS Connected Universe Platform, 2017.
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Reimagining Research 2018
Making it work in the
real world
Our intention, right from the
beginning, was to engineer the
platform in such a way that it
would meet the requirements of
TCS’ enterprise customers. The right
kind of Engineering properties
needed to meet the needs of
enterprise
