Internet of Things (or IoT) is a term coined by Kevin Ashton in 1999 while searching for a way to link the idea of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) in the Procter & Gamble (P&G) supply chain to the Internet (Ashton, 2009). The idea was to enable the computers to gather the data using the RFID and sensors technologies instead of manually entering it by a human being.
The term IoT is interpreted in different ways since then, as there is no globally accepted definition of IoT. Today, in general, IoT refers to ‘interconnect all things’ (IEEE, 2015), that means, to connect the physical world (i.e. devices, TV, car, etc.) to the virtual technology platform (i.e. social media, clouds, etc.) with the help of the Internet.
IoT has a wide scope in various research domains including radio frequency identification (RFID), machine-to-machine (M2M) communication and machine-type-communication (MTC), wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSAN), ubiquitous computing, web-of-things (WoT) etc. (Mazhelis, Luoma, & Warma, 2012). Multiple applications areas like automotive and machinery, home automation, consumer electronics, smart healthcare etc, will benefit from the IoT development.
