By Editorial Team 
It’s a preeminent fact that Internet of Things (IoT) devices have revolutionized the way how devices interact offering unprecedented connectivity and smart solutions. Understanding the ideas behind its logical and physical designs is essential for leveraging IoT’s full potential.
Whereas the Logical designs of iot focuses on the system’s architecture to encompass the data flow, protocols, and software functionalities, while physical designs of iot involves the actual hardware like sensors and network infrastructure.
In this blog post, we will walk you through both aspects including the Logical and Physical Designs of IOT, and explore how they interplay to create efficient, reliable, and scalable IoT systems. By grasping these concepts, developers and businesses can better design and implement IoT solutions tailored to their specific needs. However, before proceeding forward with logical and physical design of IoT, it is important to brush up our fundamentals. Let us get a quick overview about all the basics of IoT.
Definition of IoT
IoT is basically interconnectivity between smart devices embedded with sensors and actuators. This robust interconnectivity helps devices share information in real-time. It offers various advantages in industrial applications and home automation. That is why its adoption is growing exponentially all around the world. Let us go through some of the advantages and disadvantages of IoT briefly-
Advantages and Disadvantages of IoT
| S. No. | Advantages of IoT | Disadvantages of IoT |
| 1. | One of the core advantages of IoT is automation and its ability to reduce manual workload. | Since many devices are closely interconnected, there are a few cybersecurity and privacy concerns. |
| 2. | IoT provides real-time data and that is why it is good for safety and security. | Currently, there are no international standards that can ensure effective communication. |
| 3. | IoT devices can be used for tracking systems and traffic. | The IoT environment is highly dependent on the internet and cannot function without it. |
| 4. | IoT sensors in wearables help doctors get real-time health status of the patients. | Since, IoT greatly improves automation, it can make humans more dependent on machines and decrease their mental and physical exercise. |
| 5. | It can be used in home automation, security systems, and smart cities. | More investment in IoT technology will introduce more smart devices, which can have an impact on human employment. |
Physical Designs of IoT
Now let us understand the physical design of IoT from the logical and physical design of IoT. The Physical design of IoT deals with the individual devices connected to the IoT network and the protocols used to create a functional IoT environment. Each IoT device can perform tasks of remote sensing, actuating, monitoring, etc due to the IoT network they are connected to. These can also transmit information and share files through different types of wireless or wired connections. They can generate data, which is used to perform analysis and perform operations for improving the system.
Now let us understand the IoT node devices and the IoT protocols.
Node Devices
Node devices are used to build a connection, process data, and provide interfaces, and storage, in an IoT system. They generate data that can be analyzed by the IoT system and program to perform operations and improve the system.
Now let’s understand which devices are used for which function in an IoT system.
- Connectivity: Devices like USB hosts and ETHERNET provides connectivity between the devices and the server.
- Processor: Processors like CPU and other units process the data. This is used to improve the decision quality of an IoT system.
- Audio/Video Interfaces: System interfaces like HDMI and RCA devices record audio and videos.
- Input/Output interface: Devices like UART, SPI, CAN, etc give input and output signals to sensors and actuators in iot.
- Storage Interfaces: IoT devices like SD, MMC, and SDIO generate data. Storage interfaces store those data.
- Controlling of activity: Devices like DDR and GPU control the activity of an IoT system.
IoT Protocols
IoT communication protocols establish between a node device and a server over the internet by sending commands to an IoT device and receiving data from an IoT device. Both the server and client-side use different types of protocols. By network layers, they are managed. Some of the network layers are the application, transport, network, and link layers. It works as a building block for logical and physical design of IoT.
Some of the protocols are
- Application Layer protocol- Protocols in this layer define how the data is sent over the network. With the lower layer protocols, the application interface sends these data. Examples include HTTP, WebSocket, XMPP, MQTT, DDS, and AMQP protocols.
- HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)- This protocol for transmitting media documents in an application layer by communicating between web browsers and servers.
- WebSocket- it enables two-way communication between a client and a host and is mostly web browsers use it.
- Transport Layer- it controls the flow of data segments. It also handles error control and provides end-to-end message transfer capability.
- TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)- It establishes and maintains a network that can exchange data using the internet protocol.
Some of the layers are
- Network Layer- it is used to send datagrams from the source network to the destination network. Some examples are IPv4 and IPv6.
- Link Layer- it is used to send data over the network’s physical layer and determines how the packets are coded and signaled by the devices.
- Ethernet- It is a set of protocols used in LANs that defines the physical layer and the medium access control for LANs.
- WiFi- It is a set of LAN protocols. It specifies the set of media access controls and also the physical layer protocols that are used for implementing wireless LANs.
Logical Designs of IoT
It is the actual design of the IoT system. It illustrates the assembling and configuration of the components i.e. computers, sensors, and actuators.
The logical designs of IoT is composed of:
- IoT functional blocks
- IoT communications models
- IoT communication APIs
1. IoT functional blocks
The functional blocks of IoT systems provide sensing, identification, actuation, management, and communication capabilities to the IoT ecosystem. The devices of the functional blocks handle the communication between the server and the host. This enables monitoring of control functions, managing the data transfer, securing the IoT system using authentication, and providing an interface for controlling and monitoring various functions. It is the most crucial part of the logical and physical designs of IoT.
The Functional blocks of IoT are:
- Device
Devices provide sensing, actuation, monitoring, and control functions to the IoT ecosystem. Main examples of devices include RFID tags, sensors, actuators, appliances, gadgets, and machines. They can be connected to the IoT environment either via a cable or a wireless chip
- Communication
Manages communication for the IoT system. It is a fundamental aspect of the Internet of Things because this makes IoT devices capable of communicating with one another or with other systems.
- Services
Services perform the functions of device monitoring, device control, data publishing, and device discovery. In IoT, there is a management service layer who is dedicated toward managing these services.
- Management
Gives functions to govern the IoT system. It includes multiple functions such as tracking and controlling the devices, enforcing security standards, executing segmentation and data encryption, etc.
- Security
Provides security to the IoT system. It performs authentication, authorization, message and content integrity, and data security functions. It basically protects devices and stored information from theft, manipulation, and unauthorized access.
- Application
An interface where the users can control and monitor various aspects of the IoT system. It allows the users to view the system status and analyze the processed data. It provides a user interface and helps users ensure effective utilization of collected data.
2. IoT Communication Models
The communication models of IoT are used for communicating between the system and the server. The types of IoT communication models are
- Request-Response Model
In this communication model, the client sends requests to the server and the server responds to their requests. After receiving a request, the server decides how to respond by fetching the data, retrieving resource representation, preparing the response, and then sending the response to the client. The request-response protocol between a client and a server is HTTP.
- Publisher-Subscriber Model
This model is made up of three entities: Publishers, Brokers, and Consumers.
- Publishers- it is the source of data that sends the data to the topic.
- Consumers- they subscribe to the topics.
- Brokers- they accept data from publishers and send it to the consumers.
- Push-Pull Model
This model is made up of data publishers, data consumers, and data queues.
- Publishers- they publish the message and push it into the queue.
- Consumers- they present on the other side and they pull the data out of the queue.
- Queues- it helps in decoupling the messages between the producer and consumer.
- Exclusive Pair
It is a bi-directional model that includes full-duplex communication between client and server. The client sends a request and the server keeps the record of all the connections. In this model, only WebSocket-based communication API is based.
3. IoT communication API
There are two types of communication APIs –
- REST-based communication APIs
REST stands for Representational State Transfer. It is a set of architectural protocols by which you can design web services and web APIs. These web services and APIs focus on a system’s resources and how resource states are addressed and transferred. It has a request-response communication model. Its architectural constraints are components, connectors, and data elements. All of them are included within a distributed hypermedia system.
The advantages of REST-based communication APIs include:
Flexibility- REST APIs are compatible with a broad range of services and applications. They can support simple web apps to more comprehensive enterprise systems.
Simplicity- The design and implementation process of REST APIs is relatively simple. This is the reason it has emerged as a go-to choice for developing APIs for web applications.
Stateless- Each request in REST API is processed independently of past requests. This makes it easy to distribute and scale.
Caching- REST APIs depend on caching to enhance performance and minimize service load.
- Web Socket-Based Communication APIs
Web Socket API is the bi-directional, full-duplex communication model between clients and servers. It does not require a new connection to set up for each message between clients and servers. After the connection is set the messages can be sent and received continuously without any interruption. It is best for IoT Applications with low latency or high throughput requirements
Check the following points to know about the advantages of web socket-based communication APIs-
Efficiency- As far as real-time communication is concerned, web socket APIs are more efficient. They leverage continuous connection to ensure bidirectional communication.
Scalability- Since, they can provide support to thousands of connections per server, WebSocket APIs are extremely scalable.
Minimized Overhead- Relative to Rest APIs, it has fewer overhead since it depends on a single connection to transmit information.
Real-time Communication- Web Socket APIs are ideal for applications that depend on real-time updates. They are more preferred because they enable communication between server and client in real-time.
Difference between the Physical designs of IoT & Logical designs of IOT
| Physical Designs of IoT | Logical Designs of IoT |
| It provide an elaborate and detailed overview | It provide a high level overview which is brief |
| It emphasizes the configuration and assembling of any specific entity. | It emphasizes the design factors which include the assumptions, requirement, onstrainsts, and risk. |
| It contains more graphic content than textual content | It comprises both, the textual as well as the graphic content. |
Conclusion
IoT is the building block of many technological advancements these days. Some prominent examples of IoT are connected cars, smart appliances, connected security systems, smart agriculture equipment, connected retail, connected healthcare monitors, connected manufacturing equipment, and connected cities. Hence understanding IoT is crucial if you want to create a smart solution. This article gives an overview of the logical and physical designs of IoT so that you know what makes the smart solutions we use nowadays.
Faqs for Logical & Physical Designs of IoT
Q. What are the physical things in IoT?
A- These are basically “smart objects” that are connected in the IoT environment. These mainly include home appliances, vehicles, wearables, and more. These devices are tethered together via the internet, making them capable of transferring data.
Q. What is an example of a physical object device in IoT?
A- An example of physical object devices in the Internet of Things are smart glasses, asset trackers, internet-driven devices, smart watches, etc.
Q. What are the 4 layers of IoT?
A- Each of 4 architectural layers of IoT serve a specific purpose and allow Internet of Things technology to work effectively. The four layers are application layer, communication layer, device layer, and data storage and processing layer.
Q. What is the designs of IoT?
A- The physical designs of IoT deals with specific protocols and nodes that define the functionalities of the IoT ecosystem. Each node is designated to perform a particular task like actuation, remote sensing, monitoring, etc.
Q. What is the goal of logical designs?
A- The goal of logical designs is to give an abstraction representation of all the elements present in the IoT ecosystem. The logical design does not go into the implementation aspects and low-level details of programming.
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