Internet of Things (IoT) Realization in the Context of Industry 4.0 (I 4.0)

Abstract

of thought, the first industrial revolution, located at the transition from the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, was characterized by the introduction of water and steam-powered mechanical manufacturing facilities. The second industrial revolution, which happened at the transition from the nineteenth to twentieth century’s, was based on the introduction of electrically powered mass production. Then followed the third industrial revolution, started from the 1960s until the 1990s, whose main driving force was the usage of electronics and information technologies (IT) to achieve further automation of manufacturing. These three successive revolutions can be coined as Industry 1.0, Industry 2.0, and Industry 3.0, respectively, see Figure 1. Currently, we are in the fourth industrial revolution (industry 4.0), whose main characteristic is the linkage of real objects and people (things) with information-processing/virtual objects via information networks utilizing technologies such as cyber-physical systems, Internet of things, 3D printing, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, etc.. One Important component in this context is the advanced automation technology that will lead to the introduction of methods of self-organized systems (selfoptimization, self-configuration, self-diagnosis, etc.) to get the suitable linkage between the real (machines, sensors, workers) and the virtual worlds. The term “industry 4.0” appeared for the first time in 2011 during the Hannover Fair, as a project in high-tech strategy of the German Industry, and in the following year was created the German Working Group on Industry4.0, which delivered its final report in April 2013. This report defined the Industry 4.0 environment, which includes the strong customization of products under the conditions of high flexibility o