物联网大意是指将任何不同的物体相互连接起来，从而实现识别、通信、定位、跟踪和管理的一种网络。随着嵌入式技术的蓬勃发展，软件巨头微软联合擅长设计通用处理器的Intel公司终于透露下一次合作目标将是物联网。包括苹果、IBM和思科在内的有力竞争者也似乎对物联网产生了浓厚的兴趣。
IoT (Internet of Things) in general means a network that connects different things together with a purpose to realize identification, communication, localization, tracking and management. As embedded technology keeps evolving rapidly, the software giant Microsoft together with the leading general processor manufacturer Intel eventually revealed that their next collaboration will focus on Internet of Things. Many formidable competitors including Apple, IBM and Cisco seem to be highly interested in the IoT area.
物联网是互联网与嵌入式系统发展到高级阶段的产物。它覆盖了众多的技术领域，包括互联网技术、嵌入式系统技术、传感器网络技术、通信技术、RFID技术、EPC技术等等。物联网的最终普及将能够让人们的工作、生活和娱乐实现根本上的智能化，例如公文包会提醒主人忘带了什么东西、冰箱会告诉主人冷藏的了哪些食物以及适合烹饪什么样的菜式、电视机会远程通知主人当天的节目并按照主人的指令进行录制。
IoT is a result comes out of advanced development of Internet and embedded systems. It covers a lot of technological areas including Internet, embedded technology, sensing network, communication, RFID and EPC. The eventual popularity of IoT will make every aspects in our daily life such as working, living and entertainment truly intelligent, for example, a briefcase could remind you not to forget something important, a refrigerator could tell you what it has in stock now and how you can cook using available stock., and a TV could inform you of today’s program list and start to record on time as required.
物联网所能提供的这些诱人的功能离不开嵌入式系统的参与。下面的示意图是一个简单的物联网络，集中器（Concentrator）通过PLC（Power Line Communication电力线通信）、Zigbee或者RS232串行接口的方式与底层的传感器网络连接，把收集到的数据进行处理后，通过广域网发送到数据中心或其他远程终端来而实现远端监视，并反过来根据采集的数据对底端的设备进行调整或开关等控制。这里的集中器就是一种嵌入式系统。在物联网应用中这种嵌入式系统通常需要支持包括RS232、Zigbee和Ethernet在内的多种常用通信协议，以便最大限度地兼容不同类型的传感器网络。另外在大中型物联网中，传感器网络的规模完全可以用巨大来形容，因此这些场合所使用的集中器还需要具备强大的数据处理和接口管理能力，并且满足对大容量数据存储的要求。
All these fantastic functions come along with IoT always need the help of embedded systems. The image shown below is an example of simple Iot structure, in which a concentrator manages multiple links to the sensor networks lying on the bottom by PLC (Power Line Communication), ZigBee or RS232 serial connection. The concentrator collects and processes the data from sensor networks and then sends to a remote terminal such as a data center to fulfill monitoring from a long distance, and in turn, the devices at the bottom level could be adjusted or switched on/off accordingly based on collected data. Actually the concentrator used here could be an embedded system, which is usually required to support multiple widely-used communication protocols including RS232, Zigbee and Ethernet to allow a compatibility as wide as possible with different types of sensor networks. Apart from that, a powerful data processing performance and interface management capability as well as mass data storage would be necessary for the concentrators working in medium- and large-scale IoTs in which the sensor networks could be described with the word “Huge”.
英蓓特科技针对物联网应用推出的嵌入式开发平台RIoTboard集成了Freescale的高性能、高能效应用处理器i.MX 6Solo、1G DDR3 SDRAM和4G eMMC存储器，能够轻松应付大容量的数据处理和存储任务。同时配备了包括10/100以太网接口、SPI接口、USB接口和串行接口等在内的丰富的接口，完全满足大部分物联网络对于以太网通信、串行接口通信以及采用SPI高速接口的ZigBee无线通信的需求。此外，RIoTboard开源的特性让用户可以根据不同的应用场合自行搭建开发环境和编译自定义的操作系统，为不同的物联网络提供了极大的灵活性和广泛的适应性。在物联网行业日益增长的今天，RIoTboard的出现无疑为工程师提供了一个理想的嵌入式开发平台，势必在推动物联网发展的历程中扮演重要的角色。
The RIoTboard from Embest Technology is designed dedicatedly for IoT applications. It integrates a high-performance and energy- efficient Freescale i.MX 6Solo processor, 1G DDR3 SDRAM and 4G eMMC memory, making it an easy job for the board to deal with mass data processing and storage tasks. Meanwhile, a rich set of interfaces such as 10/100 Ethernet, SPI, USB and serial interfaces could completely satisfy the requirements of most IoT types on communications based on Ethernet, serial interfaces and SPI-enabled ZigBee. Moreover, the RIoTboard is an open source platform allows users build their own development environment and customized operating systems for different applications, delivering super flexibility and broad adaptability to the setup of dedicated IoTs. The advent of RIoTboard in the days of fast growing IoT undoubtedly presents a desirable embedded development platform to engineers and will surely make a difference in the journey of driving the prosperity of IoT.
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