Data from research institutes show that the global Internet of Things (IoT) market will exceed $900 billion by 2025. If you are not very clear about the concept of this number, there is a reference data right here. At present, the smartphone market is developing rapidly. Almost everyone has one smartphone. By 2020, the global smartphone market will be 355 billion US dollars. Data make us intuitively feel the enormity of the Internet of Things market. Undoubtedly, with the advancement of NB-IoT, LoRa and 5G technology, the Internet of Things market will gradually open up, and the huge tuyere will create more giant enterprises. In the industrial field, the Internet of Things will reshape the pattern of production and marketing, and the market will face a new shuffle.

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) integrates intelligent machines or specific types of equipment with embedded technology and network communication technology, and integrates them into all aspects of industrial production process. By enhancing the interconnection between machines and the coordination between machines and systems, large data collection and analysis can be carried out to improve manufacturing efficiency, improve product quality, reduce product costs and resource consumption, and ultimately upgrade traditional industries to a new stage of intellectualization.

Industrial Internet of Things (IOT) is the core area of industrial Internet. Its original intention is to achieve the interconnection of things. From the application form, the application of industrial Internet of Things has the characteristics of real-time, automation, embedded, security and information interconnection.

So, what technologies are needed to achieve interconnected communications and cooperative operations between industrial equipment?

1. Automation
At the end of 2017, e-works special organization resources around the current implementation and application of the industrial Internet of Things in enterprises to conduct a thorough investigation, the results show that mechanical, electrical, automotive and parts, electronic and electrical parts rank the top three, accounting for more than half of the total, reaching 51.83%. From the industry sample analysis, the three major industries are currently relatively mature industries in the application of industrial Internet of Things, and their automation level is in the leading position in the entire industrial field. This makes us realize that automation technology is indispensable for the rapid and full development of industrial Internet of Things.

The vision of industrial Internet of Things is to realize industrial intelligence, so the production and sales of products must break through the limitations of human resources, and be more efficient and accurate, which can not be separated from the assistance of automation technology. Industrial automation control system mainly includes three levels, namely, equipment layer, control layer and information layer. As we know, the structure of the Internet of Things is usually divided into three parts: application layer, perception layer and network layer. Structurally, the industrial Internet of Things and industrial automation are almost parallel synchronization. However, industrial automation is absolutely different from the Internet of Things. Traditional automation technology lacks the ability of self-optimization, self-processing and self-learning. It is built in the confirmed industrial scenario and can only deal with a single task. According to the results of e-works special organization resource survey, industrial automation can almost be considered as a necessary and insufficient condition of industrial Internet of Things.

2. Sensing Technology
Practitioners believe that, just as eyes, noses, ears and skin play a role in the human body, sensors play a role in the hardware of the Internet of Things to receive information from the outside world. This sentence makes us clearly realize that without sensors, the concept of the Internet of Things is a false proposition, a "scientific deception" that can only stay at the theoretical level.

Sensor is a kind of detection device, which can sense the measured information and transform it into electrical signal or other required form of information output according to certain rules to meet the requirements of information transmission, processing, storage, display, recording and control. Functionally, industrial sensors can be classified into photoelectric, thermal, gas, force, magnetic, sound and humidity sensitivities. Compared with civilian use, industrial environment requires more sensors, and the application scenarios are more complex and changeable. As the key to the bottom of the Internet of Things, sensors are ubiquitous in the construction of intelligent industry.

Of course, the rapid development of industrial Internet of Things has also promoted the innovation of sensors, such as the emergence of smart sensors. In industrial production, traditional sensors can not measure and control some product quality indicators, such as viscosity, hardness, surface finish, composition, color and taste, quickly and directly. Based on this requirement, intelligent sensor emerges as the times require. It can directly measure some quantities in the process of production, such as temperature, pressure and flow, which are related to product quality indicators. The quality of products can be inferred by using the mathematical model established by neural network or expert system technology.

3. Software programming
As more and more enterprises begin to deploy the Industrial Internet of Things, this may lead to closer collaboration between IT (Computer Software Technology) and OT (Operational Technology) departments. At present, there are many Internet of Things platforms, and industrial cloud is the main platform in the industrial field. Industrial cloud platform refers to the cloud platform in the industrial field, including IAAS (infrastructure service), PAAS (platform service) and SAAS (software service). With more and more large-scale equipment access, the equipment access capability, application environment complexity, user diversification and other issues of the Internet of Things platform will follow. The protocol is unified and has universal openness. Hair environment is particularly important. In the future, the Internet of Things platform with flexible connection, excellent expansibility, security and reliability, and friendly application development will be easier to win in the competition.

4. Network communication
With the advancement of the industrial Internet of Things, the need for enhanced communication capability will become more and more obvious.  Before the arrival of the 5G era, there were two types of networks needed by the Internet of Things. One is a low-power, short-distance, high-bandwidth type network, mainly including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ZigBee, which is used in the connection between objects; the other is a low-power, long-distance, low-bandwidth type network, mainly including LoRa, SigFox and NB-IoT, which is used in the construction of base station network.

The reason why 5G is regarded as a watershed is that the Internet of Things in 5G era will produce revolutionary changes compared with 4G era. At present, whether it is industrial Internet of Things or other types of Internet of Things, if you want to use the 4G network to send data will have a high cost, power consumption will become a major problem. The emergence of 5G network will thoroughly change this pain point. The Internet of Things will achieve ultra-low delay, efficient connection, low cost, low power consumption, high reliability, regional coverage, and hopefully solve the problem of inconsistent protocol building of operator-level Internet of Things. In conclusion, the Internet of Things in the 5G era will completely reshape and change our world.

5. AI
The Internet of Things (IOT) is to let people perceive the world and obtain data through sensors. As far as industry is concerned, the amount of data acquired by the system is beyond the scope of human processing. We can rely on high automation in the execution level of industrial Internet of Things, but in data screening and processing, we need more artificial intelligence.

Analysts and practitioners agree that AI and the Internet of Things will be deeply integrated. AI can maximize the value brought by the Internet of Things. The Internet of Things can provide AI with the large data information needed. Only when they are used simultaneously, can the benefits and advantages of AI and the Internet of Things be realized simultaneously. Therefore, whether it is industrial Internet of Things or other areas of Internet of Things, the introduction of artificial intelligence technology is the general trend.

6. Edge Computing
Industrial Internet of Things (IOT) requires high stability and reliability. It is impossible to transfer everything to network transmission. In some industrial operations that need real-time processing, the importance of edge computing is self-evident. Edge computing is a primary condition for the implementation of the Industrial Internet of Things. The cost loss caused by network disconnection is intolerable in the construction of the Industrial Internet of Things. Edge computing can complement the advantages of cloud computing, which will better support the real-time data analysis and intelligent application of local business, and make the solution of the Internet of Things more perfect.

With the development of the technology mentioned above and the improvement of chip technology, the Internet of Things will penetrate deeper and wider in the industrial field. Saidi consultants pointed out that the growth rate of China's industrial Internet of Things market in recent years is more than 30%, and the market size is expected to exceed 450 billion yuan by 2020. At the same time, many data analysis reports have given the same opinion, the industrial Internet of Things is the largest proportion of the current Internet of Things market. The tremendous tuyere effect makes us believe that the industrial Internet of Things will become a new strategic highland for future industrial development.