CHAPTER 19

Blockchain and 5G for IoT

“New ways to improve the supply chain: Artificial Intelligence, IoT,

Big Data, Augmented Reality, Blockchain, Drones, Machine

Learning” – SupplyChainToday.com

In this chapter, we will explore why Blockchain adoption is

paramount in NextGen IoT adoption with an example of a use case.

Just like Blockchain, IoT is another emerging technology that has

observed exponential growth in the past one decade. IoT stands for

“Internet of Things” that refers to a group of technologies that helps

physical objects to interact with each other through the sensors

attached to them. Though the sensor technology has been there for

ages, due to the emergence of improved connection ecosystem and

wide coverage of the Internet, this technology has reached a new

level in the recent time.

19.1 How IoT Works

Before discussing about the latest innovations on IoT, it’s good to

know its basic functionalities. However, if you need to understand it

in greater details, you can refer to any good book on IoT.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a term coined in 1999 by a British

scientist named Kevin Ashton to refer to a group of connecting

objects in the physical world to the Internet. The technology that is

used for this connecting network is Radio-frequency identification or

RFID that uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and

track the tags attached to the objects.

IoT is a software that connects the edge hardware, access points,

and data networks to the other end, which is usually the end-user

application. The IoT Platform is a multi-layer technology which is

used to manage and automate the connected devices. In other