Smart Technologies

The next-generation ‘smart’ technologies that are being developed will soon be deployed around us in a ubiquitous manner. It will have a significant impact on human life, lifestyle and life cycle. On the one hand, it might be highly beneficial for the quality, quantity and efficiency of work; on the other hand, it might also have its own set of disadvantages. In this chapter, we briefly introduce some of these ‘smart’ technologies and elaborate upon their nature, scope and applications to various sectors of technology and business, in a very simple and lucid manner.

The technology wave has had a big impact for a long time but has accelerated in recent years through globalization and digitization and has become disruptive. A disruptive technology not only substitutes existing solutions, it displaces established technologies and changes the industry and their business models or a pioneering product that bring on a completely new industry. Furthermore, the progress in all things digital is removing constraints and enabling new possibilities that affect humans’ lives, business models, enterprises productivity, mobility and logistic opportunities, and more. In this context, the past decade has witnessed remarkable innovations in digital technologies that have far surpassed the decade of personal computers and mobile phones.

IoT is the latest technology on the block, promising to be a panacea for multiple maladies. India, too, is looking at IoT with palpable interest. In this paper, we look the four major stakeholders in India, at the forefront of adoption and use of IoT, namely the academia, startups, large manufacturers, and the government. A representative of each class of the stakeholders is studied in depth, and the problems that they are facing with respect to implementation are identified. It turns out that a substantial chunk of the macrolevel implementation issues faced by all stakeholders are situated on the threads of one-to-one interactions of these stakeholders, with collaboration and standardization issues enveloping these one-to-one interactions. We propose a framework for formulating solution recommendations for these macroissues and give an example of its use.

Smart city is a buzzword in many discussions and debates and is being seen as a model for the development of future cities and a way forward for urbanization. To find the dimensions on which the performance of the smart city is assessed, various well-accepted models were identified. Smart governance being one of the dimensions, its various aspects as to how smart governance can translate to good governance is analyzed. The power of big data analytics is being leveraged by the businesses and corporates to improve their decision making by gaining insights on their business problems along with improving efficiency and delivering customer satisfaction. As the big data analytics is showing promise with its present applications, it is acting as a motivation to diversify the domains in which it can be applied. Smart Governance is required for creating successful smart cities, and big data analytics can play a major role in solving diverse day-to-day problems that a modern urban city faces.

For a developing country like India, providing public services catering to the needs of the masses is a challenge, and to achieve an economic growth with this underlying challenge, going digital is an important step. The initiatives which are taken as a part of providing public services in India are looked in detail. The analysis of these initiatives for providing an improved and a superior quality of public services is done in the context of cyber security, analyzing the issues which arise due to the cyber-threats. The soft point analysis with respect to these services is done, and the competency of the measures taken so far for ensuring cyber security is analyzed.

Cyber security was seen a technical problem, but humans are players in every Cyber security attack-defense game. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive critical assessment of role of government in tackling and implementing cyber security policy in India. While the role of the government is to provide safe and secure cyberspace in the country to its citizens. However, this paper highlights the current policies and recommends future Cyber security policy for creating a robust framework for protecting the Indian Cyber Space from attackers. It also explains the current trends of cybercrime, types of crime in India and provides direction for future collaborative framework for Cyber security prevention.

The manufacturing industry has been on its toes to cater to the dynamic demands of the human society as an outcome of the quest to have enhanced quality of life. The industry was thus forced to witness three industrial revolutions and is now celebrating the advent of fourth industrial revolution called Industrie 4.0. This revolution demands complete digital transformation of the products and processes using digital enablers such as IoT, Big Data, cloud computing, mobility, Augmented Reality, IIoT and advanced robotics and artificial intelligence. Organisation is sceptical about treading the digital path due to uncertainties and higher risks; however, there are few organisations which have successfully attempted the act of digital transformation thus paving path for others and have been categorised as Digital Masters. The review of the research undertaken in the past does not significantly throw light on the digital transformation process and its key focus areas. Therefore, this paper makes an attempt to blueprint the path followed by the Digital Masters which will enable the other organisations to undergo smooth digital transformation. The substantial outcome of the paper is a conceptual framework called Integration and Intensity, based on the principles, namely interconnection, information transparency, decentralised decisions and technical assistance.

With our society apparently becoming technology-obsessed day by day, business organizations would have to involuntarily adapt these innovations to be more efficient and productive. With respect to human resource management, lot many processes such as recruitment, training, and payroll have changed with the technology innovations. These technologies can further be used to detect any potential bad behaviors (also called as counterproductive work behaviors) in organizations. Researchers are increasingly focusing on these behaviors due to its effect on the well-being of the members of the organization and of the organization itself. Internet of things, abbreviated as IoT, is a technology framework that brings technologies together to execute specific actions. It is one of the most intriguing concepts that are attracting the attention of many organizations. This paper discusses the potential use of Internet of things in reducing counterproductive work behaviors (CWB). The paper emphasizes on different devices and techniques of identifying potential CWB. Further, the paper identifies some challenges the organizations might face while including IoT in its system.

The increased connectivity of people bridges the real world to virtual. Though social media is not reserved for age, gender, or ethnicity, our fellow millennial is heavily dependent on social networking sites (SNSs), microblogging (MB), and instant messages (IM) like tweets in twitter. These have become an essential part one’s own social world subjecting a cultural shift in the social workplace from traditional organization toward collaborative and social by nature. Millennial demands flexible use of social media to enhance quality of work through collaborative work environments and forcing the organizations to be more transparent connected and updated. Today, the main challenge of the organization is to adopt these changes and be successful in building leaders within an industry and continue to attract more talent and retain the same. It is time for the organizations “BEING SOCIAL” to maximize their value and business results in the digital era. Additionally, the smart manufacturing is driven by agility which is characterized by (a) cooperativeness, (b) synergism, (c) strategic vision, (d) responsive creation and delivery. The agile manufacturing is huge, technology intensive, and demand high labor costs, which is referred as Industry 4.0. It is characterized by virtual manufacturing, autonomous, sensor-based, situational controlling, and spatial distributed manufacturing resources driven toward the era of smart factory paradigm. The current paper emphasizes in two parts: (a) transformation at workplace and structure and (b) how millennial driven by mediated platforms seeks opportunity in Industry 4.0. We believe and propose that the only tangible information of an individual available in social media is digital identity, but the form in which identity takes varies from individual level to different social institutions including the social workplace. Present paper brings out the role of digital identity in forming a tangible asset to organizations and need for social media tool developers to understand millennial at the social work to develop strategies for control systems, understanding, and responding to different social media activities at workplace.

The manufacturing industry is considered to be the backbone of majority of the economies across the globe. Over the centuries, the manufacturing industry has experienced a sea change in the various business processes associated with it. The major catalysts to these changes are predominantly due to the ever-changing customer preferences and sustainability in the era of stiff competition. Though history attributes, these changes to the change in technology but the researcher strongly believes that this change in technology and need for innovative solutions is primarily triggered due to the resource constraints, customer retention and attraction and thus instigating the need for optimisation of the resources available without compromising on the customer satisfaction and profit maximisation. The widespread adoption of computations and communications deeply embedded in and interacting with physical processes in the manufacturing industry adding new capabilities to physical systems is increasingly making the boundaries between the physical world and the virtual world indistinct and is termed as cyber-physical production systems (CPPSs). The paper aims at characterising cyber-physical systems, assessing potential benefits and challenges faced. The paper attempts to suggest some recommendations to overcome the challenges of managing operations in CPPS.

Connected devices help us in many ways. They have made our lives easy and safe. With the introduction of Internet of Things (IoT), a lot of innovation has been driven in the manufacturing sector. However, it brings along with itself serious challenges too. The increase in the penetration of IoT has opened the doors for attackers with now even more surface area prone to attacks. The more machines connected the more the data is exchanged which implies more exposure of information which could be confidential and sensitive. Manufacturing units are the first line of defense in safeguarding a country’s capabilities. The information leaked through these channels is not only economically disastrous but also a serious concern for the security of a nation. There is a growing need to keep a check on the information that could be leaked. Cybersecurity plays an important role in preventing the misuse of the data collected through millions of devices nowadays. First, there is a need to spread awareness about the implications of data theft in the manufacturing environment and then understanding the need for cybersecurity in this environment.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)/drones are deployed for military applications such as intelligence gathering, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR). But not confined to military missions but drones are integrating into civilian domains rapidly for Internet of Things (IoT) services from delivering pizzas to mapping land resources. Technological innovation and increased diverse applications are the two key drivers of the rapid expansion of the drone technology. Low cost, ease of deployment, use any type of networks, anywhere 24×7, and ubiquitous usability of drones play an important and key enabler in the IoT vision. The main technology components of drones are structural airframe, propulsion, IoT systems such as ground control station (GCS), autopilot system, radio link, payload, launch and recovery system. Drones can offer IoT services when suitable payload is equipped to carry out value-added services.Some of the challenging issues are drone standards, regulations issues, physical collision, privacy issues, etc. The design standards used are any of the FAR 23, MIL-A-87221, DEF STAN 00-970/ STANAG 4671 to build the air vehicle, and airworthiness certificates are obtained from certification authorities. Regulations for operating UAVs in the military airspace are not restricted by aviation authorities, for civilian applications any individual nation’s civil aviation authority is free to formulate its own aviation rules, roadmap and regulations for operations within their autonomous airspace. The regulations bodies for the USA-FAR, UK-CAP722, Europe-EASA, Canada-SFOC, Australia-CASR part 101 and India-DGCA are building robust roadmap for operation of drones in civilian airspace. In this paper, current trends of drones, classifications, IoT architecture and IoT services are introduced. Civilian airspace regulations, challenges and requirements are presented.

Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are cyber-physical systems (CPS) meaning an integration of computation, networking, and physical processes. The main technology components of drones are physical structural airframe, propulsion system, embedded computing systems (ECS) such as ground control station (GCS), autopilot system, virtual radio link, multiple payloads, launch and recovery system. Drones systems are reliant on virtual cyber network and embedded computational system for their operation. Cyber security is meant for protecting technologies and processes. An attacker may misuse or manipulate the sensor input or functions, or he may simply disable them to cause denial of service attacks and make unwanted failsafe mechanisms. The drone has been identified as vulnerable to cyber-attacks because of their uniqueness of network and dispersed physical systems located in remote places and because of the cyber-attacks which can result in the defective operation of the control loop, denial of service, destruction and exfiltration, and information corruption. Hence, two important concerns need to be addressed for drones are cyber airworthiness safety and cyber reliability as well as security. In this paper, recent attack and failure of drones, drone network architecture, cyber security is introduced. Role of cyber security, standards, challenges, and requirements are presented.

The digital signatures principle can be used for developing an electronic cash-based transaction model only after solving for the “Double spending” problem associated with the use of digital coins as a payment method. This can be achieved by the help of a central trusted third party. However, the real benefit of the blockchain technology lies in making it possible without the need of any central trusted third party. Bitcoin as an application of blockchain proposes an open distributed ledger system synchronized by the help of miner nodes. Converging the applications of blockchains with Internet of Things can develop a new methodology of machine-to-machine communications and autonomous transactions.

The dynamic nature of the financial needs of the customers at different junctures and the hardships faced with the traditional methods of banking has led to transformation of the operational model of banks. Artificial intelligence driven decisions and automated actions are helping banks serve their customers better in a systemically responsible way. Use of AI in consumer finance has led the banks to identify the individual needs and states and personalize their outreach with customized products. AI is helping the banks to serve their small and medium enterprise customers with the privileges of large enterprises. Personalization of wealth management products and services is also possible by using the latest techniques in AI and machine learning. Post the financial crisis, new techniques using AI are being developed to timely assess credit and operational risks and be in a position to mitigate them. Also, with the advancements in cognitive AI, banks are now able to service their customers in a hassle-free, speedy, paperless and personalized manner.

The insurance sector forms the backbone of the global economy, because it enables both individuals and firms to undertake risky endeavors, which they would otherwise have avoided. As former Cisco CEO John Chambers put it, “the Internet of Things will be bigger than the Internet.” This truth has not been lost on the insurance industry players. In anticipation of the efficiency in operations and reduction in costs that technologies like artificial intelligence, cyber-physical systems, etc., promise to bring, insurers are already beginning to change their endgame by incorporating these technologies in day-to-day operations, building new insurance products, services and business models. But with each new technological breakthrough, the risks also change form. Currently, the risks are manifested in the form of the threat of cybercrime. To effectively tackle this threat, insurers will need to take a deep look at their underlying systems and process, and at the unnamed enemy’s modus operandi as well. We first take a look at the soft spots and threats faced by the insurance companies, and the impacts of these threats. We find that both management and technology measures are necessary to tackle the threat. We then come up with a five-pronged recommendation framework on how insurance companies can strengthen their security infrastructure.

IoT delivers relevant information to systems and people on a real-time basis, thus creating new business opportunities and extending the scope of retail services. The following paper discusses how IoT networks people, process, and systems leading to autonomous retail environments. The paper focuses on IoT application areas and challenges in retail domain and discusses case studies for enhanced customer experience through IoT.

As the digital retail landscape is rapidly evolving, retailers find themselves to be poorly equipped to handle increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. In the past, retailers gave little importance to IT security. IT security requirements were narrowly framed as ‘checkbox compliance’ given by payment card industry (PCI) for data protection specification and outsourced implementation to individual stores. As the consumer habits are changing, security also should be given a redefined focus. Compliance and privacy requirements are making data protection a very essential and critical task. The paper addresses gaps and solutions for cyber security in retail domain, especially in the backdrop of digitalization and omnichannel retailing.

Cyber-security has been the topic of serious debate in the government, industry and academia for the last 20 years. The Internet is one of the significant elements in many higher educational institutions. Online services have become keys in this modern era of learning and teaching environment. To meet the demands of the present-day diversified learners, higher education sector has been extensively seeking the help of the information systems and technology in their classrooms and also for the online learning systems as well. With a plethora of connected devices and increased utilization of the Internet, higher educational institutions are exposed to risks that impact their information and data security, which are referred to as cyber-threats. This paper deals with the security measures that need to be implemented in the higher education sector, which is incredibly critical, as the hackers can steal and misuse the information assets collected by the institutes.

Oil and gas industry along with the power industry has been facing criticism since the past many years due to their contribution to the carbon emissions. There has been a growing geopolitical pressure on these players to keep their carbon footprint to the minimum. Also, energy companies are also facing challenges due to the declining resources. This has also led to decline in the margins for both these industries. Also, there is a need to move towards non-fossil-based and clean resources due to environmental reasons such as pollution and climate change. The best way towards reducing the carbon emissions is by making the energy production and consumption more efficient. There is a growing need to utilize technology to make processes such as the production of energy supplies and the generation of power more efficient. Leveraging IoT capabilities will enable these industries to capture efficiency which can help them not only in improving margins but also in reducing their carbon footprints. Application of IoT in the energy and utilities space not only helps in solving these issues but also opens up multiple opportunities such as effective distribution, predictive maintenance and so on. IoT might seem like a buzz word but it will soon become a norm in the industry. With a tremendous increase in the processing capabilities over the years, we are in a position to utilize these technologies to move towards a more efficient world. IoT in energy and utilities helps us reach that space. The paper discusses the applications and challenges of IoT in the energy and utilities space in this paper. (Al-Ali in Energy Procedia 100:34-38, 2016 [1]) (BP in BP energy outlook, 2017 [2]).

Critical infrastructures (CI) play an important role within our everyday life supplying us with resources such as electrical power, water, heating, communication and financial services, transportation, or even health care. They are named ‘critical,’ as a dysfunction of the infrastructure results in a large impairment of our society.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the trend that designs the next generation technologies with the capability to impact the entire spectrum of business. It conceptualizes connection with anyone at any time with anything through any network at anyplace to serve any service. It can be defined as the interconnection of unique smart devices, services and systems. With IoT at play, automation is achievable in any field. The IoT offers wide range of ‘smart’ solutions such as smart cities, smart homes, smart retail, smart banking, smart manufacturing and smart health care. This paper gives an overview on healthcare industry, identifies the primary stakeholders of the ecosystem, discusses the current challenges faced by the industry because of digitization and IoT devices and also suggests preventive measures.

Developments in technology have impacted the automobile industry on a large scale. Connected car is a major concept related to mobile technology and Internet of Things (IoT). This paper aims to elaborate this major concept emphasizing the factors of future mobility in human lives.

Recently, it is clear how the technology is the main ingredient in our life. It exists in our daily life to make it more comfortable. Newly the advancement technology came into cars through connected devices. Cars are not like any types of equipment that we use because it is more complex and maybe effect terrifyingly on who drives this kind of cars. Lately too many studies focus on connected devices used with cars to improve the security environment. Some of the electronic devices must cooperate with each other and thus they require a communication channel, which can be wired or wireless. In these days, it would be hard to sell a new car operating with traditional keys; almost all modern cars can be locked or unlocked remotely and that requires more security because we are facing several threats over wireless communication channels.

Cybersecurity is an important topic in the automotive industry. The increasing connectivity between vehicles and infrastructure as well as a multitude of open interfaces heightens the risks of cybercriminal attacks against mission-critical automotive components. It is crucial for the future of the industry and the success of upcoming car IT solutions to secure them against new attack scenarios. Many different types of critical components are possible vulnerabilities for attacks. These attacks are, for example, data theft or blocking services or communication routes.

The automotive industry is one of the most important industries and has surpassed total revenue of 3 trillion Euros in 2015 and produced nearly 95 million units in 2016. A big buzz word in the automotive and car industry is now “connected car.” It is expected that 75% of the estimated 92 million cars shipped globally in 2020 will be built with Internet-connection hardware. Before go further, it’s essential to know what is connected cars? A connected car is a vehicle equipped with Internet access and usually also with a wireless local area network. This allows the car to share Internet access with other devices and connect the car with devices, networks and services outside the car including other cars, home, office, or infrastructure. Connected car features belong to several categories, safety, navigation, infotainment, diagnostics, and others. Connected cars have tremendous trend among manufactures with potential to provide the drivers convenience and services like built-in navigation and maps, emergency alarm, and internet connectivity.

The automotive industry is facing an unprecedented era of change (Koehler and Wollschlaeger in The digital transformation of the automobile—Five megatrends which are changing the industry, Media-Manufaktur GmbH, 2014; Möller and Haas in Guide to automotive connectivity and cybersecurity—Trends, technologies, innovations and applications, Springer, Berlin 2019; Broy in The danger is in the speed with which things are changing (in German), ATZ elektronik, Springer, Berlin, 2015; https://​cci.​car-it.​com/​download/​CCI_​2015_​Web.​pdf, URL2 2016). While acceleration, top speed, horsepower, and design were the most important criteria for buying a car in the past, electronics and software innovations are the defining criteria of tomorrow (Dunker and Bretting in Times are changing, Automotive IT, German, pp. 46–49, 2016). Advanced Driver Assistance Sytems (ADAS) are a major driver of innovation in the automotive domain and require sophisticated E/E platforms and new software architectures. The chapter gives a brief overview of these architectures, discusses object detection and sensor fusion and presents parking assistance systems as an important application area for ADAS. Some of the major challenges of Automomous Driving are being outlined before finally discussing the specific market requirements and hurdles for ADAS in the Indian market context.

This paper addresses the steep change in the agricultural sector in India during the last decade. The current economy of India mainly deals with the employability of the younger mass. The survey shows that 52% of the populations still are working in the agriculture sector. The challenge lies in getting the accurate profit for the amount they spend for plough their lands. With the advent of sensor nodes and IoT, a massive change is seen to ensure the farmers get what they expect as yield. The paper here discusses the present situation in India and the impact of technology in agriculture. The survey shows positive impact of technology intervention on real field.

According to the UN report 2017 on population, the global population is going to rise to approximately 9.8 billion by the year 2050, most of which is going to be concentrated around the larger parts of Asia in developing economies like China, India, Pakistan, etc. These countries would be under tremendous pressure to provide essentials like food, water and clean climate to their citizens under challenging situations such as diminishing supply of cultivable land, non-renewable energy and freshwater. Smart agricultural techniques can provide a possible set of solutions to improve the lives of farmers and consumers by technologically advancing the process of cultivation, protection and storage of agricultural production. It intends to help the agro-based decision-makers in taking informed decisions regarding maximizing crop yields and optimizing resources on a real-time basis. Applications of Internet of Things (IoT-based) technologies can also be extended beyond the farms to areas as fish farming, insect-breeding, livestock or even space farming. Success of such solutions depends upon how well the IoT-based technologies ‘tango’ with the traditional farming techniques.

In this paper, we wish to highlight the emerging application of ‘smart technologies’ based on Internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence, virtual reality and robotics while developing smart and sustainable farming solutions. We wish to understand the challenges faced by agri-biotech researchers who wish to leverage these next-generation technologies without compromising the traditional and conventional approaches. We draw attention towards the merits and demerits of the increasing usage and dependence on next-generation IoT-based agricultural technologies. We are curious to find out whether the dominance of such sophisticated technologies can compromise the ‘sustainability’ aspect which was so inherent in the traditional approaches to agriculture since centuries? In this context, we discuss the case of NICE (naturalist-inspired chemical ecology) lab at National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore which is trying to maintain a ‘fine-balance’ between the traditional and modern approaches to chemical ecology. The lab engages in answering fundamental questions in basic sciences like neuroscience, chemistry and animal behaviour, especially in their natural habitat with the next-generation technologies like virtual reality, robotic 3D printing and radar technologies. Academicians as well as practitioners might find the ‘NICE’ approach interesting, in their effort to develop smart and sustainable farming solutions without losing a touch of ‘Naturalism’.