The “Thing as a Service” approach is not new. When we rent a car, a hotel room or an apartment, we pay the property owner based on the number of days for which we use the property. A “Thing as a Service” is a popular pricing strategy because it offers customers significant value without a large expense up front. Sensor as a Service makes a lot of sense because customers don’t make an initial capital investment for infra-structure, software development and support. The service vendor takes care of all such expenses and the customer pays the service provider based on usage.
“Sensor as a Service” includes not only the sensor but all the software that is required to get business value out of the sensor. Several components are at work before a sensor can be made useful. As shown in the figure below, a Smart Sensor connects with the “thing” such as a machine or a room and generates telemetry data corresponding to a physical property such as temperature or speed. Telemetry data is stored in a Data Lake and is available for one or more business application. A business application creates reports and alerts which are consumed by business users and administrators. Obviously, the sensor must be registered with the sensor registration service and security must be implemented for data in transit, data at rest and application access.

When telemetry data is available in the data lake, it is possible to provide data visualization through reports, generates alerts to warn the users of certain situations and it is possible to inter-work with external applications.
There are several architectural factors to be considered such as scalability, security, robustness, ease of use and ease of maintenance of a complete, end-to-end solution, around the sensor. The service provider who provides “Sensor as a Service”, delivers a complete solution as well as any required technical support and upgrades. The software capabilities such as sensor registration, data lake, etc. are shared across multiple sensors and sensor types. There is no Annual Maintenance Contract required because the service provider maintains the sensor and required software while the customer is using it.
At Olyphaunt Solutions, we specialize in designing and developing end-to-end solutions based on the “Sensor as a Service” model. Our expertise in Sensors, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is available for delivering scalable, robust solutions for industrial needs.
For more information, please contact us.
By,
Suhas D. Joshi,
CTO, Olyphaunt Solutions Pvt. Ltd.