Internet of Robotic Things: Its Domain, Methodologies, and Applications

Abstract

Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of intelligent machines that possess the ability to sense, compute, manipulate, and navigate environments to monitor events and execute an appropriate course of action. Internet of Things (IoT) on the other hand is a fast-developing novel technology consisting of group of uniquely addressable heterogeneous smart objects or tiny devices (things) interconnected via the Internet to share and process data from different sources. IoT is designed with the goal to “connect everything and everyone everywhere to everything and everyone else.” The two technologies, IoT and robotics, have evolved into Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) by the creation of a synergy between the two. IoRT aims at enhancing the current IoT with active sensing and actuation from robotics. This idea opened a novel opportunity for collaboration between IoT and robotics applications and research communities. However, most application domains of IoT and robotics have not fully explored the use of IoRT. This chapter discusses the (potential) applications of IoT-aided robotics in different domains, explaining how robots can extend the capabilities of existing IoT architectures to make them more knowledgeable and smarter; discuss some of the challenges in the full realization and application of IoRT; and lastly proposes an IoRT architecture for smart library management, an area that has not received much attention in the research community.