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Blockchain and Internet of Things Across Industries

Ananya Rakhra*, Raghav Gupta and Akansha Singh

Department of CSE, ASET, Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

In this chapter, we will come across different kinds of industries and how Internet of Things and blockchain technologies are applied to them. We commence with an overview about what an industry is and the nature of various industries, followed by knowledge about the technologies of IoT and blockchain. These technologies have facilitated advancement and ease in one's day-to-day life, the industrial sector being one among many where its impact is prevalent notably. Further, incorporation of these technologies across various sectors of industry and their scope has been focused upon. The advancements brought about, especially in fields such as that of healthcare sector, have revolutionized the previously existing methods, helping us attain better care and improved life expectancy. Also, the scope of these technologies beyond the industrial sector has been discussed. These technologies have facilitated specialization, so much so that its positive imprint can clearly be seen onto the nation's economy. This text on the whole allows the readers to attain a clear understanding and also unveils the great scope for further research and development offered by this sphere.

Keywords: IoT, Internet of Things, blockchain, technology, industry, smart devices

1.1 Introduction

Through the course of this chapter, we will come across various types of industries and how implementing IoT and blockchain through these industries will help facilitate the achievement of enormous endeavors beyond the scope one could think of a few years ago. These technologies have widened prospective and enhanced scope across varied fields; we will attempt to obtain an in-depth understanding of the same. Industries form the backbone of a country's economy. Any organization that is involved in large-scale production or providing services to a lot of customers is categorized as an industry. According to the purpose of the industry, they are classified as the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors. Classification based on the organisational framework of an industry is done as organized and unorganized sectors of industry. Categorization may also be done according to the ownership of the firm as either public or private sector industry. Each industry has varying demands and requirements based on the nature of production or service that they intend to provide. We will explore this phenomenon through the domains of various industries, for example, the agriculture industry, manufacturing industry, food production units, healthcare, military, it sector, and banking. We will see what the goals and functions of these industries are and how the efficiency and output can be highly improved, along with reducing human effort and also increasing accuracy. Then, we will move on to learn about the blockchain technology, its mechanism, requirements, advantages, and disadvantages. Blockchain technology is basically the practice of storing data into blocks that are connected to each other in the form of a chain. The distinctive feature of this technology is that once the data is entered into this chain it is immutable, which provides a very strong system to prevent any sort of tampering with the stored data, hence ensuring high level security. The chains are also encrypted and decentralized which further enhance its security. Next, we will look into what IoT is, how it works, and how it is beneficial to us. IoT is the acronym for Internet of Things, wherein we basically connect the physical devices to each other over a network enabling them to communicate and share information among each other. Here, devices are able to gain knowledge about their surroundings with the help of sensors. Common examples of IoT that have been incorporated in daily life are smart watches, smart lighting for households, surveillance cameras, etc. After understanding the functioning and applications of these, we will further see their combined applications of these two technologies in the industry. Incorporating these technologies in the industry opens up a very broad perspective to achieve new levels of specialization. Human tasks have been eased and accuracy and precision has spiked because of these. Profits made by companies have also seen increment; hence, it has proved beneficial to industries in a lot many ways. Further through the course of this chapter, after looking into the non-industrial applications of these technologies in depth, exploring various domains of implementation we will next see the applications and scope of these technologies beyond industries as well. In particular, we will be looking into how they have helped enhance life in different possible ways. First, we will get to know what smart homes are and study the involvement of these technologies in its creation and implementation. This advancement has brought about a lot of ease and pace into one's day-to-day household tasks and also evolved one's lifestyle. Then, we will read about how security via surveillance has been technologically boosted with the coming of IoT and blockchain into this sphere. The ways of monitoring have been specialized and the security of the data thus obtained is also highly increased due the usage of blockchain. Life and property are now being better guarded with the help of these. Smart solutions such as automated street lighting have also come up which contribute toward saving energy and resources, and incorporation of security mechanisms such as surveillance along with the street lights making the equipment multi-purpose and more useful. Let us begin with introducing what an industry is and how it functions.

1.2 Insight About Industry

In today's time, the types and scope of industries are massive. Industries have met with a lot of varied applications and requirements and are serving to facilitate the same. These industries provide to serve needs of mankind, ranging from the most basic necessities to comfort and exotic offerings. Industry can be referred to as any large-scale productive activity. It is these industries that strengthen a nation's economy, fulfils its needs, and provide safety, security, etc. Most spheres around us are industries in themselves. Some sectors of industry are depicted in Figure 1.1. The main features of any industry are large-scale production, specialization, research and development, mechanization, standardization, and management. We will now look into types or classification of industries and get to know about each one of them individually [1]. Industries can broadly be classified into the sectors: primary, secondary, and tertiary. The primary sector comprises of industries that are mainly involved in the extraction of raw materials, for examples, industries extracting metals from their ore, mining, and farming.

The secondary sector is where industries perform manufacturing and packaging of goods and commodities, examples of this sector of industries include food processing industries, car part manufacturing, and other such industries. The tertiary sector is also known as the service sector; industries such as IT, defence services, judicial workforce, banking, and teaching come under this category. Other bases of classification are either as organized and unorganized sector industry or as public sector or private sector industry. Organized industry sector is such that all its employees are assured work throughout their employment and there terms for the same are fixed and regular. In contrast, the unorganized sector provides flexible employment at the discretion of the employer and there exist no regularity or guarantee of the employment term, also such institutions may not necessarily be registered with the government. Public sector industries are those which are owned, funded, and managed by the government and like most other government jobs provide benefits to its workers such as pension. Private sector industries are owned by individual or partnerships between individuals.

Figure 1.1 Industries in focus.

The main motive of the individual running the company is to earn profit and these are not state controlled. The terms of employment may vary from company to company based on the interests of the owner. In India, most of the private sector industries are known to be paying higher salaries to its employees as compared to government industries but government jobs are seen to offer more job security benefits while under employment and even after it. All these are interdependent, we may say that primary sector industries are responsible for production of raw materials, the secondary sector process these raw materials to transform them into useful goods, and the tertiary sector utilizes and makes these products available to the consumers. Let us now focus on some industries and understand their requirements and production mechanisms.

In this part, we will be discussing about all the various industries, their functioning, and the importance that they hold. Let us understand the working of a few industries.

1.2.1 Agriculture Industry

This is one of the most important sectors as it caters to resolve the hunger of the country's entire population. This industry is the source of livelihood to about 58% of India's population. Most of the agricultural plots happen to be in the rural areas where development is far behind that in the bigger towns and cities. In India, particularly, agriculture is very widely practiced and it serves...