Integration of Internet of Things and Cloud computing: A case study on vital signs monitoring

Scientific advances and technological innovations in the fields of electronics, IT and telecommunications, are opening the way for new visions and concepts.
The aim of the thesis is to introduce the Cloud computing model for enabling today’s vision of the Internet of Things.
The first chapter introduces Ubiquitous computing as a new way of thinking about computers, looking to clarify about its definition, its birth and providing a brief histori- cal context.
The second chapter presents a vision of the Internet of Things (IoT) which makes use of concepts and issues already partially considered with Ubiquitous computing. Internet of Things is a vision in which the Internet is extended to everyday objects. Track the location of objects, monitor patients remotely, detect environmental data are just a few examples. Although this vision does not assume any specific communica- tion technology, to achieve this type of applications wireless technologies (e.g., Wi-Fi) are required. Also, development boards (e.g., Raspberry Pi and Arduino) can facilitate the prototyping of these applications.
The third chapter presents Cloud computing as a business model to use computa- tional resources on demand. In the chapter, the main features and the various types of service models are initially described, then it is argued the role of Cloud services for the Internet of Things. This model allows to accelerate the development and deploy- ment of IoT applications, providing storage capacity and computational resources for distributed processing of the huge amount of data produced by sensors and various devices. In this context Cloud computing is seen as a paradigm for big data storage and analytics.
Finally, in the last chapter we consider, as a practical example, the integration of Cloud computing technologies in an IoT application. The case study concerns the remote monitoring of vital signs, considering Raspberry Pi and e-Health platform developed by Cooking Hacks for the development of an embedded system, and using PubNub as a Cloud service to distribute all data obtained from sensors. The case study high- lights both the benefits and the possible problems that may arise using Cloud services for IoT applications.