IoT architecture and levels

IoT architecture shows the building blocks of an IoT system and how they are connected to collect, store and process data.
IoT architecture also contains device and user management components to provide stable and secure functioning of things and control user access issues.
The most basic architecture is a three-layer architecture which introduced in the early stages of research in this area.
But it is not sufficient for research on IoT because research often focuses on finer aspects of the internet of things.

Perception(recognition) Layer

This layer is the physical layer, which has sensor for sensing and gathering information about the environment.
One of the important function of this layer is that it linked and converts the information gathered by the sensors into digital signals which are further transferred to the Network layer.
Example : The smart phone itself has many type of sensors embedded in it such as the location sensor(GPS), movement sensor(accelerometer, gyroscope), camera, light sensor, microphone, proximity sensor, and magnetometer.

Network Layer

The Network layer is responsible for connecting to other smart things, network devices, and servers.
The function of this layer are to receive and transmit the digital data to the processing (middleware) layer.
These data are transmitted onto the middleware layer over some transmission medium such as WI-FI,4G and GSM etc along with protocol like IPv4,DDS etc.

Processing Layer

Application Layer

This layer is responsible for delivering application specific services to the user.
It define various application in which the IoT can be deployed, based on the processed data.
Example:
- Smart phone, smart watch etc.

Business Layer