As many as ten companies including AT&T, Cisco Systems, GE, IBM,
and Intel are working with US government representatives to form a
consortium to drive the so-called Industrial Internet. Their goal is to
define an architectural framework for open industry standards that would
serve a broad swath of market sectors from automotive and manufacturing
to healthcare and the military.
If successful, the consortium hopes to be up and running with an initial draft of its framework and a test bed for it within a year. Such a document and capability could impact a wide variety of commercial products and programs in the emerging Internet of Things sector.
"The industrial and Internet revolutions are converging, and we believe the US could gain a competitive advantage with new products and services if we can exploit this convergence," said S. Shyam Sunder, a director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), who is helping organize the consortium.
The companies approached the government with the idea for the consortium in December. Their request dovetailed with an emerging NIST program on cyber-physical systems that had been the subject of a series of high-level meetings NIST hosted with technical and business industry leaders last year.
NIST and the interested companies laid out five areas the consortium's framework could address in a meeting in March. They included defining an architecture for:
The resulting architecture aims to be modular with separate portions addressing network physical layers, sensing, control, analytics, modeling/optimization, and business requirements. Sunder uses self-driving cars as an example of Industrial Internet systems that will require open standards to interact safely with each other and traffic management systems.
Earlier this year, NIST hired two IoT experts who will be tasked to help define the new architecture. Their work is sponsored by the Presidential Innovation Fellows program under the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The presidential fellows are Sokwoo Rhee, the founder of Millennial Networks, an early IoT startup spun out of MIT; and Geoff Mulligan, the head of the IPSO Alliance, a trade association promoting IP-based IoT products. They were chosen by NIST earlier this year from more than 300 candidates who applied for the positions.
GE is taking a lead in helping convene the new consortium. Last fall, it published a widely cited white paper describing the Industrial Internet.
The NIST effort comes on the heels of work the agency did to drive consensus around standards for the smart grid. Indeed, the NIST representative who initially drove the smart grid effort, George Arnold, was closely involved in the early phases of the new Industrial Internet consortium.
They "had tremendous success convening a large community," said Sunder. But the new group "is more private-sector driven -- that makes it stronger and more focused."
If successful, the consortium hopes to be up and running with an initial draft of its framework and a test bed for it within a year. Such a document and capability could impact a wide variety of commercial products and programs in the emerging Internet of Things sector.
"The industrial and Internet revolutions are converging, and we believe the US could gain a competitive advantage with new products and services if we can exploit this convergence," said S. Shyam Sunder, a director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), who is helping organize the consortium.
The companies approached the government with the idea for the consortium in December. Their request dovetailed with an emerging NIST program on cyber-physical systems that had been the subject of a series of high-level meetings NIST hosted with technical and business industry leaders last year.
NIST and the interested companies laid out five areas the consortium's framework could address in a meeting in March. They included defining an architecture for:
- Co-engineering cyber and physical systems
- Identifying cyber-security issues and solutions
- Addressing concerns about interoperability
- Identifying ways to maintain robust wireless connections
- Setting standards for real-time data collection and analytics
The resulting architecture aims to be modular with separate portions addressing network physical layers, sensing, control, analytics, modeling/optimization, and business requirements. Sunder uses self-driving cars as an example of Industrial Internet systems that will require open standards to interact safely with each other and traffic management systems.
Earlier this year, NIST hired two IoT experts who will be tasked to help define the new architecture. Their work is sponsored by the Presidential Innovation Fellows program under the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The presidential fellows are Sokwoo Rhee, the founder of Millennial Networks, an early IoT startup spun out of MIT; and Geoff Mulligan, the head of the IPSO Alliance, a trade association promoting IP-based IoT products. They were chosen by NIST earlier this year from more than 300 candidates who applied for the positions.
GE is taking a lead in helping convene the new consortium. Last fall, it published a widely cited white paper describing the Industrial Internet.
The NIST effort comes on the heels of work the agency did to drive consensus around standards for the smart grid. Indeed, the NIST representative who initially drove the smart grid effort, George Arnold, was closely involved in the early phases of the new Industrial Internet consortium.
They "had tremendous success convening a large community," said Sunder. But the new group "is more private-sector driven -- that makes it stronger and more focused."
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