Application Scenarios for Edge Computing Gateways

With the introduction of edge computing into IoT gateways being imperative, what are the scenarios that require edge computing gateways? When organisations need to handle some real-time response operations (e.g., instantly responding to some local needs of users, such as unlocking shared bikes and using face recognition systems for access management), collecting and structuring data (e.g., extracting number plate information from videos, textualising it, and transmitting it back to the data centre), implementing real-time device monitoring (mainly data collection and monitoring of offline devices), and some decentralised P2P applications (where edge nodes can facilitate P2P communication between nearby devices when acting as service discovery servers), they will need IoT edge computing gateways.

There are a wide variety of edge computing application scenarios, many of which we can’t even imagine. We can give the following use cases for reference.

Power: Street light control, real-time monitoring and alarming of voltage and current data on city grids, or solar panel monitoring;

Security: Remote access control systems and alarms for anti-theft devices;

Energy: Data collection from monitoring of oil fields, coal mines, petroleum, natural gas and heating systems;

Traffic: Vehicle licence plate monitoring systems, vehicle infringement monitoring, traffic light control;

Environmental protection:collection of real-time data for monitoring and maintenance of water, sewage pipes, pumping stations and water plants.

Needless to say, edge computing gateways are essential in the era of IoT. As we mentioned earlier, edge computing gateways are responsible for processing and analysing data from devices to enable them to respond in real-time to applications that require low latency.

While edge computing has many benefits, it also poses many difficulties, such as managing and maintaining distributed devices, processing large amounts of data, and ensuring network security. Therefore, the success of IoT applications depends on choosing the right edge computing gateway platform and architecture, as well as its efficient configuration.