A Utility Paradigm and Roadmap of Internet-of-Things in Thailand
for Digital Economy Development towards ASEAN Economic
Community
Jeerana Noymanee
1
, Wimol San-Um
2
and Thanaruk Theeramunkong
3
1
Electronic Government Agency (Public Organization) of Thailand, Bangkok, Thailand
2
Intelligent Electronic System Research Laboratory, Thai-Nichi Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand
3
School of Information, Computer and Communication Technology (ICT), Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology,
Thammasat University, P.O.Box 22, Pathum Thani 12121, Thailand
Keywords: Internet-of-Things, Roadmap, Thailand.
Abstract: While the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is on the rise in global economy, a digital economy is
consequently an effective and efficient policy, which is necessary to stimulate a rapid growth in an average
Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Internet of Things (IoT), in which physical perceptions, cyber interactions,
social correlations, and cognitive process can be united through ubiquitous interconnections, potentially
enables a success in digital economy policy. Thailand as a part of AEC has realized the importance of the
design and implementation of IoT ranging from physical layer to application layer. This paper presents the
roadmap of IoT in Thailand towards AEC. In accordance to Thai environments and possible application
platforms, the current status of IoT is described in terms of Internet-of-Device (IoO), Internet-of-Service
(IoS), Internet-of-People (IoP), and Internet-of-Intelligence (IoI). The roadmap of IoT for Thailand until the
year 2020 and beyond is suggested as for a perspective on an opportunity in international trading and
investments. Challenges in major IoT implementation issues in Thailand such as security, standardization,
and interoperability are also discussed. This paper offers new perspectives, utility paradigm, social and
economic impacts of IoT implementation in Thailand as a potential country in terms of markets and
production hubs in South East Asia region.
1 INTRODUCTION
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) Economic Community (AEC) shall be the
goal of regional economic integration by 2015 with
ten countries, including Brunei Darussalam,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar,
Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, and Thailand. The
AEC envisages such significant characteristics,
involving a unique market and production base, a
highly competitive economic region, a region of
equitable economic development, and a region that
will be fully integrated into the global economy.
Consequently, the AEC would entail free flows of
goods, services, investments, capital, and skilled
labors in order to synergize markets and production
hubs. The average GDP growth prospects of the
ASEAN countries are projected to grow at 5.1% in
2015 and to continue to expand by 5.4% in 2016. It is
expected that the success of AEC integration would
lead to the fourth largest economy in the next few
years (
M. Palatino). Therefore, the advanced
technology is ultimately essential to advocate and
accelerate such a rapid growth in GDP of AEC.
Of particular interest in accelerating economic
growth through the utilization of technological
approaches, the digital economy concept has become
an important policy that mainly determines
economical strategies in some countries of AEC
members. The digital economy can be considered as
an economic system in which a digital Information
and Communication Technology (ICT) is extensively
employed as an integral part of developments. Such a
digital economy can lead to rapid economic and social
developments in the present interconnected societies,
resulting in increasing efficient and uniform income
distribution patterns. The foundation of success in
implementing the digital economy involves complete
developments in infrastructures of, for example, open
government, data center, cloud computing, e-
government services, digital entrepreneurs, digital
36
Noymanee, J., San-Um, W. and Theeramunkong, T.
A Utility Paradigm and Roadmap of Internet-of-Things in Thailand for Digital Economy Development towards ASEAN Economic Community.
DOI: 10.5220/0005893700360046
In Proceedings of the International Conference on Internet of Things and Big Data (IoTBD 2016), pages 36-46
ISBN: 978-989-758-183-0
Copyright
c
2016 by SCITEPRESS Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
Table 1: Summary of examples of IoT applications and platforms.
Figure 1: Proposed architecture of IoT implementation towards smart Thailand 2025.
business analytic center, and digital society
promotion. As for instance, Singapore (Leong and Mun,
2013) and Malaysia (Ahmad et al., 2012) have officially
announced the concrete plans of digital economy
deployments since the years 2012 and 2014,
respectively, in order to move the nations rapidly
forward towards achieving national vision and
aspirations by 2020. Thai government has also
recently focused on digital economy as one of a major
policy for economy alleviation in society,
government, and business sector. One of advanced
technologies that potentially enable a successful
implementation of digital economy is an “Internet of
Things (IoT)”. The IoT has been becoming a
significant system paradigm in which physical
perceptions, cyber interactions, social correlations,
and cognitive process, can be intertwined in the
ubiquitous things interconnections (Huansheng
et al.,
2016). Based on the advancement of IoT
implementation in AEC, Singapore is a leading
country followed by Malaysia and Thailand whist
other countries are still being studied for future
economy improvements.
Smart home Smart retail Smart cit
y
Smart
agriculture
Smart water Smart
transportation
Network size
Small Small Medium Medium or large Large Large
User
Very few,
Family
members
Few,
Community
level
Many,
Policy makers,
General public
Few,
Landowners,
Policy makers
Few,
Government
Large,
Goverment
General Public
Ener
gy
Rechargeable
battery
Rechargeable
battery
Rechargeable
battery, Energy
harvesting
Energy
harvesting
Energy
harvesting
Rechargeable
battery, Energy
harvesting
Internet
connectivity
Wifi, 3G, 4G
LTE
backbone
Wifi, 3G, 4G
LTE
backbone
Wifi, 3G, 4G
LTE backbone
Wifi, Satellite
communication
Satellite
communication,
Microwave
links
Wifi, Satellite
communication
Data
management
Local server Local server Shared server Local server,
shared server
Shared server Shared server
IoT Devices
RFID, WSN RFID, WSN RFID, WSN WSN Single sensors RFID, WSN, single
sensors
Bandwidth
requirement
Small Small Large Medium Medium Medium to large
Examples
Smart home
[7]
Smart
Enterprise [8]
Smart City [9] Smart Monitoring
of Potato Crop
[10]
Sustainable
Water Supply
[11]
IBM smart
transportation [12]
A Utility Paradigm and Roadmap of Internet-of-Things in Thailand for Digital Economy Development towards ASEAN Economic
Community
37
Table 2: Summary of characteristics of the Major devices used in IoT.
Applications of IoT have extensively been
implemented and suggested in recent years as smart
platforms. Table 1 summarizes examples of IoT
applications and platforms, involving smart systems in
home, retail, city, agriculture, water management, and
transportation (Du et al.,2013; In and Kyoochun
,2015 ; Aditya,2015; Ciprian-Radu,2015; Dan et
al.,2015). It can also be seen from Table 1 that
elements enabling successful IoT implementations are
network size, user, energy, internet connectivity, data
management, and devices. In accordance to such IoT
implementations in Table 1, this paper has realized
that IoT can be utilized to improve the digital economy
in Thailand. Therefore, this paper presents the
paradigm and roadmap of IoT in Thailand towards
AEC. According to Thai environments and possible
application platforms, the current status of IoT will be
described in terms of four subcategories of IoT,
including Internet-of-Object (IoO), Internet-of-
Service (IoS), Internet-of-People (IoP), and Internet-
of-Intelligence (IoI). The roadmap of IoT for Thailand
is suggested as for a perspective on an opportunity in
international trading and investments. Challenges in
major IoT implementation issues in Thailand such as
security, standardization, and interoperability are also
involved.
2 CURRENT STATUS AND
PROPOSED ARCHITECTURE
OF IoT IN THAILAND
Fig. 1 proposes architecture of IoT implementation
towards smart Thailand in 2020 and beyond. This
architecture presents a conceptual framework that IoT
can be classified into four categories, i.e. Internet-of-
Object (IoO), Internet-of-Service (IoS), Internet-of-
People (IoP), and Internet-of-Intelligence (IoI).
Besides, all categories is regulated by laws, and
policies as well as IoT-oriented organizations should
be established in order to drive the existence and
successfulness of IoT. Consideration based on such a
conceptual framework offers a systematic perspective
on IoT with three basic implications, involving
integration, interconnection, and interaction.
2.1 Internet-of-Object (IoO)
The IoO refers to as a physical system conceived in a
linear dimension in which physical devices are
respectively perceived and controlled by sensors and
actuators in order to establish interactions via
communication channels, remote collaboration, and
real-time localizations. This section particularly
considers five major key technologies that potentially
enable the success of IoT in Thailand, including Radio
Frequency Identification (RFID), Near-Field
Communication (NFC), Micro-electro-mechanical
systems (MEMS), Wireless Sensor Network (WSN),
IEEE 802.15.4 Standard and Zigbee, and Bluetooth
Low Energy (BLE). In particular, Table 2 summarizes
characteristics of the main technologies used for
collecting data in IoT.
2.1.1 Radio Frequency Identification
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) employs an
electromagnetic field to transfer data for automatic
identification and tracking tags, which contain
electronically stored information, attached to objects.
RFID is a key technology that plays an important role
Devices
Example of devices
Capabilities Data rate
Maximum
Distance
Reference
Standard
Applications
RFID
Book/CD/DVD tag,
ca
r
-sharing cards,
RFID
passports, RFID badge
Identificatio
n
communicatio
n
Up to 640
kbps
3
10 m ISO/IEC 1800
Transportation,
animal ID, retail,
access control,
payment
Sensor
( MEMs)
Environmental
monitoring sensors,
wearable sensors,
digital camer
a
S
communicatio
n
250 kbps 10100 m IEEE 802.15.4,
Wireless
HART, ISA 100
Health/ environme
ntal /industrial
surveillance
NFC
FC embedded in
smartphone, ticke
t
stamping machine,
storing,
logistics, tracking,
monitoring,
intelligen
t
agriculture,
ZigBee,
ensing, storing,
p
rocessing,
p
arking mete
r
Communication 106424
kbps
610 cm ISO/IEC18092/
ECMA-340,
ISO/IEC21481/
ECMA-352,
ISO/IEC14443
information,
access control,
contactless
payment
Sharing/access
IoTBD 2016 - International Conference on Internet of Things and Big Data
38
in embedded system which enables design of
microchips for wireless data communications. Two
types of RFID tags based on battery used are active
and passive tags. On the one hand, the passive RFID
tag is not battery-powered and the tag uses the power
of the reader’s interrogation signal to communicate
the ID to the RFID reader. On the other hand, the
active RFID reader has its own battery supply and can
instantiate the communication route.
The implementation of RFID stimulates
innovation and the development of IoT. Industry and
government mandates are regulating technologies
leading to accepted standards across industries
allowing for interoperability among devices. In
addition, the cost and size of devices continues
decreasing which allows companies to embed smaller,
common items with RFID chips and sensors
(Chunling, 2012). Thailand’s National
Telecommunications Commission has established
regulations for RFID technology in Ultra-High
Frequency (UHF) area. The typical frequencies are
between 920 MHz and 925 MHz. The Frequency
Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) is utilized with a
maximum power output, i.e. effective isotropic
radiated power, of 4 Watts. Licensing is required for
outputs above 0.5 Watts (Verdouw,2013). Current
applications of RFID in Thailand are access control
and security, logistics, transportation, membership,
factory and process automation, warehouse and cargo
managements, and retail store. This paper suggests
that the RFID technology will be employed in service
infrastructure in the near future, including agriculture
and tourism as these two industries provide main
incomes for Thailand.
2.1.2 Near-field Communication
Near field communication (NFC) is generally a
set of interface and protocol which allows
electronic devices to establish radio
communication by touching the devices together
or bringing into proximity to a distance of lower
than 10 cm. In Thailand, the NFC is a SIM-based
system and is relatively new technology
introduced in the year 2013 (M. León-
Coca,2013). The major applications are mobile
payment in retails and touch-up fares on the BTS
(Sky train transportation) and MRT
(Underground Transportation). Other applications
are still being considered to be implemented.
2.1.3 Micro-electro-mechanical Systems
A micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) is a
technology which combines a computer in miniature
mechanical devices embedded in integrated circuit
silicon chips (Pinelis,2015). MEMS have been
recognized as microsensor and microactuator, which
can be categorized as a transducer, typically
converting a measured mechanical signal into an
electrical signal (P. Doe, 2015). Although MEMs are
newly introduced in recent years, commercially
available MEMs are, for instance, biometric sensors,
health and environment sensors, imaging sensors,
light sensors, microphones, and motion sensors
(Vazquez-Mena,2014). Such MEMs-based sensor
significantly allows the connection of end devices to
IoT platform with real-time information gathering.
Although MEMs has been commercialized in many
countries, Thailand has not yet successful in using
MEMS. Nonetheless, the National Electronics and
Computer Technology Center (NECTEC) have
induced dynamics in research and development on
MEMs, including nanotechnology in order to support
technology development and adoption in electronics
such as nanosensor, Lab-on-a-chip, microfabrication,
and MEMS devices (Yuksel et al.,2015).
2.1.4 Wireless Sensor Network
The advancement in Integrated Circuits (IC) for
wireless communications have led to low-cost, low-
power and robust small devices, which improve the
capability of utilizing a Wireless Sensor Network
(WSN) in which sensors are equipped with wireless
interfaces that communicate with one another to form
a network. The WSN comprises sensors that enable the
collection, processing, analysis and dissemination of
information. The WSN typically consists of four major
components as follows. First, the WSN hardware
mainly means node sensor interfaces, processing units,
transceiver units, and power supply. Second, WSN
communication in which the nodes are expected to be
deployed in an Ad-Hoc configuration. Considerations
on designing suitable network topology, routing and
MAC layer are significant for the scalability and
longevity of a network. Note that modern
communication at any nodes should be able to interact
with internet as a gateway to WSN subnet. Third, the
WSN middleware is a mechanism to combine cyber
infrastructure with a Service Oriented Architecture
(SOA) and sensor networks to provide access to
heterogeneous sensor resources. Last, the secure data
aggregation which is an efficient and secure method
required for expanding network lifetime and ensuring
data collection reliability (Angela et al.,2015; De-gan
et al.,2015; Flauzac et al., 2012 ).
The advantages of WSN are not only a connection
between real physical and virtual worlds, but also
A Utility Paradigm and Roadmap of Internet-of-Things in Thailand for Digital Economy Development towards ASEAN Economic
Community
39
allow the capability to observing previously
unobservable data at a fine resolution over large
spatiotemporal scales. The WSN has therefore become
one of the most significant elements in IoT paradigm.
The integration of WSN to other IoT elements affords
heterogeneous information systems that can be able to
collaborate and provide common services. This
integration has lately been supported by several
international companies. In Thailand, the WSN has been
employed for mainly tracking and monitoring
applications. The tracking applications, including
military and object tracking, are still being in a research
and development process. However, the monitoring has
extensively been used in agriculture as an intelligent
farming that monitors temperature and relative
humidity. The use of WSN in Industrial and home
monitoring has been increasing lately as the cost of
equipment in WSN has been decreasing significantly.
2.1.5 IEEE 802.15.4 Standard and Zigbee
IEEE 802.15.4 is the standard for short-range low-
rate wireless personal area networks, focusing on low
deployment cost, low complexity, and low-power
consumption. The communication topology among
network devices can be either the star topology that
communicates with a central controller or the peer-to-
peer topology in which Ad Hoc or self-configuring
networks can be formed. The physical layer supports
868 MHz or 915 MHz low bands and 2.4 GHz high
bands and the MAC layer controls access to the radio
channel using the CSMA-CA mechanism. There has
been many WSN application using IEEE 802.15.4
standard, including residential, industrial, and
environment monitoring, control, and automation.
ZigBee (Kunho et al., 2015) is a higher layer
communication protocol based on IEEE 802.15.4
standard. ZigBee has been designed with easy-to-use
configuration and low-power communication
technology for embedded system applications.
ZigBee-based devices can be able to form mesh
networks where hundreds of devices can be
connected. Three types of Zigbee are (1) ZigBee
coordinator that initiates network formation, stores
information, and connects networks together, (2)
ZigBee router that links devices altogether and
provides multi-hop communications, and (3) ZigBee
end-device that comprises sensors, actuators, and
controllers for collecting data and communicating
solely with Zigbee router and coordinator.
Although the Zigbee has been suggested for a
decade, it is now still being exploited in a variety of
applications in Thailand such as home automation
(Korkua, 2013), building automation, disaster
warning system (Cholatip,2011), and security
application. Integration of Zigbee into IoT platform
for specific applications is now being researched and
studied. It is expected in prototype currently studied
will be in the market in the next few years.
2.1.6 Bluetooth Low Energy
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a wireless personal
area network technology which considerably reduces
power consumption and cost while similar
communication range in common Bluetooth is
maintained (Holler,2015). Typically, the BLE
features provide ultra-low power consumption, an
ability to operate for years on standard coin-cell
batteries, lower implementation costs, and multi-
vendor interoperability (Jensen,2015). Major
applications of BLE are sports and fitness, health
care, wearable and entertainment devices.
Apparently, the BLE has been considered as another
key technology in IoT implementations that help
communicate between machine-to-machine (M2M),
and machine-to-people (M2P). The BLE has recently
been utilized in Thailand in the year 2014 with Ad
Hoc mesh network mobile application such as
AirTalk and some of social networking service
(SNS) such as Photozuo. In the year 2015, iBeacon
technology has been implemented in a shopping mall
where iBeacon relies on data transmission and
location in the building developed in conjunction with
the core location APIs to locate the position of users
and guidelines to send promotional information. The
BLE in Thailand is still in an early stage. Many
companies and universities are conducting research
and development on iBeacon-based IoT platform and
it is expected that the BLE will be used widely in the
next few years.
2.2 Internet-of-Service (IoS)
The Internet-of-Service (IoS) aims to implement an
internet as a medium for services, invocation and
execution, and can be considered as a platform for
retrieval, combination and utilization of interoperable
resources. Web and application services have been
emerged as a collection of networked services
accessed through standardized protocols that can be
integrated to form complex services in online
applications. It is expected that web and application
services is an enabler for a seamless application-to-
application integration. Based on the current status of
web services in Thailand, this section focuses on IPv6
internet protocol and other possible IoT-oriented
protocols. For instance, a smart meter system
IoTBD 2016 - International Conference on Internet of Things and Big Data
40
(Weerachai,2014), a smart disaster warning system
(Jirapon,2011), and a smart health monitoring system
(Suranan,2013) have been implemented as a
prototype in Thailand.
2.2.1 IPv6 Internet Protocol
As critical features of creating a unique address in IoT
include uniqueness, reliability, persistence and
scalability, all connected devices must therefore be
identified by their unique identification, location and
functionalities. Currently, the fourth version of
internet protocol (IPv4) is still being utilized.
However, more spaces of IP address in IPv4 are
necessary to connect new devices. Consequently, the
internet mobility attributes in the sixth version of
internet protocol (IPv6) has been suggested through
the use of a 128-bit address, allowing 2128, or
approximately 3.4×1038
addresses(Montavont,2014). Apparently, IPv6 would
definitely alleviate the device identification
problems. It should also be considered that the
persistent network function that provides a channel
for data traffic ubiquitously and persistently is one of
the important features of IoT. Even though the
conventional Transmission Control Protocol
(TCP/IP) deals with this problem by routing through
a reliable and efficient way, the IoT, however, still
has a problem in the interface between the gateway
and wireless sensor devices. Two possible solutions
are as follows. First, the Uniform Resource Name
(URN) system (Gubbi, 2013) can be used as a
fundamental for the development of IoT. Such a URN
creates replicas of the resources that can be accessed
through the URL. Second, the IPv6 also provides a
very good option to access the resources uniquely and
remotely. In Thailand, IPv6 is not extensively used,
excluding some national research centers or some
research universities. The government is now
accelerating all governmental organization to use
IPv6 as well as fostering the implementation of IoT.
As will be seen later in the roadmap, it is expected
that IPv6 shall be used in the next three to five years.
2.2.2 Cloud Computing
Cloud computing plays a major role for the IoS,
enabling the on-demand provisioning of applications,
platforms, and computing infrastructures. Current
cloud service frameworks realize individual data
remotely stored in an online cloud server, and provide
great conveniences for users to use the on-demand
cloud services. Thai government has established
Government-Cloud called G-Cloud operated by
Electronic Government Agency (Public Organization)
of Thailand since the year 2012. The G-cloud aims to
improve public service data center consolidation
delivery and access to G-Cloud public services. In
addition, the G-cloud was expected to help increase the
efficiently for public service delivery. Three classes of
G-cloud were established, including Software as a
Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). It can be concluded
that Thailand has high potential for data storages in all
levels provided by Thai government.
2.2.3 Visualization and Application
Visualization is perhaps a crucial issue in IoT
applications since visualization controls the interaction
of users with environments. Smart tablets and phones
have allowed an intuitive visualization due to the
emergence of touch screen technologies. It should be
noted that attractive and easy-to-understand
visualization has to be utilized. It has been reported that
the present numbers of smart devices in Thailand in the
year 2015 is 98.93 million devices. As the screens are
moving from 2-dimensional towards 3-dimensional
display, information may be provided in meaningful
ways for consumers. This advancement will allow
policy makers to shift data into knowledge, resulting in
fast decision making. Nonetheless, the visualization
considered as own innovation of Thailand is in an early
stage, most advanced devices are provided by
international companies. However, some providers
have started researching and developing mobile and
web applications as our own innovation.
2.3 Internet-of-People (IoP)
Internet-of-People (IoP) focuses on human-oriented
applications in which a person is a peer with other
persons in a network for unrestricted interaction and
resource sharing. The IoP deals with significant
challenges as a mean of social and economic
contracts for individuals and organizations, which are
undergoing a change in digital societies
(Jayavardhana,2013). According to real-time data
driven interconnections, people in the network are
assigned with the capabilities of accessing
transparency, dynamic participation, and
accountability. It can be considered that a web-based
social network connects people who share the
interests and activities without political, economic,
and geographic boundaries.
Based on a perspective of social networking
services, the overall structure of social entities can be
identified into local or global social patterns,
determining the influential entities, and monitoring
A Utility Paradigm and Roadmap of Internet-of-Things in Thailand for Digital Economy Development towards ASEAN Economic
Community
41
Figure 2: The proposed roadmap of IoT towards smart Thailand in 2020.
social relationship dynamics. Consequently, IoP
interconnects growing population of users while
promoting their continuous empowerment,
preserving their control over their online activities
and sustaining free exchanges of ideas. The IoP also
provides means to facilitate everyday life of people,
communities, organizations, allowing at the same
time the creation of any type of business and breaking
the barriers between information producer and
information consumer. Based on the concept of IoP,
Thailand should consider a human-centric approach
for IoT implementation. The statistical data has
revealed that Thai population is now approximately
68.23 millions . The percentage of people using
internet via smart devices is 92%. It is also found that
students keep online more than others and they use
internet for online social network such as Facebook,
Line and Tweeter. Therefore, the implementation of
IoT in Thailand should categorize in appropriate
target group, including professionals, citizen,
students, and also handicapped. A clear target for IoT
implementation through the framework of IoP would
lead to efficient use of resources for end users.
2.4 Internet-of-Intelligence (IoI)
This paper introduces the term “Internet-of-
Intelligence” as the highest level under a framework
of Internet-of-things as described in Fig. 1.
Fundamentally, an Artificial intelligence (AI) can be
considered as a general term representing the theory
and technology related to simulating intellectual
abilities of human being, including the ability to
understand and solve problems. Typical processes of
AI involve perception, cognition, decision-making,
strategy execution, and strategy optimization. A
particular case of IoI means the use of AI as a smart
machine or algorithm in IoT. AI can provide the
framework and tools to move beyond trivial real-time
decision and automation use cases for IoT. The
intelligence can be embedded either in a central level
that help manage big data called data mining
technique or in any end-device such as the controls of
microcontrollers or actuators. Much attention paid on
AI techniques in Thailand is natural language
processing, expert systems, planning and scheduling,
knowledge engineering, and human interface. In
addition, particular techniques under research and
IoTBD 2016 - International Conference on Internet of Things and Big Data
42
development are artificial neural network, machine
learning, and fuzzy logic control (Boonserm, 1999).
For the central data level, the data mining seems
to be the most potential intelligent approach in
Thailand. The extraction of useful information from
sensing environments at different conditions and
resolutions has been a challenging problem in IoI.
The data mining can be considered as a computational
process of discovering patterns in large data sets also
called as big data, involving methods at the
intersection of artificial intelligence, machine
learning, statistics, and database systems (Chun-
Wei,2014). Currently, the Electronic Government
Agency (Public Organization) of Thailand has
already initiated an open data center for use in
governmental organizations and some enterprises.
However, data mining is still required to analyze a
large data set. For end-user application, IoI can be
embedded in sensors and actuators through a
microcontroller.
3 PROPOSED ROADMAP OF IoT
TOWARDS SMART THAILAND
IN 2020 AND BEYOND
Fig. 2 shows the proposed roadmap of IoT towards
smart Thailand in 2020. It can be seen from Fig.2 that
the real situation of IoT in Thailand before the year
2010 realized the existing technologies, including
sensor networks, sensor middleware, RFID, internet
broadband and image processing, for accelerating
economics supply-chain supports. Example of
apparent applications existed are RFID for
surveillance security, e-commerce, and document
managements. Lately from the year 2010-2015, many
advanced technologies have been introduced
commercially, IoT-oriented platform, built-in sensor,
NFC technology, sensor network location, hybrid-
networking, semantic software module, multi-
protocol, and data processing context. These
technologies consequently lead to people and
vertical-market supports whose major applications
are mobile application transportation, healthcare,
cloud storage, smart cities, smart citizen ID card, and
open government data.
Recently new technologies have been introduced
to Thai society, involving context awareness network,
smart sensor using MEMS, smart social software,
multi-standard, interoperationality, could data center,
integrated national database, and green energy
harvesting. This paper therefore suggest the roadmap
for the next five years from 2015-2020 that the IoT
will initiate people and machine integration. Expected
applications include versatile personal data device,
computational online and analytics, smart gird and
household monitoring, and smart education system.
Additionally, the IPv6 will be implemented is this
time frame. This convergence requires much effort
from the government in terms of communication and
data storage infrastructure developments.
Furthermore, this paper predicts that technology
will be very advanced in the year 2020 and beyond.
The advanced technologies based on IoI that are
expected to be emerged include network cognition,
self-learning network, user-oriented software, easy-
to-deploy IoT software, thing-to-human collaboration,
nanomaterials, biochemical Sensor, cognitive
processing, neural network processing, and machine
learning processing. Consequently, smart Thailand
can be achieved with many applications, i.e.
teleoperation, ubiquitous positioning, heterogeneous
system interaction, intelligent transportation and
logistics, intelligent communication infrastructure
and transportation. According to Fig.1 the possibility
of implementing smart Thailand require two matters
in parallel to the development on IoT, i.e. (1) Laws
and regulations (Standardization, Legal Environment,
Interoprationality, Risk managements, Governance)
and (2) Policies and Organizations (IoT National
Board and Office, E-Government Office, Smart Data
and Intelligence Operation Center, Smart District and
Village Centers). It should be noted that Thai
government should carefully implement IoT platform
based on a perspective on Thai cultures, especially a
self-sufficient economy paradigm.
Thailand is now on the process of establishment
of “Artificial Intelligence Association of Thailand
(AIAT)”, which involves twenty-four major
universities, two national research centers, i.e.
National Science and Technology Development
Agency (NSTDA) and Defense Technology Institute
(DTI), and fifty of laboratories. In addition, the AIAT
involves two hundred of faculty members and six
hundred junior researchers. The mission of AIAT
focuses on pure AI, HLC, Knowledge Engineering,
Image Processing, Robotics, and Biomedical
Engineering. Therefore, there are currently six
academic association/societies related AI and ICT as
follows; Artificial Intelligence Association of
Thailand (AIAT), IEEE Thailand Section,
Association of Electrical Engineering/Electronics,
Computer, Telecommunications and Information
Technology (ECTI), Thai Embedded Systems
Association (TESA), Thai Engineering in Medicine
and Biology Society (Thai EMBS), and Thai
Robotics Society (TRS).
A Utility Paradigm and Roadmap of Internet-of-Things in Thailand for Digital Economy Development towards ASEAN Economic
Community
43
4 CRITICAL AND
CHALLENGING ISSUES IN IoT
IMPLEMENTATION IN
THAILAND
This section analyses the critical and challenging
issues in IoT in Thailand as well as suggests the
emerging research directions. The three critical issues
are security, and standardization and interoperability
whilst the challenging research direction should focus
on context-aware computing, and intelligent system.
4.1 Primary Concerns Issues for IoT
Implementations
It is apparent in most IoT implementation platform
that the main limitations of implementing IoT are
security, and standardization and interoperability.
The security remains a significant concern in IoT
since a low level of security causes system
vulnerability. This is due to the communication
channels are only from human-to-machine (H2M) but
also from machine-to-machine (M2M) in which the
guarantee on access control, authorization, privacy,
and protection from malice is a major obligation.
Regarding the nature of wireless and ubiquitous
infrastructure, the IoT is vulnerable to attacks that aim
to control the physical environments or obtain private
data. Therefore, the implementation of IoT should
consider all different levels of security and privacy,
ranging from physical to application layers. Note that
integrating security in IoT should not affect the
quality of service. This paper suggests that the
implementation of IoT in Thailand must carefully
consider hardware-coded security at the device level,
and security and privacy in storage at the data level.
The standardization and interoperability are also
critical issues for IoT implementation as the
interaction among heterogeneous sources of data and
devices is achieved through the use of standard
interfaces in order to ensure interoperability in
diverse systems. Consequently, issues relating
standardization and interoperability to be suggested
to Thai government are ontology based semantic
standards, spectrum energy communication protocols
standards, and international quality and integrity
standards for data creation, and data traceability.
4.2 Challenging Research Direction on
IoT in Thailand
Based on Thai culture and environments, this paper
suggests that challenging research direction should
focus on context-aware computing, and intelligent
system. The context awareness might be a promising
topic to be studied. Context awareness refers to as any
kind of information that can be used to describe
situations of entities [43]. Context awareness may
provide a great support to process and store the big
data, providing easy-to-understand interpretation, as
well as an efficient service. In fact, the IoT services
are operated in extremely dynamic environment
composed of huge amount of nodes. Therefore,
services can be suddenly appear or disappear at any
time. Consequently, the study on information of
object features, status, geographical location, and
security data may attract research interests in order to
enrich the knowledge on services.
In addition to context-aware computing, this
paper also suggests based on the roadmap to smart
Thailand in 2020 and beyond that another challenging
issue for research is the intelligence-driven IoT in
order to enable things, devices, and systems to
become smarter. In the near future, more autonomous
things are required to share and exchange experiences
with other things or even human. In particular, the
strong research areas that yield potential market
applications in Thailand are agriculture, healthcare,
tourism, logistics and supply chain, and creative and
design.
5 CONCLUSIONS
This paper has presented the utility paradigm and
road map for the implementation of Internet-of-
Things in Thailand for digital economy development
towards ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). The
current status and potentiality of IoT implementations
in Thailand have been described based on a newly
introduced IoT architecture framework, including
four categories, i.e. Internet-of-Object (IoO),
Internet-of-Service (IoS), Internet-of-People (IoP),
and Internet-of-Intelligence (IoI). Perspectives on
laws, regulations, policy and organizations have been
involved in the proposed architecture. The results
reveal that Thailand should accelerate the use of
electronic components, involving RFID, NFC, and
MEMs while IPv6 protocol should be implemented
throughout the country in order to maximize the
number of IP address for an upcoming IoT enabled
technology. In addition, the real need in IoT
implementation from Thai people such as
professionals, citizen, students, and handicapped
should be an important factor that sets the strategy of
implementing IoT.
IoTBD 2016 - International Conference on Internet of Things and Big Data
44
The roadmap of IoT in Thailand has also been
proposed. The development based on such a road map
would lead to people and machine integration in the
period of the next five years and ultimately smart
Thailand in 2020 and beyond. Critical issues were
found to be security, and standardization and
interoperability. Finally, challenging research
direction for IoT in Thailand was concluded to
context-aware computing since most Thai people use
social network in their daily life. Research on
intelligence-driven IoT is also another research topic
that helps foster Thai advanced innovations. As a
result, this paper has revealed perspectives, utility
paradigm, social and economic impacts of IoT
implementation in Thailand as a potential country in
terms of markets and production hubs in South East
Asia region.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Authors are grateful to Electronic Government
Agency (Public Organization) of Thailand for
financial supports. Grateful acknowledgement is also
made for Thai-Nichi Institute of Technology for
conducting research, seminar, and discussions.
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