A Utility Paradigm and Roadmap of Internet-of-Things in Thailand

for Digital Economy Development towards ASEAN Economic

Community

Jeerana Noymanee

, Wimol San-Um

and Thanaruk Theeramunkong

Electronic Government Agency (Public Organization) of Thailand, Bangkok, Thailand

Intelligent Electronic System Research Laboratory, Thai-Nichi Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand

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

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

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

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

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

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,

-sharing cards,

RFID

passports, RFID badge

Identificatio

communicatio

Up to 640

kbps

–

10 m ISO/IEC 1800

Transportation,

animal ID, retail,

access control,

payment

Sensor

( MEMs)

Environmental

monitoring sensors,

wearable sensors,

digital camer

communicatio

250 kbps 10–100 m IEEE 802.15.4,

Wireless

HART, ISA 100

Health/ environme

ntal /industrial

surveillance

NFC

FC embedded in

smartphone, ticke

stamping machine,

storing,

logistics, tracking,

monitoring,

intelligen

agriculture,

ZigBee,

ensing, storing,

rocessing,

arking mete

Communication 106–424

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

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

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

(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

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

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

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

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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