• Interface to Sensors and Actuators
- Uses readings from sensors to control devices in the environment
- very simple protocols, but often requires specialized hardware and software.
- uses machine to machine connection for direct communication
- can appear to be like a local area network
- low speeds (eg. 300 baud, 1.2, 2.4 9.2 Kbaud)
• Local Area Computer Networks
- measured in distances from meters to kilometers
- speed measured in Megabits/sec
- medium includes, wire, fibre-optics, radio frequency
- commonly available in all forms
- speed measured in Kilobytes/second
- medium includes, wire, fibre optics, satellite, microwave
- access is costly (some mix of initial and variable costs), and geared to large corporations, or special applications.
• Classification of Interconnected processors (by Physical Size)