Fog Computing and Edge Computing Architectures for Processing Data From Diabetes Devices Connected to the Medical Internet of Things

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is generating an immense volume of data. With cloud computing, medical sensor and actuator data can be stored and analyzed remotely by distributed servers. The results can then be delivered via the Internet. The number of devices in IoT includes such wireless diabetes devices as blood glucose monitors, continuous glucose monitors, insulin pens, insulin pumps, and closed-loop systems. The cloud model for data storage and analysis is increasingly unable to process the data avalanche, and processing is being pushed out to the edge of the network closer to where the data-generating devices are. Fog computing and edge computing are two architectures for data handling that can offload data from the cloud, process it nearby the patient, and transmit information machine-to-machine or machine-to-human in milliseconds or seconds. Sensor data can be processed near the sensing and actuating devices with fog computing (with local nodes) and with edge computing (within the sensing devices). Compared to cloud computing, fog computing and edge computing offer five advantages: (1) greater data transmission speed, (2) less dependence on limited bandwidths, (3) greater privacy and security, (4) greater control over data generated in foreign countries where laws may limit use or permit unwanted governmental access, and (5) lower costs because more sensor-derived data are used locally and less data are transmitted remotely. Connected diabetes devices almost all use fog computing or edge computing because diabetes patients require a very rapid response to sensor input and cannot tolerate delays for cloud computing.

Keywords: Internet of Things; IoT; actuators; cloud computing; edge computing; fog computing; sensors; wireless.

Figure 1.

Hierarchy of sensors, fog computing, and cloud computing for wireless diabetes devices. This figure shows (1) diabetes devices with sensors, which include a blood glucose monitor, smart insulin pen, continuous glucose monitor, and insulin pump—and these last two devices operating together can constitute a closed-loop or artificial pancreas system (green background); (2) fog computing nodes, which include smart devices, hubs, routers, and gateways (pink background); and (3) cloud servers, which use Internet-based computing (yellow background).