Abstract: The Internet of things (IoT) has been paid more and more attention by the government, academe and industry all over the world. This paper introduced the concept of IoT, the basic characteristics and attributes. It also described the system structure, development phases and the future trend. The key technologies of Io T were discussed taking the wireless sensor network as an example. The application of IoT was illustrated by its typical use in environment monitoring.

Key words: Internet of things, Sensor networks, RFID, System structure