Embedded systems and IoT #
Python is increasingly used in embedded systems and the Internet of Things (IoT) because of its versatility.
Embedded systems#
Python is becoming adopted in embedded systems because of its ease of development and ability to abstract hardware details. It facilitates rapid development and testing, particularly in prototyping, and microcontroller-based systems have been optimized using libraries such as MicroPython and CircuitPython.
Moreover, Python can handle hardware interfacing and interact with components such as sensors, motors, and displays using libraries such as RPi.GPIO for Raspberry Pi or pySerial for serial communication.
Internet of Things (IoT) #
IoT is the interconnected network of sensors, actuators, and other smart devices. These components communicate and exchange data over the internet, and Python is integrated into IoT systems because of its high-level programming capabilities and ease of network communication integration.
Python is used in data collection from sensors, support for IoT communication protocols such as MQTT and HTTP, cloud integration, and edge computing.
Data science and analytics#
Data science and analytics overlap in features since they extract insights from data, but key differences set them apart. While data analytics involves creating insights from known data, data science deals with hypotheticals and predictions. Here are the key areas where Python is widely used:
Data manipulation and cleaning#
pandas is a powerful Python library used for data manipulation and analysis. It provides data structures like DataFrames, ideal for handling structured data like spreadsheets and CSV files. Moreover, NumPy is a Python library that supports multi-dimensional arrays, matrices, and mathematical functions that operate on these arrays.
Data visualization#
For data science and analytics, Python libraries such as Matplotlib, Seaborn, and Plotly are very useful for data visualization. They can generate static, animated, interactive plots and informative statistical graphics.
Statistical analysis#
Python’s SciPy can be utilized for scientific and technical computing because it builds on NumPy and allows various optimization, integration, interpolation, and statistics routines. In addition, Statsmodels is a Python library that is available specifically for statistical modeling and provides tools for performing linear and nonlinear regression and time-series analysis.
Machine learning and AI#
One of Python’s most prominent uses and integrations is in machine learning and AI. Its easy syntax facilitates developers’ writing and understanding of the code, allowing for rapid development and prototyping of AI/ML models.
Python’s large collection of powerful libraries is used for machine learning and AI algorithm implementation. These libraries allow Python to undertake numerical computations, array manipulation, data analysis, regression, clustering, and building powerful frameworks for building and deploying deep learning models.
Python also provides features that increase interactivity. Jupyter Notebook is widely used in the Python community, where developers can combine code, text, and visualizations in one place. This creates the ideal environment for iterative experimentation and debugging. Python also integrates well with other programming languages, such as Java and C++, making embedding ML/AI models into production easier.