Learning objectives
Knowledge and understanding:
the student will acquire knowledge on the main considerations and issues in designing and realizing IoT systems. In particular topics on data acquisition, transmission, power consumption, security and reliability will be discussed. With such introductory classes, the student will develop knowledge on base IoT architectures, the main standards for interoperability and main performance metrics.
Applying knowledge and understanding:
this course features a prevalent lab activity part, in which the student will apply the learned theoretical principles by fully carrying out a project consisting in the design, realization and test of an IoT device. The project allows to have practical experience on: sensor interfacing, data processing and transmission (by dedicated firmware development), communication protocols, data handling in cloud infrastructures.
Making judgements:
through lab activity, the student will develop awareness about main design choices. Within the teacher’s guidelines, the student may autonomously take design decisions and evaluate them in terms of performance and reliability: this will improve her/his analysis and problem solving skills.
Communication skills:
lab activity will be organized in small groups: students will develop team-working skills, which is fundamental in the multi-disciplinary IoT context. Ability to share thoughts and results will be the basis of successful group interactions. Furthermore, the realization of a project report will give the student the opportunity to develop sensibility on synthesis and results presentation in a structured way, exploiting main related professional tools.
Learning skills:
this course aims at presenting basic topics on IoT enabling technologies. It cannot fully and exhaustively cover all technological aspects of the field, which is recent and in continuous evolution. Therefore, the focus will be on common aspects and evaluation metrics, to give some foundations upon which the student will autonomously build future specific professional knowledge. Relevant technical and scientific references will be introduced, for continuous self-learning.
Prerequisites
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Course unit content
The course provides an introduction to electronic technologies for Internet of Things (IoT) systems. The course also features direct experience on design, implementation and test of such systems. Course contents are the following:
• Introduction to IoT technologies
• Analog and digital signal conditioning techniques
• IoT telemetry
• Power consumption analysis of IoT devices
• Cloud infrastructure for IoT systems
• Lab activity: design of embedded IoT services.
Full programme
• Introduction to IoT technologies
• IoT devices power consumption considerations:
o Summary of power converters for IoT devices
o Power supply stabilization
o Power consumption patterns (quiescent and instantaneous)
• Digital and analog signal conditioning techniques
o Input signals dynamics, range, noise; choice of proper ADC
o Signal amplifiers and filters
o Summary of most used digital signal protocols (IC-to-IC)
o Layout considerations for handling digital, analog, RF and power sections
• IoT Telemetry
o Main communication solutions for IoT (BTLE, ZigBee, Zwave, LoRa, MQTT.), considerando gli scenari applicativi
• Cloud infrastructure
o Data ingestion
o Data persistence
o Analytics and web services
• Lab activity: design of embedded IoT solutions:
o Principles of Arduino IDE
o Principles of Arduino (or similar) peripheral control
o Principles of Raspberry Pi programming
o Principles of IBM cloud services
o Final project
Bibliography
Relevant scientific-technical literature, datasheets
Teaching methods
The course is subdivided into lectures and laboratory activities.
The lectures (12 hours, approximately) will examine issues related to fundamentals of IoT Systems.
Lab activity (12 hours guided activity, 25 hours autonomous work) will focus at on developing skills in complete IoT system design: hardware devices, communication methodologies and supporting cloud infrastructure.
Lab work will be finalized at implementing and testing a working prototype. Students will work in small teams. Writing of a a technical report will complete the activity.
Assessment methods and criteria
Final test will consist in the illustration of design activity, based on a technical report and, subsequently, on a formal presentation and a short discussion.
Other information
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