CLOUD OF THINGS COURSES

Internet of Things - Concepts and Technologies Workshop

Duration: 1 + 2 Days

Course Background

The Internet of Things idea is, essentially, based on the concept of Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices (ICED). In the main connectivity is provided by wireless interfaces such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, ZWave and Zigbee, and, indeed the term WICED (Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices) has been trademarked by Broadcom. Cisco, on the other hand, has come up with the concept IoE (Internet of Everything). The marketplace for internet connected embedded devices is vast, as is the associated market for collecting vast amounts of data potentially available from such devices and exploiting it for commercial gain.

A partial list of applications and uses includes

Home appliances (speakers, washers, dryers, fridges, ranges)
Home monitoring and control (garage door openers, thermostats, security cameras, alarms, light switches)
Health and fitness (weight scales, fitness equipment, heart rate monitors, blood pressure monitors, fitness wrist bands, pedometers)
Automation and logistics (proximity tags, asset tracking)
Digital cameras and imaging devices
Smart meters and energy management devices
"Headless" devices (devices without a display or means of interactive configuration - used for connectivity)
PAN-LAN (Personal Area Network to Local Area Network) bridge and cloud applications
Consumer (toys, games, pet tracking, shoe sensors)

Governments all over the world are getting excited about the need to train the next generation of engineers and designers in these new technologies. All such new technologies are prone to the “hype cycle” , and currently the Internet of Things hype cycle is ramping up to the “Peak of Inflated Expectations”. This workshop aims to prepare attendees for surviving the “trough of disillusionment” and planning a path to successful arrival at the “plateau of productivity” . This will require mastery and tracking of many technologies such as radio networking, embedded systems, various networking, middleware and distributed computing technologies and also of associated partners in the IoT ecosystems such as cloud computing, social networking and data mining. Security and privacy issues also need to be taken into account.

Course Prerequisites and Target Audience

This 3 day workshop is intended for technologists, politicians, lawyers educators and strategic planners. Behind the “hype cycle” there is a hard core of reality and there are many business and also, media (in the form of interactive art ) opportunities. In a global economy this is indeed a very competitive environment and many large multi-nationals are investing eye-watering amounts of money into the various technologies. There are also many opportunities for small, creative and innovative companies especially when other technologies such as mems and biosensor technologies are added to the “technology mix”. The aims of the workshop are

To provide an uptodate overview of the Internet of Things concept and vision
To explore the various technologies required to support the “Internet of Things” development, that will be needed to form the building blocks that will link the real world with the digital worls including

Near Field Communications (NFC)
Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks (WSAN)
RFID

To explore potential applications at both the societal and enterprise levels e.g. Healthcare, entertainment, transport, urban living, business processes and automation

The course comes in two parts.

Part 1 - Paints the 'Big Picture"
Part 2 is for those who need a more detailed coverage of the various technical aspects of the Internet of Things and builds on the materials covered in Part 1.

Course Outline

Part 1 - The Big Picture

The Internet of Things – past, present, future
The structure of an IoT system: firmware, connectivity, cloud
Examples of IoT prototyping kits and systems e.g. Waspmote, Thingsquare
Connectivity methods overview - WiFi, ZigBee, IPv6/6lowpan, I2C, SPI, USB, custom
IoT hardware - Systems-on-a-Chip, multi-chip solutions.
Fundamentals of wireless - range, power consumption
Wireless protocols - IEEE 802.15.4, IEEE 802.15.4e, 2.4 GHz, sub-GHz
Home Area Networking, Building Automation and AMI protocols, including

802.15.4 over radio or PLC (Power Line Communication)
6LowPAN/RPL (IPv6 Over Low Power Personal Area Networks / IP Routing Protocol for Low Power and Loss Networks)
ZigBee 1.0 and Smart Energy 2.0
Zwave
LON
BACNet
KNX
ModBus
mBus
C.12
DLMS/COSEM
ETSI M2M system level standard

Fundamentals of connectivity: bandwidth, latency
Example , indroductory demonstrations and case studies LED lighting, smart metering, remote sensing
Cloud computing overview - hosting, connectivity, Amazon, Rackspace, Microsoft Azure
Cloud connectivity for the Internet of Things - Making protocols go through firewalls
Routing and Switching Protocols and the Internet of Things
AdHoc Networks - their key role in IoT
Server-side cloud software - application development and programming languages e.g. node.js
Tools and Frameworks for developing and deploying Internets of Things
From Firmware to The Cloud and Beyond
Industrial Ethernet, Wireless and the Manufacturing Internet of Things - not very glamorous but hugele important

Part 2 - Systematic analysis of hardware, wireless technologies protocols and software engineering issues

Four Pillars of IoT

Layered models and layered approaches considered
Horizontal and Vertical layering explained
The Four Pillars of IoT

M2M - The Internet of Devices
RFID - The Internet of Objects
WSN (Wireless Sensor Network) - The Internet of Transducers
SCADA - The Internet of Controllers

The DNA of IoT

DCM - Device, Connect, and Manage
Devices as “Things that Talk”
Connectivity mechanisms

Pervasive Networks
Wired Networks

Wireless Networks and AdHoc Networks

Hybrid wired and wireless networks e.g. mobile telephony networks
Satellite IoT
Industrial Ethernet and the Manufacturing Internet of Things

Combining technologies to create new business value , adding e.g.

LBS - Location Based Services
GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite System
RTLS - Real Time Locating System

Middleware and IoT
An Overview of Middleware
Communication Middleware for IoT

MTC/M2M Machine Type Communication / Machine to Machine) Middleware
SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) Middleware
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Middleware
WSN (Wireless Sensor Network) Middleware
LBS (Location Based Services) and Surveillance Middleware

Protocols and Standards for IoT

Web of Things versus Internet of Things
IoT Protocol Standardization Efforts
M2M and WSN Protocols
SCADA and RFID Protocols
Home automation Protocols
Issues with IoT Standardization
Unified Data Standards
Challenges and opportunity
Unified Identification of Objects

Architecture Standardization for WoT (Web of Things)

Platform Middleware for WoT
Standards for M2M
Frameworks for WSN
Standards for SCADA
Extensions to RFID Standards
Unified Multitier WoT Architecture
SOA/EAI (Service Oriented Architecture / Enterprise Application Integration) versus SODA/MAI (Service Oriented Device Architecture / Machine to Machine Application Integration)
OSGi:(Open Services Gateway initative) - The Universal Middleware
WoT Frameworks Based on Data Standardds
WoT Portals and Business Intelligence

Research intitiatives

European Commission's CASAGRAS project
A framework for healthcare monitoring applications in body sensor Networks - Berkeley WSN Lab
Smart Homes and Environments - Lucern University CEESAR - Swiss Research Center for Building Intelligence
MIT Audio-ID Lab
DARPA - Robots and the Internet of Things
STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) and STEAM (STEM + Art) - incoroporating IoT teaching into STEM and STEAM

Available Courses