Introduction to the Internet of Things

Understand and learn the fundamental concepts and key enablers of the #IoT, and how to design #IoT applications. #unihelsinki

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an extension of Internet connectivity into everyday objects and physical devices. Initially, IoT focused on adding connectivity to everyday objects, e.g., one of the earliest examples of IoT devices was a vending machine that could be accessed over the Internet. In recent years, however, the vision has evolved from mere connectivity into the provisioning of a global platform where devices are not merely passive objects as part of the Internet, but active contributors, e.g., through computational capabilities, sensors, or other functionality. The Introduction to IoT course provides an overview of this exciting field, the different components within Iot applications, and the key enablers within the field.

Course contents

The course consists of six chapters, each addressing IoT from different viewpoints:

1. Introduction to the Internet of Things (IoT). The chapter covers the basic definitions of IoT and discusses the general architecture and the hardware design of components forming IoT systems.

2. Operating Systems and Software. The chapter covers what operating systems IoT devices use, how to select the appropriate operating system for a given device or application, and how to program IoT applications.

3. Sensing Layer. The chapter provides an overview of what sensors are and how they can be used in IoT applications. The chapter also covers how sensor measurements are read and processed, how they can be used to deliver intelligence to IoT applications, and how to implement the intelligence through what is known as the sensing pipeline.

4. Networking Layer. The chapter details the main networking technologies used in IoT, provides an overview of the main network architecture paradigms for IoT, introduces the most important networking protocols for IoT, and discusses the importance of offloading in IoT contexts.

5. Data Management Layer. The chapter details the main solutions for managing, storing, retrieving, securing, and otherwise processing data in IoT contexts. The chapter covers both data management for low-end devices operating as part of a sensor network and higher end devices that utilise on-device and data centre-based data management solutions. The course also provides an overview of how big data relates to IoT and how big data frameworks can be used in IoT. Finally, emerging solutions, with a special focus on distributed ledgers, are introduced.

6. IoT Privacy and Security. The chapter is split into two parts: privacy and security. For both privacy and security, we cover separately definitions and key threats, computational mechanisms for improving them, and system, application, and communication level support for improving privacy/security.

Learning outcomes

The course provides a basic understanding of the Internet of Things and allows the student to understand key principles in the design, development and deployment of Internet of Things systems. The course covers computing, sensing, networking, data management, security and privacy issues surrounding smart devices and helps the student to understand how these relate to each other and provide a “global platform for advanced services of the ICT era”.

After the course the student will be able to

• understand what the Internet of Things is and what makes it unique compared to other computing paradigms
• discover how to identify and conceptualise the key architectural components and challenges of IoT applications
• design IoT applications and determine the best components to be chosen for a given application.

Completion methods

This is an independent study course. Students have access to the course material and can complete the course at their own pace. The assessment has two components: a sub-chapter assessment, which is presented after the chapter subtopics, and a chapter assessment, which is presented at the end of each chapter.

All course material is in English. The course includes reading material and short pre-recorded video lectures that explain the content of each chapter, as well as sets of exercises to assess student’s understanding of the course topics.

More information in the University of Helsinki study guide.

You can get a digital badge after completing this course.

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