Introduction to the internet of things

Max amount of FITech students: 10

Persons without a valid study right to a Finnish university have preference to this course.

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 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 course will provide a basic understanding of the Internet of Things and allow the student to understand key principles in 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”.

Topic 1: Introduction

• Internet of Things as an application domain, examples of applications, and devices.
• Overview of different subcomponents of IoT applications and identification of key research directions and connections.

Topic 2: Implementing IoT

• Programming IoT
• Embedded operating systems

Topic 3: Sensor layer

• Types of sensors
• Basic programming and implementation issues related to sensors

Topic 4: Network layer

• Connectivity types
• Networking challenges for IoT

Topic 5: Data management layer

• Big data and IoT
• IoT analytics, cloud computing, edge computing, fog computing

Topic 6: Other topics

• IoT privacy and security
• IoT and pervasive data science

Course material

The course does not follow any coursebook or set of papers, but each lecture is prepared individually. The teaching materials give references for further readings at the end of each lecture slide set.

Teaching methods

• Lectures TU 14-16, TH 14-16 (material will be available after the lectures)
• Exercises WE 14-16

More information on the University of Helsinki’s course page.

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