Designing real-time IoT system course: Prototyping with cloud platforms, laboratory experiments and term project

Abstract

The Internet of things (IoT) is the next technological revolution that includes many industries and applications. IoT can offer solutions for many problems. However, it requires many skills from different disciplines that current electrical and computer engineers lack. In order to encourage the seamless internalization of the IoT and the technologies it supports, a new method should be considered in training electrical and computer engineers. The new methods should focus on applications and projects that involve the use of components such as hardware, software, and cloud platforms that are available in the market rather than class oriented theories. In this study, we introduce a methodology for teaching an IoT systems course that will encourage students to study how to develop and accomplish IoT applications in real time, at a reasonable cost, and for general use rather than meeting the detailed needs of one merchant. We exploit universally available open source software and cloud platforms to enhance teaching IoT course. The proposed course is taught at the undergraduate level in the computer engineering departments of Kocaeli and Sakarya Universities in Turkey. The results show that the designed method can have a constructive influence on the progress of computer engineering education by timely and positive assistance in educating the new IoT engineers.