Introduction to the Internet of Things - MOOC

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.

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.

• Introduction
• Things and Application Domains
• Architecture of IoT Applications
• Smart Objects as Building Blocks for IoT Applications
• IoT and Power Sources
• Power Management on IoT Devices

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.

• Basics of IoT Operating Systems I: Memory and Energy Management
• Basics of IoT Operating Systems II: Scheduling, Networking, and Programming
• IoT OS for Low-end Devices
• Embedded OS and IoT
• Smart Device OS
• IoT and Software

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.

• Sensing and Sensors
• Sensor Measurements
• Sensor Operations
• Sensors and Intelligence
• The Sensing Pipeline
• Designing 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.

• Networking and IoT
• Short-Range Networking Technologies
• Long Range Wireless Networking Technologies
• Device-to-Device Networking
• IoT Networking Protocols
• Offloading

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.

• Data Management
• IoT Devices as Distributed Databases
• On-Device Data Management and Data Centers
• IoT and Big Data
• Big Data Frameworks and IoT
• Distributed Ledger Technology

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.

• Internet of Things and Privacy
• Computational Privacy and IoT
• System and Application-Level Privacy in IoT
• Internet of Things and Security
• Security Mechanisms in IoT
• IoT Communications Security