The Internet of Things (IoT) needs more than smart devices, a network, and analytics that make sense of all the data streams—it requires cross-functional skill sets. People can’t ply their individual proficiencies in isolation, but have to collaborate with colleagues with other competencies—think multidisciplinary teams of engineers, data scientists, and business analysts—to realize the full benefits of the IoT.
One approach to training this new talent is taking place at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Internet of Things Systems Research Center. The Center has become a hub for university-industry collaboration through its focus on learning, research, and hands-on work in IoT technologies and applications.
The Center sports teams of faculty and students from engineering, business, computer science, and other disciplines. Private-sector companies engage with the teams by sponsoring research projects, protected by NDA and IP agreements, that leverage the Center’s research testbeds and facilities.
Teams are staffed by faculty and researchers from departments that teach the IoT’s hybrid skill sets—Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Sciences, Statistics, Industrial and Systems Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Information Systems, Operations and Technology Management, Consumer Science and Retailing, and Medicine and Health Sciences.
Team expertise stretches across the IoT framework: sensing, networking, communication and security, big data, cloud computing, real-time data analytics, and decision systems. Other team IoT competencies include software engineering, human factors, user-experience design, process and system engineering, supply chain management and optimization, and business impact modeling and assessment.
The Center is organized into focused work groups. The Industrial IoT Work Group concentrates on commercial equipment, including data modeling and analytics for monitoring, diagnostics, and predictive maintenance. The Consumer IoT Work Group is centered around the Smart and Connected Home. The IoT Security Work Group is identifying key issues to help provide companies with guidance for developing secure IoT-enabled products and services.
Student teams work on various IoT projects during the school year. For example, a team with students in Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics, and Industrial and Systems Engineering is creating a monitoring system to collect, aggregate, and store sensor data from motors and analyze it for patterns and trends. Another team—with majors in Computer Science and Mathematics and Industrial Systems Engineering—is developing an irrigation system to adjust soil moisture for differing plants.
Companies are taking notice. Participants include Briggs & Stratton, Cisco Systems, IBM, Intel, Kohler Co., Mercury Marine, Rockwell Automation, Sub-Zero Group, Inc., and others. Toyota Material Handling North America’s University Research Program recently provided a $410,001 grant to fund a research project titled, “Data-Driven Failure Predictive Analytics for Internet of Things Enabled Service Systems.”
“Every company that’s manufacturing a product is coming to terms with the idea that it needs to make a connected product strategy,” Raj Veeramani told The Capital Times; Veeramani is executive director of the Center, and a professor at UW-Madison with joint appointments in the College of Engineering and School of Business. “We’ve created a unique university-industry collaboration [to that end].”
