| Category | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| HW | 3 |
| Exams | 4 |
| Project | 5 |
IoT system engineers are trying to realize high-performance computing and communication with constrained energy, and this course provides an overview of IoT systems: power source, computing, communication, and cyber-physical components. If you are not familiar with embedded systems, that’s no problem. You will learn through homework. The fun part of this course is semester project. The professor has very wide network, and you can have an opportunity to work with business person or researcher. For example, in the semester I took, one team worked with USGS to develop river flow monitoring system.
- Power Sources: how to compute energy of the system
- Computing: parallelism, I2C, SPI
- Communication: antenna, wireless channel, LPWAN, modulation and coding
- Cyber physical components
- 7 homeworks (30%)
- 3 exams (25%)
- Semester project (20%)
- Participation/presentation (20%) For homeworks and exams, you can drop the lowest score
Homeworks are calculations/implementation of topics covered in class. Lecture slides give details of each topic, so review them if you get stuck. For programming assignments, handouts are very well written, so read them carefully. Programming assignments are often time-consuming, as well as other courses, so start early!
You will have 24 hours to complete each exam. To prepare for the exam, you should review lecture slides and learn how to use the tools introduced in class. You may want to use these tools during the exam. Each exam is designed to be completed within a couple of hours, but in my experience, it took longer than expected. Plan wisely, and start early.
You will have hands-on experience in IoT system development. The project topic must be related to the course, but you can choose whatever you want. The professor also provides several interesting topics. There are weekly meetings, and you will report weekly progress to the class. If you have trouble with your project, classmates, TA, and professor help you. The key point to success is to try to make daily progress and consult with others if you have any trouble.
- Attend lectures, and ask questions. This is the best way to prepare for homework and exams.
- Try to use tools introduced in the lecture as much as possible. Learning and understanding how to use tools is a key to success in this course.
- Try to make daily progress, and if you have any problems, consult the professor early.