Nankai University R&D Smart Campus - Internet of Things Teaching Demonstration System

[Huicong Education Equipment Network] "It's really amazing! The Internet of Things system can actually control campus traffic!" Nie Rongzhi, a freshman of Nankai University 2017, couldn't help but sigh when watching the "Smart Campus" demo.

Recently, Li Tao, the director of the Internet of Things Engineering Department of the School of Computer Control and Engineering, developed a “Smart Campus – Internet of Things Teaching Demonstration System”, which uses the new technologies such as cloud computing, virtualization and Internet of Things to teach and research schools. The management integrates with campus resources and application systems to realize intelligent management and service of the campus.

The “Smart Campus” is mainly composed of campus real-time linkage sand table control, virtual campus tour experience, indoor and outdoor environmental monitoring, smart agriculture monitoring, smart home and smart classroom virtual linkage, intelligent vehicle management and intelligent security. Through wireless Mesh, 3G/4G, Beidou satellite and other technologies, the data collected by the sensor is transmitted to the cloud computing system, and then data processing, intelligent analysis and identification control are provided, providing service interfaces for many applications, truly achieving "handheld campus" .

The demonstration system is an important part of the construction of the Internet of Things engineering, and the basic course of the Internet of Things Engineering, "Computer Composition Principles", "Operating System", "Computer Network", and specialty courses "Perception Technology and Application", "Internet of Things" The experimental foundation "IoT system training" is closely related. The original intention of the system research and development is to enable students to establish the design and application concepts of “sensing, transmission, processing and control, simulation and application”, and deepen their understanding of the Internet of Things engineering and IoT applications.

Because the reliability, availability and scalability of the system need to be fully considered in the design and implementation, to support the interaction and real-time linkage of the virtual scene, the sandbox system and the real scene, the information fusion and synchronization of the system becomes a difficult point in the development process. To this end, the design team chose to solve the data transmission problem by integrating network protocols such as Mesh, ZigBee, WiFi, Beidou communication and establishing message bus, intelligent gateway, system middleware, etc., and using cloud computing system to support interactive services to achieve load balancing. And visual display to complete the Trinity data analysis and functional presentation.

Lu Ye, a principal member of the R&D team and a teacher of the School of Computer and Control Engineering, gave a demonstration of the system operation and said: “The smart car on the sandbox system is controlled by the program to simulate the automatic driving and path planning process. During the vehicle travel, The camera monitoring module monitors, speeds, and captures violations; the intelligent agricultural simulation system automatically performs drip irrigation, sprinkler irrigation, fill light, and temperature control based on information such as temperature and humidity, light intensity, soil pH, and crop growth; Lightly through the mobile APP or PC, the curtains, lights and air conditioners in the sandbox system, virtual scenes and real scenes are all turned on...".

In addition, the "smart campus" is also characterized by the experience of virtual campus tours. Wearing a VR immersive helmet, users can view real roads, buildings and other information in their current location in real time in a 3D environment, while also enjoying high-altitude flying and overlooking. “The information comes from the real environment of the campus. The virtual scene is consistent with the information of the real scene, so that you can see what you see is what you get. For example, the user can directly observe the sensor value in the virtual scene, like the node near the forest. The value of carbon dioxide will be higher," Lu Ye added.

Wang Xingchen, a junior undergraduate from Nankai University, said with excitement: “When I first saw the 'Smart Campus', I was attracted! The Internet of Things is more human and intelligent than I thought. Perhaps in the near future, when we When driving a car and making operational mistakes, the IoT system will also remind me gently! In this case, you can reduce the accident, and you can use it to save resources and protect the environment!"

When talking about the practical value of the "smart campus" today, Li Tao said: "According to our understanding, this is the first comprehensive demonstration system for the teaching of Internet of Things engineering in China, which overcomes the limitations of the previous experimental teaching process. Providing students with a good experimental and innovative platform will greatly enhance the teaching quality and innovation level of our undergraduate students in the Internet of Things engineering."

“The demonstration system can make the students gradually enter the rational analysis from the perceptual knowledge through the demonstration of the effect, the principle explanation, the programming practice, etc., and continuously improve the design capability of the Internet of Things engineering system.” Gong Xiaoli, an associate professor of the R&D team and an associate professor of the School of Computer and Control Engineering explain.

It is understood that the Internet of Things industry is starting and will enter a period of rapid development, but at present domestic universities are still in their infancy in teaching and research and innovative services. In the process of teaching, students' inexperience in the IoT application system is not strong, and the intuitive experience is insufficient, which leads to their confusion in theory and technology learning. Therefore, Li Tao team proposed to build a "smart campus - Internet of Things teaching demonstration system" to help students build emotional experience, professional cognition and industrial thinking. In addition, the Internet of Things project requires an interdisciplinary perspective and a high degree of professional knowledge integration. When designing a “smart campus”, the team fully considers the scalability of the system and conducts in-depth explorations with various disciplines such as environment, physics, chemistry, and biology. Encourage students to conduct innovative practice activities across professional cross-year teams.

The "Smart Campus - Internet of Things Teaching Demonstration System" is still in the final stage of the first phase of construction, and it can realize the professional courses such as "Sensing Technology and Application", "Internet of Things Experiment Foundation" and "IoT System Training". In the later period, we will explore video fusion functions and mobile APP development, and gradually improve the functions of the demonstration system, so that the campus monitoring system and the virtual scene form a linkage, providing support for real-time campus monitoring, intelligent early warning, portrait processing and personnel detection. In the future, we will incorporate artificial intelligence elements to give campus more “wisdom” and contribute to the campus's informationization and intelligent construction.

Editor in charge: Liu Yaoqi