Open-Source IoT Lab for Fully Remote Teaching

In the era of Industry 4.0, the concept of IoT has pervaded every sector of manufacturing, promoting hyperconnectivity as an enabling status for effective communication between company departments, as well as real-time monitoring of the status of manufacturing resources. The Coronavirus pandemic, due to the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19), confirmed the advantages provided by an IoT ecosystem in the worldwide economy. The role of universities in the development and use of this technology is twofold: on the one hand, the research activity supports the digital transformation of enterprises, and on the other hand the teaching activity trains the new managers of the future. Therefore, this work proposes a didactical activity in which students are guided to the creation of an IoT system that has several advantages: it is easy to develop, it uses only open-source components, and it includes all the necessary modules for the development of a real Industrial IoT (IIoT) system. Thanks to this experience, the students acquire different skills: (1) they operate on the hardware part of the system using sensors and actuators connected to a Raspberry Pi; (2) they develop and connect PostgreSQL database; (3) they generate an automation algorithm with for intelligent data management; finally, (4) they design a Human-Machine Interface using dashboards and social chat. The scope of this lab is not focused to university teams only. It is also accessible to high school students thanks to drag and drop programming (Node-Red) and tools (Telegram) close to the students everyday life. A further contribution of this project is to provide a method of managing a course that can be conducted entirely remotely as demonstrated during the current pandemic period.