Study level

  • Honours
  • Vacation research experience scheme

Faculty/School

Faculty of Science

School of Information Systems

Topic status

We're looking for students to study this topic.

Research centre

Supervisors

Professor Alistair Barros
Position
Head of School, Information Systems
Division / Faculty
Faculty of Science
Dr Babar Shahzaad
Position
Research Fellow in Industrial-Internet-of-Things Service Computing
Division / Faculty
Faculty of Science

Overview

The vision of Industry 4.0 is to support business capabilities at the edge. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) enables this vision by integrating IoT with Enterprise Systems (ESs). In an IIoT process, sensor applications at the edge require seamless integration with the software services of ESs. This, in turn, facilitates the real-time correlation of sensor events with BPs. However, existing IIoT architectures lack the necessary architectural capabilities to reflect the true essence of Industry 4.0.

This research aims to develop an IIoT architecture and implement different procedures to enable low-latency enterprise service integration. The project will primarily focus on the software aspects of the architecture, including microservice scaling and orchestration using Docker and Kubernetes. I5Computing Lab provides an indoor testbed to conduct this research in real-world scenarios, utilising a range of sensors, including visual and temperature sensors and single-board computers such as LattePandas and Raspberry Pis.

Research activities

This project encompasses the following research activities:

1. Development of the IIoT architecture and implementation of the necessary procedures.

2. Communication of research findings through publications.

Outcomes

By the conclusion of this project, participants will have contributed to the development of the IIoT architecture and the associated procedures. Furthermore, a demonstration/conference paper will be published for research conducted.

Skills and experience

To be considered for this project, candidates should possess the following skills and experience:

1. Experience with or a strong interest in researching single-board computers such as LattePandas and Raspberry Pis.

2. Proficiency in microservices, including hands-on experience with containerization and orchestration technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes. Specifically, the ability to implement custom placement, scaling, and deployment procedures in these software platforms.

3. Experience in working with different sensors would be highly advantageous.

4. Familiarity with GitHub would be considered an advantage.

Keywords

Contact

Contact the supervisor for more information.