Crash Course in What Is Takes to Become an IoT Engineer/Technologist T2/10

Next up in the discussion around IoT we dive into the design and composition of an IoT device, We breakdown the device into the core building blocks and discuss what each skill set is required and what they do. If you have not seen the first tutorial/video, I suggest you go start there to get the context.

As always, all you need is a computer, internet and the right attitude

If we take a GPS tracking device as an example. You can see the building blocks are broken into the individual pieces indicated by the blue blocks, These blocks are generic and applicable to 99% of all Modern wireless IoT devices. the true customization and change comes in the section marked as " Application Sensors" this is where the different sensor types for different IoT use cases are adapted.

An Electrical or Electronic Engineer role in developing an IoT device is todo the following

Research

The building blocks selection is not straight forward, engineers can spend weeks if not months researching the correct components and making sure that these components(building blocks) will perform as expected. As an example. you may be familiar with Adafruit and Sparkfun as DIY electronic stores but the truth is they over these building blocks in a convenient way for engineers to quickly test and asses these building blocks before going into final selection.

Selection

Once the Engineer is confident in there selection of these building blocks, they would set about designing the schematic and layout a PCB. This process can take weeks if not months and often required 2 or 3 revisions before a final PCB is considered ready for testing.

Testing

When the device in its PCB stage is ready for Alpha and Beta testing, the electronic engineer will start deploying and testing the device in its final environment, this is to make sure that the device is able to measure, detect and or monitor the intended use case while still achieving good battery life as an example.

Misc

There are other considerations like component availability, cost, complexity to build/test that also plays a vital role in the development of a scalable IoT product, but these topics can change widely from project to project, But its important to note that these considerations needs to be accounted for.

The Embedded Firmware Engineer/Developer is responsible for writing the code that makes all the building blocks talk to each other. 90% of all building blocks will have some form of communication protocols between them often listed as serial communication is some shape or form, UART, SPI, i2C. this process is known as writing the drivers.

( This process is often over looked in the hobby industry as these driver have either been written or is made available by the community)

Once the drivers are written the firmware engineer has to write the actual application logic. This is the code that actually makes the IoT device do what it needs to to fulfill the intended use case and create value from implementing the solution.

This process can take months to develop, debug and mature to a point where a device is ready for release

Finally the Mechanical or Industrial Engineer is involved with designing and developing the IoT device enclosure. The development of this enclosure is done in conjunction with the Electronic Engineer as all aspects of the use case, the intended environmental conditions, the serviceability and the size plays a role in the final shape, look and formfactor on the device.

This process might start with crude drawings, 3D prints and multiple revisions but eventually the enclosure needs to be designed within the guidelines of injection molded parameters to allow for mass manufacturing

I hope you have gained some insight as to what each of the respective disciplines do in the process of developing an IoT device, and that you have a better understanding what your daily role would likely be like when considering a career in the IoT industry.

In the next T3 tutorial we will be discussing the wireless network side of IoT and what to expect in those career paths.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please drop them here, Ill be happy to answer where I can.