Intelligent infrastructure systems and the technician

Abstract

Many have written about the next transformative convergence of technologies that will surely effect how humankind will live, work, play, and age. Futurists have referred to this pending development as the "Internet of Things" to illustrate the broad concept involved. Academic and industry experts in various technical fields have coined terms like the "Smart Grid", machine-tomachine (M2M), vehicle-to-x (V2x), where x might be other vehicles (V2V) or road-side networks (V2R) or infrastructure (V2I), e-health care, and infrastructure health, among other terms, to describe discipline specific implementations of this type of technology. Essentially, through the use of networked embedded controllers (known as ambient intelligence) and complex sensors and actuators (i.e. sensor networks) the goal is to create intelligent or smart infrastructure systems that will be used to enhance the efficiency, safety, and security of human endeavors. The Smart Grid initiative has focused attention on the question of where the technical workers of the re-engineered grid will come from. Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded millions in funding for initiatives that will seek to address this question. The real question for engineering technology educators at the two-year college level should be, are there common elements to applications of intelligent infrastructure systems? The answer is an emphatic yes! Networking (both wired and wireless), network security, embedded controllers, sensors and actuators, signal conditioning, and data acquisition and fusion are the enabling technologies of the vast majority of these systems. Today, very few engineering technology programs cover these topics. An examination of ABET's present criteria for engineering technology programs finds that several of these topics tend to be mutually exclusive, belonging only in one technical program or another. Many of the topics are included in electronics/electrical/electromechanical technology programs, some others are covered in instrumentation and control systems technology programs, and networking and security is typically limited to computer technology type programs. One might consider many of these topical areas to belong to the so-called "physical layer" of the OSI seven-layer model that describes computer networking since they are the technologies that make up the hardware of the systems. Networking topics like transmission control protocol (TCP) and Internet protocol (IP) and the associated networking hardware (e.g. routers, switches, etc) and security concepts are part of the next three layers of the OSI model (that reside above the physical layer). The convergence of communications (networking) and computing technologies gives rise to a new skill set that is needed to deal with the hardware of the Internet of Things. This paper will propose an innovative two-year multi-interdisciplinary program that addresses the educational needs of a technician capable of dealing with emerging intelligent infrastructure systems. © 2011 American Society for Engineering Education.