
Campus to become ‘living lab’ for the IoT
Known for its robotics research, the university will essentially become a testbed experiment for Google’s IoT technology. Working with Google and colleagues at other universities, CMU researchers will create a new platform to support IoT applications – called GIoTTO – and outfit the campus with sensors, security measures, middleware, and tools to enable end users to develop their own IoT experiences.
"The goal of our project will be nothing less than to radically enhance human-to-human and human-to-computer interaction through a large-scale deployment of the Internet of Things that ensures privacy, accommodates new features over time and enables people to readily design applications for their own use," said Anind Dey, lead investigator of the project and director of CMU’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, in a statement. "Because many novel IoT applications require a critical mass of sensors, CMU will use inexpensive sensors to add IoT capability to ‘dumb’ appliances and environments across the campus."
By creating open IoT technology that can be freely shared and enhanced, the researchers hope to accelerate innovation and adoption of the IoT. An early goal of the project will the creation of an IoT app store, where campus members and researchers will be able to develop and share applications.
Google will initially provide $500,000 to Carnegie Mellon to launch the project. Eventually the researchers hope to extend the platform beyond the campus and push it out to the city of Pittsburgh.
