internet of things · 2025
embedded
iot cloud
security
Phase 1 · hardware foundations
electronics, sensors, actuators, microcontrollers, PCB design – weeks 1–8

electronics basics

  • voltage, current, Ohm’s law, power
  • GPIO, ADC, PWM, pull‑up resistors
  • reading schematics, datasheets

sensors & actuators

  • temp/humidity (BME280, DHT22)
  • IMU, PIR, ultrasonic, LiDAR, GPS
  • relays, motors, servos, solenoids

microcontrollers

  • ESP32, STM32, Arduino, nRF52
  • Raspberry Pi Pico, Jetson
  • GPIO, peripherals, pin mapping

PCB design basics

  • KiCad/Altium, schematic capture
  • layout, routing, Gerber files
  • antenna design, DFM, EMC
weather station
Phase 2 · embedded programming & firmware

C for embedded

  • pointers, bit‑masking, volatile
  • memory layout, fixed‑width types
  • inline assembly, packed structs

hardware protocols

  • SPI, I2C, UART, 1‑Wire
  • I2S, RS‑485, Modbus
  • logic analyser debugging

RTOS (FreeRTOS)

  • tasks, queues, semaphores, mutex
  • timers, event groups, priority
  • watchdog, power management

power & OTA

  • deep sleep, wake sources
  • duty cycling, battery sizing
  • OTA updates, bootloader
Phase 3 · iot networking & protocols

MQTT deep dive

  • publish‑subscribe, topics, QoS
  • retained, LWT, persistent session
  • MQTT over TLS, mTLS

wireless & LPWAN

  • WiFi, BLE, Zigbee, Thread
  • LoRaWAN, NB‑IoT, LTE‑M
  • mesh vs star, gateways

industrial protocols

  • Modbus RTU/TCP, OPC‑UA
  • PROFINET, EtherNet/IP
  • CANbus, DNP3, IEC 61850

serialisation

  • JSON, CBOR, MessagePack
  • Protocol Buffers, Avro
  • raw binary packing
Phase 4 · iot cloud & data platforms

AWS IoT Core

  • device shadows, rules engine
  • Greengrass, fleet management
  • Device Defender, SiteWise

Azure IoT Hub

  • device twins, direct methods
  • IoT Edge, Stream Analytics
  • Digital Twins, Time Series

time‑series & streaming

  • InfluxDB, TimescaleDB
  • Kafka, Kinesis, Flink
  • Grafana dashboards

visualisation

  • Grafana, Kibana
  • ThingsBoard, Node‑RED
  • Power BI, TwinMaker
Phase 5 · edge computing & edge ai

edge hardware

  • NVIDIA Jetson, Google Coral
  • Intel NCS, Hailo, TPU
  • MCU‑level TFLM

edge AI optimisation

  • quantisation (INT8, INT4)
  • pruning, distillation, NAS
  • TensorFlow Lite, ONNX

edge deployment

  • Docker, balena, k3s
  • Greengrass / IoT Edge
  • OTA model updates
Phase 6 · iot security

device security

  • secure boot, code signing
  • HSM, TEE, secure element
  • debug lockdown, MPU

communication security

  • TLS 1.3, DTLS, mTLS
  • certificate pinning, PSK
  • key rotation, ACME

cloud security & standards

  • IAM per device, VPC
  • OWASP IoT, ETSI EN 303 645
  • NIST, IEC 62443
Phase 7 · industry applications

industrial IoT (IIoT)

  • digital twin, predictive maintenance
  • OEE, SCADA, PLC, DCS

smart agriculture

  • precision irrigation, drone NDVI
  • LoRaWAN soil sensors, farm mgmt

smart healthcare

  • wearables, remote patient monitoring
  • HIPAA, FDA 510(k), implantables

smart cities & fleet

  • traffic, lighting, waste, parking
  • telematics, V2X, cold chain
structured weekly roadmap
PhaseTimelineCore topicsDeliverable
Phase 1Weeks 1‑8electronics, sensors, MCUs, PCB basicsweather station, smart plant monitor
Phase 2Weeks 9‑18C, hardware protocols, FreeRTOS, OTARTOS multi‑sensor node, LoRaWAN sensor
Phase 3Weeks 19‑26MQTT, CoAP, LPWAN, industrial protocolsLoRaWAN + MQTT gateway, Modbus bridge
Phase 4Weeks 27‑36AWS IoT, Azure IoT, time‑series, Grafanafull cloud pipeline (MQTT → DB → dashboard)
Phase 5Weeks 37‑44edge AI (Jetson, TFLite), containervision edge AI: object detection on gateway
Phase 6Weeks 37‑44secure boot, mTLS, HSM, IoT security stdshardened firmware + security audit
Phase 7Weeks 45‑52IIoT, agtech, healthcare, smart citydomain‑specific full‑stack IoT capstone

⚡ industry‑level capstone projects

🏭 predictive maintenance (IIoT)

  • ESP32 + vibration/temp/current → FreeRTOS
  • edge LSTM anomaly detection on Jetson
  • MQTT/TLS → AWS IoT → InfluxDB + Grafana
  • secure boot, OTA with signing

🌾 smart agriculture platform

  • STM32L4 soil sensors (moisture/EC) + LoRaWAN
  • TTN gateway + irrigation ML prediction
  • drone NDVI + React Native app
  • 5‑year battery life, solar harvesting
esp-idf freeRTOS aws iot influxdb tensorflow lite docker
explore capstone structure

must‑have (first job)

  • embedded C/C++, ESP32/STM32
  • MQTT, AWS IoT / Azure IoT basics
  • reading schematics, multimeter
  • git + hardware debugging

top free resources

  • esp-idf docs / STM32Cube
  • freeRTOS book (free pdf)
  • Andreas Spiess (YouTube)
  • OWASP IoT top 10

interview focus

  • SPI vs I2C, RTOS primitives
  • power calculation (battery life)
  • MQTT QoS, security (mTLS)