Smart Chair : An Internet of Things Case Study for a Capstone Research Project

This paper describes the experience of a team of two undergraduate students and one graduate student to design and implement an Internet of Things (IoT)-based research project in a final year capstone project class at Kennesaw State University. The Internet of Things involves connecting physical objects to the Internet, which provide opportunity to build intelligent systems and applications by leveraging Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID), Near Field Communication (NFC), Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), and universal mobile accessibility advanced technologies. In this case study, the office/lab chairs are proposed to connect to the internet. During the one semester’s capstone project class, the proof-of-concept implementation (i.e., connecting one chair to the internet) is completed. To be specific, an assembled Ardunio system is responsible for scanning user ID and obtaining chair occupancy status and then sending that information to the cloud server. The collected and stored data on the cloud can be retrieved and displayed on an Android application. Nowadays, the undergraduate degree program has gradually evolved to include research projects in the capstone project class. Moreover, there is a growing need in our local industry for graduates with research skills in advanced technologies. This Internet of Things case study shows a good example of learning advanced technologies during the research process so that students can keep pace with the rapid rate of change in computer science.