Center for IoT Engineering and Innovation
Enabling urban and rural communities to develop, deploy and manage IOT based solutions to address environmental, health, infrastructure, and economic challenges
Impact
14+
Projects
7+
Gateways
8+
Proposals
16+
Collaborators
3+
Students
CIEI Managed Sites
**Coverage area displayed is currently a projection
Our Focus
Services
Develops and manages the Platform for IoT Open Networks (PITON) enabling users to easily deploy and manage sensors in support of research, education, and civic projects
Learn more about PITONResearch
Staff and affiliates research improvements in IOT technologies and their application to real life use cases
Innovation Lab
Manages the IOT innovation lab where researchers, educators and partners can build and test IOT end devices and solutions
Training
Provides in person and remote training on specific IOT topics. Develops IOT curriculum for K-12 and higher-ed
Learn more about CIEI
See our latest progress
Project collateral and information
Meet our team
News
PITON is replacing ESDN
With mixed feelings we are saying goodbye to the ESDN name. The IoT platform developed and managed by the Center for IoT Engineering and Innovation (CIEI) is now called:
Platform for IoT Open Networks (PITON).
The renaming is a natural reflection of our growth. While we continue to support environment focused project, we now support smart city, smart agriculture, and smart healthcare solutions. Operationally, we are developing the platform in an open network model where we accommodate infrastructure investments made by partner organizations along with the infrastructure expansion funded and driven by CIEI. We coined the term Campus as a Lab for our initial deployment, we expanded it to City and County as a Lab through partnerships with local communities and we are now pursuing plans to enable the entire Eastern North Carolina for IoT. We are also working on several strategic partnerships while we continue to improve the platform, add new features and optimize usability. If you want to stay informed on the latest CIEI and PITON developments, sign up for our newsletter.
We want to thank all our partners for their collaboration, and we want to thank ECU's Department of Technology Systems and College of Engineering for their continued, long-term support. Our mission is to enable Eastern North Carolina to drive economic development, to improve the quality of its environment, to improve the health of its communities and to create new job and entrepreneurship opportunities by taking advantage of the Internet of Things revolution.
Battery Life Calculator Available for LoRa Devices
We have released the first version of our battery life calculator tool providing users insight into the estimated remaining charge for each of their deployed devices. Future changes will include notifications to alert user when devices are nearing the end of their battery charge life.
Exisiting users can find a dedicated dashboard for their devices in their existing dashboard folder.
If you do not see the battery life calculator, please reach out to sawyerco21@ecu.edu
Students present during RCAW 2023
Henry Jones, one of our undergraduate research students presents "LoRa Signal Mapping and Modeling for Deployment Planning" at the 2023 Research and Creative Achievement Week at East Carolina University
Students present during RCAW 2023
Braxton Chambers, one of our undergraduate research students presents "Real-Time Alerting for Advanced IoT Management and Deployment" at the 2023 Research and Creative Achievement Week at East Carolina University
Washington Gateway Install
In collaboration with the NSF funded CoPE project we started to expand the LoRaWAN coverage along the Tar river to enable researchers and citizens to better understand the environmental factors affecting life along its basin. Our newest gateway was deployed with the generous help of the city of Washington. We look forward to expanding our footprint through similar collaborations with local communities.
CIEI at ASEE Southeast Conference
The CIEI team had a strong presence at the annual ASEE Southeast conference. Our CTO Colby Sawyer presented two papers reflecting our LoRaWAN work in support of the platform and in support of education. The two sessions were well received and provided us with the opportunity to meet researchers with similar interests who want to learn more about our IoT platform and collaborate on new projects. We are excited to continue to build the out the community of users
LoRaWAN Live
CIEI was invited to present at LoRaWAN Live, an international event showcasing LoRaWAN innovation. This will be a great opportunity to showcase the progress we have made and the vision going forward. It will also be an opportunity to meet with many of our partners and collaborators.
Pitt County Management Visit
CIEI was excited to host the Pitt county management team to review our ESDN platform and discuss opportunities to partner around the development of IoT solutions addressing the needs of the community. It was exciting to see our county's leadership 's passion for innovation, for finding ways to improve our community in sustainable ways. Mrs. Janis Gallagher, Pitt County Manager stated "Thanks again to you and your team for your time and presentation yesterday. It is exactly this type of connection and collaboration that can have the greatest positive impact on our community. ". We look forward to working with Mrs. Gallagher's team to identify topics of interest and to apply ECU's expertise and the ESDN platform towards developing effective solutions to pressing problems faced by our county.
City of Greenville and Grenville Utilities Visit
Representatives from the city of Greenville and the Greenville Utilities Commission visited the Center for IoT engineering and Innovation to lean about the Environmental Sensing Data Network and opportunities to collaborate on the development of IoT based solutions for the local community. Amongst the participants were city manager Mrs. Ann Wall, deputy city manager Mr. Michal Cowin, assistant city manager Mr. Ken Graves, director of IT Mr. Matt Haga, director of public works, Mr. Kevin Mulligan, engineering director Mrs. Lisa Kirby, fire-rescue chief Mr. Carson Sanders, police department chief Mr. Ted Sauls, recreation and parks director Mr. Don Octigan and assistant director of public works Mr. Kevin Heifferon. The Greenville Utilities Commission was represented by director of IT Mr. Andy Anderson and operations support manager Mr. Kevin Keyzer.
The CIEI team reviewed the many resources available at ECU to support IoT innovation and to provide examples of possible potential projects on the current footprint of ESDN. Along with the ESDN platform, the center provides support for technology integration, it can bring subject matter experts from across ECU to help with the development of solutions and it can leverage students to support implementation. The event included a visit to the ESDN Network Operations Center where our guests could see how the platform is being monitored and managed.
The questions and points raised by the city officials demonstrated their commitment to constantly searching for solutions to the issues faced by the city, to improving the health and well-being of the community. The city of Greenville management team is committed to innovation and collaborating with East Carolina University which opens the door for a partnership with significant positive results for the community.
We are hiring!
We are looking for two undergraduate researchers to work on the following roles Support of research activities includes, but is not limited to, the following tasks: Data Management for IoT Services Researcher InfluxDB Onboarding (Parsing), Grafana/InfluxDB Dashboard creation, Query Script writer (based on individual project needs) Sensor Integration/IoT Systems Researcher Sensor device integrations (physical connections and matching software), Python Scripting, Analyze various IoT transport technologies (LoraWAN, Z-Wave, Zigbee), Firmware development (C Language), Configure various hardware platforms to meet requirements for IoT implementation.
New Project Launched - Air Quality Sensors Evaluation
The CIEI team in collaboration with Dr. Sinan Sousan in the Department of Public Health and his research team integrated three types of low-cost air quality sensors with the ESDN Compute Shim. This integration facilitated the easy field deployment of the sensors and the collection of live data through the ESDN platform. The main goal of the project is to evaluate and calibrate low-cost sensors against more expensive equipment and assess their accuracy and reliability in the field. Three ESDN compute shims (CS) were deployed, each connected to three low-cost sensors, one of each sensor types. The CS connect to ESDN where data is collected and displayed for analysis. Two expensive, highly accurate air quality sensors were deployed at the same location as references. The secondary goal of the project is to explore the feasibility of miniaturized, LoRa connected air quality sensors that could be used to collect environmental information with the help of local communities. This concept will be explored once the evaluation of the low-cost, small form factor air quality sensors is completed. Stay tunned for updates and results!
New ESDN Production Feature - Data Collection for External Infrastructures
The Environmental Sensing Data Network (ESDN) was architected from day one to support four use cases: 1. Bring your own sensor and we will connect it to the ESDN LoRaWAN network with the help of the compute shim 2. Bring your LoRaWAN enabled sensor and we will connect it to the ESDN network 3. Bring your entire sensor deployment with its own communication network (for example cellular) and we will bring the collected data live into ESDN 4. Bring your own data sets and we will import them into ESDN For the past year we worked hard to deploy the LoRaWAN infrastructure and to set up the service that supports the first three scenarios. We recently demonstrated the support of Scenario 4 by continually importing data from a Zentra database through HTTP API requests. This implementation supports on of our user groups, enabling them to bring together data collected from legacy infrastructures and data collected over the ESDN network. This integration brings us one step closer to our goal of making ESDN a central repository of research data, a platform for collaboration regardless of the way data is collected.
Community Forum is Live!
The new CIEI community forum is now available. We are extremely excited to get the conversations started! Look out for new updates and information here and our forum. Visit Our Community Forum
Production deployment of CoPE Starts
Today we setup the first production sensing node for the Coastal and People (CoPE 2021) NSF project led by the Water Resources Center. The node is solar powered and connects a Hydros 21 water level sensor to the ESDN data collection and visualization infrastructure. The power plant and the LoRaWAN communications shim integration was tested in the ESDN labs and it is the result of the collaboration with the Water Resources Center.
This first iteration of the node features a modular design with discrete components encased and interconnected. This approach facilitates troubleshooting and future design optimizations.
We are excited to see the CoPE project move into production and look forward to the deployment of a string of gateways and a significant number of nodes in the near future."
ESDN is Live!
We are excited to announce that the Environmental Sensing Data Network (ESDN) is now operational and onboarding projects. With two gateways covering the Main and Medical campuses, ESDN enables educators and researchers to easily deploy sensors in support of their work. We will soon organize a set of seminars to provide more information about way to leverage ESDN but in the meantime, feel free to contact us with questions. We are excited about the great projects who already signed up for our infrastructure and about the projects that will soon follow.
Joined LoRa Alliance
We are excited to announce that the Center for IOT Engineering and Innovation was accepted as an institutional member of the LoRa Alliance; an open, non-profit worldwide organization supporting and promoting the adoption of LoRaWAN
Learn More
Camp Seagull Gateway Installed
A new gateway has been installed at the YMCA Camp Seagull. Enabling many research teams along the Neuse River to harness to the power of ESDN.
Travel to Lake Mattamuskeet
The team traveled south to Lake Mattamuskeet to install and test the first round of integrated tipping-bucket rain sensors.
Field Testing Begins
The first wave of testing has begun. Sensor have been deployed 4000ft from the first gateway!
Gateway Progress
We are very excited to have the first ESDN LoRa Gateway installed on the roof of the Science and Technology building. We have two more coming in soon!
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Featured Projects
Water Management Automation
Develop automated water management solutions that used sensors for data colection and actuators for control gates
Randall Etheridge (Principal Investigator) EmailAir Quality Monitoring
Evaluaton of low cost sensors against reference sensors and development of air monitoring solutions in urban and rural areas.
Student Engagement
Henry Jones
Student Research Assitant
Technology Systems Program
Semaj Wright
Student Research Assitant
Technology Systems Program
Braxton Chambers
Student Research Assitant
Computer Science Program
Collaborators
Mr. Keith Wheeler
Executive Director
Office of National Security and Industry Initiatives
East Carolina University
Mr. Jim Menke
Director
National Security Initiatives
East Carolina University
Dr. Natasha Bell
Assistant Professor
Department of Engineering
East Carolina University
Dr. Mike O’Driscoll
Associate Professor
Department of Coastal Studies
East Carolina University
Dr. Rob Howard
Research Associate
Department of Geographic Information
East Carolina University
Dr. Randall Etheridge
Associate Professor
Department of Engineering
East Carolina University
Dr. Raymond Smith
Assistant Professor
Department of Engineering
East Carolina University
Dr. Tarek Abdel-Salam
Associate Dean for Research and Director for the Center for Sustainability
Professor
East Carolina University
Mr. Steve Baker
Teaching Instructor
Department of Technology Systems
East Carolina University
Dr. Carol Massarra
Assistant Professor
Department of Construction Management
East Carolina University
Mr. Josh Pitzer
Director of Lab Operations
College of Engineering and Technology
East Carolina University
Mr. Merrill Flood
Director: Planner-In-Residence
Millennial Campus Planning & Local Comm Affairs, ECU
Brewster Building A-212
Dr. Erol Ozan
Associate Professor Department of Technology SystemsEast Carolina University
Dr. Sinan Sousan
Assistant Professor
Department of Public Health at ECU and North Carolina Agromedicine Institute
Dr. Rui Wu
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
East Carolina University
Dr. Philip Lundsford
Retired
Associate Professor