Boltsi Angeliki, Kosmanos Dimitrios, Xenakis Apostolos, Chatzimisios Periklis, Chaikalis Costas
Department of Digital Systems, University of Thessaly, Geopolis Campus, 41500 Larissa, Greece.
Department of Information and Electronic Engineering, International Hellenic University, 57400 Thessaloniki, Greece.
Sensors (Basel). 2025 Jun 1;25(11):3504. doi: 10.3390/s25113504.
The continuous evolution of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies presents significant opportunities and challenges within the domain of engineering education. This paper introduces a novel and comprehensive framework that extends the established Engineering Design Process (EDP) by incorporating a modular Digital Twin (DT) structure specifically tailored to smart building IoT applications in education. Unlike previous approaches, our framework enables real-time system feedback, simulation-based design iteration, and hands-on experimentation-all integrated within a pedagogical flow aligned with engineering curricula. It comprises seven distinct phases, providing a complete methodology that guides learners from fundamental concepts to advanced applications, including data visualization, real-time simulation, and system optimization. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed framework, we design and experiment with a practical use case related to a meteorological station and data, which incorporate IoT-enabled sensors, actuators, and microcontrollers for real-time monitoring of environmental parameters and energy consumption within a smart building campus facility. Additionally, to support EDP extension, a hybrid pedagogical approach is introduced, which combines traditional engineering hands-on education methodologies with DT activities, to further foster experimental learning, iterative system design, and complex systems thinking development. To this end, our approach aims to bridge the gap between theoretical science and engineering knowledge, along with practical application use cases, contributing to a better preparation of future engineers capable of addressing interdisciplinary challenges associated with smart systems and digital transformation within the Industry 4.0 era.
物联网（IoT）技术的持续发展在工程教育领域带来了重大机遇和挑战。本文介绍了一种新颖且全面的框架，该框架通过纳入专门为教育领域的智能建筑物联网应用量身定制的模块化数字孪生（DT）结构，对既定的工程设计流程（EDP）进行了扩展。与以往方法不同，我们的框架实现了实时系统反馈、基于仿真的设计迭代以及实践操作实验——所有这些都集成在与工程课程相一致的教学流程中。它包括七个不同阶段，提供了一种完整的方法，可引导学习者从基本概念到高级应用，包括数据可视化、实时仿真和系统优化。为了证明所提出框架的适用性，我们设计并试验了一个与气象站和数据相关的实际用例，该用例结合了支持物联网的传感器、执行器和微控制器，用于在智能建筑校园设施内实时监测环境参数和能源消耗。此外，为了支持对EDP的扩展，引入了一种混合教学方法，该方法将传统的工程实践教育方法与DT活动相结合，以进一步促进实验学习、迭代系统设计和复杂系统思维的发展。为此，我们的方法旨在弥合理论科学与工程知识以及实际应用用例之间的差距，有助于更好地培养能够应对与工业4.0时代智能系统和数字转型相关的跨学科挑战的未来工程师。
