PhD Zhibo Pang
CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR GRADUATION
Published Jul 04, 2013
Zhibo Pang from China has just finished his PhD studies within Internet of Things at KTH School of Information and Communication Technology. Now he is ready for his new job as a research scientist at ABB in Västerås.
Where are you from and where did you study before coming to School of Information and Communication Technology?
– I am from China. Before coming to KTH, I studied in Zhejiang University, China, and I also worked for five years in a semiconductor company in China.
What is your topic and why did you choose it?
– My PhD topic is "Technologies and Architectures of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) for Health and Well-being". The IoT is one of the hottest topics in ICT area today. It is an important part of the vision and research space of the iPack Center of KTH where I have done my PhD studies. The applications of IoT technologies in healthcare and well-being are promising from a business point-of-view. Our industrial partners at the iPack Center have brought up some very attractive research problems and scenarios for these applications. We have contributed a lot to both the academia and the industry by resolving the problems given by our industrial partners. This is also Vinnova's expectation when they established the iPack Center.
Describe your topic in short.
– The phrase "Internet of Things" (IoT) was coined at the beginning of the 21st century by the MIT Auto-ID Center. As a complex cyber-physical system, the IoT integrates all kinds of sensing, identification, communication, networking, and informatics devices and systems. And it seamlessly connects all the people and things upon interests, so that anybody, at any time and any place, through any device and media, can more efficiently access the information of any object and any service. “Ubiquitous” is the distinct feature of IoT technologies, so the IoT is often related to ubiquitous identification, ubiquitous sensing, ubiquitous computing, ubiquitous intelligence and so on.
– The emerging technology breakthrough of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) is expected to offer promising solutions for the food supply chain (FSC) and in-home healthcare (IHH), which may significantly contribute to human health and well-being. In this thesis, I have investigated the technologies and architectures of the IoT for these two applications as so-called Food-IoT and Health-IoT respectively. We intend to resolve a series of research problems about the wireless sensor network (WSN) architectures, device architectures and system integration architectures. To reduce the time-to-market and risk of failure. Business aspects are also taken into account more than before in the early stage of technology development because the technologies and applications of IoT are both immature today.
Tell us something about your results.
– The challenges about enabling devices that we have addressed include: the WSN mobility and wide area deployment, efficient data compression in resource-limited wireless sensor devices, reliable communication protocol stack architecture, and integration of acting capacity to the low cost intelligent and interactive packaging (I2Pack). Correspondingly, the WAN-SAN coherent architecture of WSN, the RTOS (real time operation system)-based and multiprocessor friendly stack architecture, the content-extraction based data compression algorithm and the CDM (controlled delamination material)-based I2Pack (intelligent and interactive packaging) solution are proposed and demonstrated.
– At the system level, we have addressed the challenges about effective integration of scattered devices and technologies, including enterprise information systems and information integration architectures such as shelf-life prediction and real-time supply chain re-planning for the food supply chain, and device and service integration architectures for the in-home healthcare. Additionally, we have also addressed some challenges at the top business level, including the Value Chain Models and Value Proposition, and the cooperative ecosystem model. These findings are generic and not dependent on our proprietary technologies and devices.
– To be more generalized, we have demonstrated an effective research approach, the so-called Business-Technology Co-Design (BTCD), to resolve an essential challenge in nowadays research on the IoT -- the lack of alignment of basic technology and practical business requirements. We have shown its effectiveness by our design practice. It could be an instructive example of “the change of mindset” which is essential for the IoT research in the future.
What will the future bring for your research topic?
– In the near future, the IoT technologies will be applied in all the sectors. The impact caused by the IoT to human life will be as huge as the internet has caused in the past decades. The application of IoT in the food supply chain will significantly reduce the food damage, improve the food quality, improve the supply chain transparency, and finally improve the food safety and quality of life. The application of IoT in the in-home healthcare will bring the healthcare services into people's home and daily life. This will dramatically change the service model, expand the coverage and improve resource efficiency of healthcare in the future, especially when the whole world is facing the challenges caused by the rapid growth and aging of population. Nevertheless, based on innovative business models, the IoT technologies will enable many new business opportunities for all the industries besides the ICT sector. In short, the IoT will contribute much to the health and well-being of human as well as the sustainable growth of economy.
What are your plans for the future?
– I have got a permanent position as Research Scientist at ABB AB Corporate Research in Västerås. The new job will bring me a great platform to turn the knowledge from my PhD studies into usable products and services. Most of my research interests will be seamlessly continued, for example Internet-of-Things, wireless sensor networks, enterprise information systems, business models, embedded systems and so on - of course, with a closer combination of industrial practices. I will also, as a bridge, continue contributing to the collaboration between China and Sweden in technical and business innovations, both in academia and in industry. My new job will be great for this purpose as well.
You can read the thesis by Zhibo Pang here .