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Welcome to the 34th Israeli Conference on Mechanical Engineering:

Mechanical Engineering in the

“Internet of Things” and “Big  Data” Era

The 34th Israeli Conference on Mechanical Engineering (November 22-23, 2016) to be held
at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Technion I.I.T, will be an interdisciplinary event
that aims to inspire and stimulate innovation from basic discoveries in classical mechanical engineering areas to translational research and applications. As such, we chose to put the spotlight in this conference on what we see as an exciting and emerging area of Mechanical Engineering: the mechatronic systems allowing constant data collection while storing this data on the cloud (Internet of Things), followed by the utilization of machine learning techniques (Big Data) to extract meaningful information from stored data for better operation, control, design and manufacturing of these systems.

“Mechanical Engineering in the Internet of Things and Big Data Era”

We live in an era where almost every breath we take is monitored. We are constantly exposed to consumer-specific marketing strategies which are extracted from huge customer behavior data sets and machine learning algorithms implemented from these databases for customer behavior (pattern) recognition. For example, purchasing data in the supermarket is collected and later used for customer-specific promotions. Online video streaming preferences are monitored for later recommendations of films watched by others who saw the film you just watched, and our Google search patterns are monitored for automatic search completion in the Google search engine. This trend is now known as the Internet of Things followed by Big Data (data analysis).

In recent years, data collection and analysis is also being used in mechanical systems. The new Boeing 787s Dreamliner creates half a terabyte of data per flight generated from its sensor systems. A typical car comes equipped with about 60 sensors, constantly collecting data from different car parts. A typical modern washing machine comes with seven sensors monitoring its operation. Our apartments and houses have become Smart Homes. There is no doubt that we are entering an era where innovation comes in the integration of what used to be pure mechanical systems with electronics. This allows us to not only execute simple control strategies based on software as opposed to hardware, but also to collect large data during normal operations, thereby entering the Internet of Things.

The idea behind the Internet of Things is that traditional mechanical systems can now be connected and controlled over the Internet, enabling real-time monitoring and communication with the original manufacturer for monitoring, upgrades, and maintenance. Moreover, once a large amount of data is collected from different users, Big Data tools, such as machine learning, can be applied to the data set to identify patterns of use, of wear and of failures, thus optimizing the life cycles of products and systems.

We look forward to welcoming you to Technion and to exciting and stimulating presentations and discussions about the future of our profession.