Internet of things lab opened in University of Tartu

Driving home from work, your car informs the heating system that you will be home soon and the heating turns on, or the refrigerator recognises a missing food product and adds it to the shopping list—these are only some examples of how objects will be communicating in the future and making people’s lives more comfortable. Objects’ skill to communicate is the future direction in technology and for developing this, the University of Tartu and Telia Eesti opened Estonia’s internet of things lab.

This is a unique laboratory in Estonia and the Baltic States, furnished as a smart home and smart office which can be controlled centrally over the network.

The lab uses a network of devices which include electronics, software, sensors and network connection. The devices gather and exchange information which enables a situation where devices are able to act in certain situations on their own, in other words, be smart.

The technology in the lab will be operated by researchers of the UT mobile and cloud computing laboratory. In addition, students of the Institute of Computer Science will have the opportunity to test and create new solutions in the field of internet of things, in order to develop the future directions of high technology and new business ideas in this field. The internet of things also includes developing smart environmental protection, smart health care and smart agriculture.

UT Vice Rector for Research Erik Puura said that cooperation with Telia is very important for the UT and the new lab is the best way to prompt it. “The lab improves the university’s studies and research work, makes studies more practical and enables to test new ideas for start-up enterprises,” said Puura.

“Until now, the internet of things has only been talked about in Estonia. But now we are taking a big step towards the future because we have a special environment for testing and creating new applications for the internet of things. Hopefully this lab will be a springboard for many smart ideas and solutions which make our lives more comfortable, secure and exciting,” noted Tiit Tammiste, Director of Technology at Telia Eesti.

After the opening, the VUNK IoT (Internet of Things) Challenge took place at UT Institute of Computer Science to consider innovative internet of things solutions which could be applied in practice in the future. Next, the ideas will be developed into prototypes and tested at the UT internet of things lab.

Additional information

Satish Narayana Srirama, UT Associate Professor in Distributed Systems
tel. +372 737 6422
e-mail [email protected]

Raigo Neudorf, Media Relations Manager at Telia Eesti
tel. +372 51 69 747
e-mai [email protected]