Original Article

International Journal of Electrical Engineering

& Education
Integrating internet 0(0) 1–18
! The Author(s) 2020
of things in electrical Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
engineering education DOI: 10.1177/0020720920903422
journals.sagepub.com/home/ije

Fahd Alharbi

Abstract
The Saudi Vision 2030 plan is based on three pillars: the Kingdom’s statues as a center
for Arab and Islamic countries, stimulating the economy by diversifying revenues and
taking advantage of the strategic location that makes the country a center of trade and
gateway to the world. The initiative to establish the city of Neom emerges to achieve
the objective of reducing the country’s dependence on oil, diversifying its economy, and
developing public services sectors. NEOM project focuses on several sectors such as
energy and water, mobility, biotech, advanced manufacturing, and digital sciences.
One of the main sustainability factors for a smart city as NEOM project is the
human factor. It is important to qualify engineers to be able to operate and maintain
digital technology such as internet of things applications and devices. In this article, we
propose integrating the internet of things technology and applications into the electrical
engineering education to introduce students to the future skills and enable them to
participate in the sustainability of Saudi Vision 2030.

Keywords
Vision 2030, NEOM, internet of things, sustainability

Introduction
The Saudi Vision 2030 was established to modernize the country and make it
independent of oil.1 Vision 2030 focuses on three areas of strength: being the
center of Islamic nations, due to the presence of two holy places in Mecca and

Faculty of Engineering-Rabigh Branch, King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia

Corresponding author:
Fahd Alharbi, Faculty of Engineering-Rabigh Branch, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia.
Email: Fahdalharbi@kau.edu.sa
2 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Medina, the existence of many resources such as gold, phosphates, uranium, and
many other precious metals where they can be invested and diversified sources of
income, and the geographical location between three continents to become a center
of world trade. To achieve the objectives of Vision 2030, the council of economic
and development affairs established 13 vision realization programs. These pro-
grams are quality of live, financial sector development, housing, financial balance,
national transformation, public investment fund, privatization, national compa-
nies’ promotion, national industrial development and logistic, strategic partner-
ship, Hajj and Omrah, human capital development, and national character
enrichment. The government launched 60 projects during the last two years. For
example, national renewable energy program, center for industry 4.0, digitization
of healthcare sector and the project of Neom city.
The Neom city project was announced on 24 October 2017 and initiated with
$500 billion from the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia and international
investors.2 The project comprise an area of 26,500 km2 is located in the north-
western region of Saudi Arabia (Figure 1) and expected to complete in 2025.
The smart city project identifies nine key economic sectors for development:

1. Energy & Water

2. Mobility
3. Biotech

Figure 1. The Neom city location.

Alharbi 3

4. Food
5. Technology & Digital Sciences
6. Advanced Manufacturing
7. Media & Media Production
8. Entertainment
9. Living as NEOM’s Foundation

The technology and digital sciences sector includes artificial intelligence, virtual
reality and augmented reality technologies, data centers, the Internet of Things
(IoT), and e-commerce. Moreover, the city will provide an open source platform
for developers and inventors to use the project environment to innovate and test
urban innovations. IoT is an important technology for monitoring and managing
systems in smart cities,3 and engineers who are able to deal with IoT technologies
and applications is one of the most important aspects of the sustainability of smart
cities. This article will discuss how to prepare electrical engineers to be able to
operate and develop systems in smart cities and IoT-based applications by inte-
grating the necessary skills into the engineering education system.

IoT application in smart city

The smart city’s vision is to integrate information and communication technology
and IoT to manage aspects of city life (Figure 2)4 such as information systems in

Figure 2. Smart city.4

4 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

local administrations, schools, libraries, transportation systems, hospitals, power

plants, water supply networks, waste management, security management, and
other community services. This will lead to the evolution of smart cities with
smart features that include smart economy, smart buildings, smart mobility,
smart energy, smart information communication and technology, and smart
governance. In smart city, technology is used to improve service efficiency.
The technology allows city officials to interact directly with the community and
city infrastructure and monitor how the city evolves and how to enable a better
quality of life. Through the use of sensors integrated with real time monitoring
systems, data are collected from citizens and devices then processed and analyzed
to improve the efficiency of services.5–10
The IEEE Internet of Things Initiative serves as a forum for professionals in
academia and industry to share their knowledge and experience regarding
the convergence of the IoT technology and market. The IoT current
architecture defines three layers, the sensing layer, the connectivity layer, and the
application layer.11,12
One of the major applications of IoT in smart city is smart energy for
economic and environmental reasons. The IoT enables energy consumption
monitoring, management of energy plants. Also, empowers smart meters to
analyze consumption patterns (Figure 3).13 Moreover, supports measurement
of radiation levels in nuclear power stations surroundings to generate leakage
alerts and assure public safety.
Engineers with knowledge and skills in operating, developing and maintenance
of IoT technology and devices are very crucial factor for the smart city sustain-
ability. Accordingly, integrating IoT into the electrical engineering education is
very important. The following sections discuss the integration of IoT into the

Figure 3. Smart energy.13

Alharbi 5

electrical engineering education program at the faculty of engineering—King

Abdulaziz University campus in Rabigh.

Electrical engineering education

The faculty of engineering was established in 2009, as one of five faculties founding
king Abdulaziz University campus in Rabigh, with the aim of having a direct
impact on the development of industrial community in Rabigh district. The elec-
trical engineering department was established to meet the need for well-trained
electrical engineers capable of designing, installing, maintaining, and managing
electrical systems by providing them with the foundations of knowledge and
skills. The curriculum is described at Table 1. The requirement of BSc degree in
electrical engineering is the completion of 155 credit hours. The faculty of engi-
neering facilities includes: four computer labs provided with the educational soft-
ware and simulation tools, one workshop for the basic engineering skills, two
engineering drawing labs and 15 technical labs where four labs are dedicated for
the electrical engineering program. The principles of the electrical engineering
program are covered by the required courses. Moreover, the practical experience
to design and experiment electrical and electronic systems are developed through
the lab courses. Also, the selected elective courses give students the chance to
specialize in one area of electrical engineering and to make the engineering pro-
gram adaptive to the market needs. The engineering design course offers the soft
skills such as team work, problem solving procedure, and ethical decision. On the
other hand, computer programming course covers most of the programming fun-
damentals. Furthermore, the embedded systems course deals with the architecture
and programming of the microcontrollers. The embedded systems course has two
practical hours per week for lab work using software tools as Mplab, MikroC, and
Proteous for design and simulation. The course requires a project where students
describe an engineering problem and design and implement the proposed solution.
For example, the design and implementation of a security system using a micro-
controller are shown at Figures 4 and 5. The current curriculum achieves the
student learning outcomes for the electrical engineering program according to
the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. Despite the accredita-
tion of the engineering program, it is important to integrate the IoT in the electrical
engineering program to enhance students’ experience in order to participate in the
sustainability of Saudi vision 2030 investments.

Integration of IoT in engineering education

There are two methods reported in literature for integrating the IoT in the engi-
neering education. First method is by exposing student to the IoT concept and
application through a case study project.14–18 In this method, students learn archi-
tecture, sensors, data acquisition boards, cloud platform, and programming
through design and implementation of IoT project. The second method involves
6 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Table 1. Electrical engineering curriculum.

Courses type Courses list

General Islamic, Arabic, English, Computer skills, Communication skills

32 credit hours
Math and Basic Sciences
33 credit hours
Program required courses
66 credit hours
Selected elective courses
18 credit hours
Free courses
6 credit hours
Math, Physics, Statistics, Chemistry, Biology, Computer program-
ming, Numerical methods
Computer Programming, Engineering Drawing, Electrical Circuits I,
Engineering Economy, Basic Workshop, Engineering Mechanics,
Engineering Design, Embedded Systems, Intro to
Entrepreneurship, Electronics I, Electronics Lab, Electrical
Circuits II, Electrical Measurements, Electrical Circuits II,
Electrical Measurements, Digital Logic Design, Digital Logic
Design Lab, Electromagnetic Fields, Engineering Numerical
Methods, Thermo-Fluids, Electronics II, Signals and Systems,
Electrical Machines I, Electrical, Machines Lab, Automatic
Control, Materials Properties, Probability and Statistic,
Fundamentals of Power Systems, Power Systems Lab.,
Introduction to Communications, Communications Lab, Summer
Training, Embedded Systems and Senior Project
High Voltage Engineering, Power Electronics, Electrical Machines
II, Protection and Switchgear, Power Systems Analysis, Power
Networks Planning, Power System Control, High Voltage
Applications, Special Topics in Power System, Electric Drive
Systems, Special Electrical Machines, Programmable Logic
Controllers, Industrial Power Electronics, Electrical Machines
Analysis, Special Topics in Machines. Electromagnetic Waves.
Digital Communications, Computer Networks, Antennas and
waves Propagation, Mobile Communications, Satellite
Communications, Optical Communications, Digital Signal
Processing, Special Topics in Comm. Eng., Information Theory
and Coding, Optical Networks, Data Comm. and Networks,
Telecommunications Networks, Special Topics in Networks
Courses from other faculties

integrating the IoT skills into a lab and workshop course. This method includes
specifying the course content, learning objectives, course outcomes, course assess-
ment, and experiments.19–22 In this section, the proposed model of integrating the
IoT in the engineering education is described. The model consists of two work-
shops, the Arduino training workshop and the introduction to IoT workshop.

Arduino training workshop

The electronic lab equipped with Arduino training kits (Figure 6) which include
Arduino, breadboard, cables, resistors, indicators, sensors, and actuators to
Alharbi 7

Figure 4. System design using Proteous.

Figure 5. System implementation.

enhance the student practical experience in attaining the workshop’s skills.

The workshop contains the following topics:

• Introduction to embedded systems

• Microcontrollers
8 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Figure 6. Arduino training kit.

• Arduino architecture and features

• Arduino boards types
• Arduino Uno
• Arduino Shields
• Arduino IDE programming tool
• Arduino programming using C language
• Interfacing sensors and actuators
• Arduino applications
• Arduino projects
The workshop material gives a brief description of the embedded systems and
describes in details the Arduino board and its programming using the Arduino
integrated development environment (IDE).23–26 The students learn design and
programming through the implementation of simple training projects as shown
at Figures 7 to 9.
At the end of the workshop, a survey is conducted on 23 students to assess
the learning outcomes achievement (Figure 10). The students’ response is
Alharbi 9

Figure 7. Smoke detector system.

Figure 8. Temperature and humidity system.

illustrated in Table 2 where students expressed their positive feedback toward the
knowledge and skills acquired in the workshop.
A team of the trainee used the developed skills in the control system course. Since a
liquid level control system was built to evaluate the performance of the proportional
10 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Figure 9. Noise level meter system.

integral derivative (PID) controller and the fuzzy logic controller.27 The control
system is described in Figure 11, where the liquid level is measured using an ultrasonic
sensor and the information is fed to the Arduino board which is programmed to
implement the controller. The Arduino controls the DC pump through H-bridge
controller module to maintain the target liquid level. The results show that the
fuzzy controller achieves better performance than the PID controller to damp the
overshot and reduce the steady state oscillations as illustrated in Figures 12 and 13.

IoT training workshop

The Arduino workshop provides students with the necessary fundamental skills to
design and implement the data acquisition system. On the other hand, the IoT
workshop content will introduce the IoT technology and its applications.28,29 The
workshop enriches the students’ experience by the design and implementation of
systems to monitor and control through the internet. The IoT workshop contains
the following topics:

• Introduction IoT system and applications

Alharbi 11

Figure 10. Arduino workshop survey.

• Arduino programming
• Sensors and data acquisition
• Connecting to the internet
• Blynk platform
• Design IoT system
• IoT projects

In this workshop, students learn how to use the Blynk platform30 to develop
an IoT application where they first select the data acquisition board and inter-
net connection type. Also, students learn to develop a mobile application and
link it to the Arduino board using an authentication code. For practice, the
students used the previously developed projects in the Arduino workshop and
connect them over the Blynk cloud platform to form an IoT system. The tem-
perature and humidity monitoring system (Figure 7) is connected over the
12 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Table 2. Arduino workshop survey result.

Average
Statement response

Knowledge of Arduino architecture and its applications 4.1

Knowledge of Arduino programming tools 4
Knowledge of programming the analogue and digital input and output port 3.9
of Arduino
Knowledge of sensors interfacing 3.7
Knowledge of AC and DC devices interfacing 3.6
Ability to write a program using the Arduino IDE 4.3
Ability to burn a program in the Arduino board 5
Ability to design a project to read the room temperature and write the 3.8
temperature on the serial port
Ability to design a project to read the distance of an object and write the 3.7
distance on the serial port
Appreciate the importance of skills acquired in the workshop and its rele- 3.9
vance to the courses
IDE: integrated development environment.

Figure 11. Liquid level control system.

Blynk cloud and the student developed a mobile application to display the
room’s temperature and humidity through graphical meters displayed on the
mobile screen as illustrated in Figure 14. Additionally, this project can
be extended to form a weather station. Also, the liquid level control system
Alharbi 13

Figure 12. The PID controller.

Figure 13. The fuzzy controller.

14 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Figure 14. Temperature and humidity monitoring system.

Figure 15. IoT-based liquid level control system.

(Figure 11) is transformed to a wireless tank monitoring using the IoT cloud as
shown in Figure 15. Moreover, to convey the importance of the IoT application
in the smart city life style, the trainees are exposed to a research project of
implementing the IoT in the health care system31 where the patients’ vital signs
are monitored and reported to doctors and health care providers using the IoT
as described in Figure 16.
In addition, a survey is conducted on 23 students to assess the learning
outcomes attainment (Figure 17). The average students’ response is shown in
Table 3 where the results show that the students recognized the importance of
the IoT for the electrical engineers and more practice is necessary to enhance
the students’ skills. It is clear that the IoT skills integration model using the
workshops is good to give on hand skills to design and implement IoT proto-
type projects, but there is a need to explore other aspects of the IoT technology
to make the electrical engineers ready to the future market and able to partic-
ipate in the Saudi 2030 vision sustainability. This objective will be considered in
the process of updating the electrical engineering curriculum to include a course
regarding the IoT technology and applications, economy and social impact,
privacy, and security.
Alharbi 15

Figure 16. IoT-based health care system.

Figure 17. IoT workshop survey.

16 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Table 3. IoT workshop survey result.

Average
Statement response

Knowledge of IoT technology and applications 4

Knowledge of IoT importance for electrical engineers 4.2
Knowledge of IoT fundamental components (Hardware & Software) 3.7
Knowledge of data acquisition boards 3.7
Knowledge of Arduino programming 3.6
Knowledge of IoT cloud platforms 3.5
Ability to write a program using the Arduino IDE to read different sensors 4.3
Ability to develop mobile App using Blynk 3.2
Ability to design a project to monitor the room temperature through mobile App 3
using Blynk platform
Appreciate the importance of skills acquired in the workshop for electrical engineers 3.9
IDE: integrated development environment; IoT: internet of things.

Conclusions
The Saudi Vision 2030 main objective is to use the country’s strengths to inspire the
economy by diversifying revenues. Neom city is expecting to play an important role
in realization of the 2030 Vision. The IoT and its applications will be heavily posi-
tioned in the Neom life style. The sustainability of the smart city depends on several
factors where qualified engineers are significant. This article elaborates the way to
provide engineers with the skills to operate and design IoT systems by integrating the
necessary skills into the electrical engineering education. The existing models are
either using a case study projects or through a practical course. Our proposed model
used two workshops. The first workshop focused on the electronics skills using
Arduino based projects. While the second workshop gives the set of expertise to
design IoT systems. The students demonstrated their ability to use the learned skills
in designing and implementing IoT systems. The conducted surveys show the stu-
dents’ appreciation to the training model and the need to more in-depth learning
course. There are many aspects regarding the IoT technology shale be explored by
engineers such as economy impact, IoT infrastructure, regulations, standards, pri-
vacy, and social impact and security. Accordingly, an IoT course will be developed
and included in the next phase of updating the electrical engineering curriculum.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.
Alharbi 17

ORCID iD
Fahd Alharbi https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3262-3742

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