Smart phones have been integral in replacing the need to store information on pieces of paper and carry hefty materials thereby providing an interactive digital repository to record the same. Educational institutions often restrict the usage of smartphones with regard to their misuse by students. However, efficient use can bring revolutionary enhancements to the education centers. Keeping in view the recent advancements brought about by the integration of IoT devices and smartphones, this research work proposes a methodology to automate institutions by providing an efficient, scalable and low-cost solution to aid the process of teaching and learning for teachers and students respectively.

We developed a prototype for this research at a state-level hackathon with 200+ teams, my team developed a cost effective IoT solution powered by an AI based mobile application to digitize any classroom. Fortunately we went on to win the hackathon!

The aim of the application developed is to provide students the facility to create personalized digital records of notes, record audio lectures and generate portable documents for the same, mark attendance which operates using computer vision. In addition to this, excessive power consumption in institutions can be minimized drastically by using cameras to detect human presence and operate appliances accordingly. The integration of the IoT module via Bluetooth enables users to remotely control the appliances using the proposed application. Moreover, a smart door mechanism designed especially with regard to the current pandemic and also to support physically challenged people.

This mobile application achieves classroom automation offering various modules to enhance user experience during lectures is developed using Java, a general-purpose objectoriented programming language for IoT, client-server applications, enterprise architecture, and cloud-based systems.

• View Research Study - Published by IEEE
• View Implementation

• Implementation of few of the above features:
  
  ◦ Automation Tools - Notetaking: Digital characters as well as handwritten information can be recognized and extracted from notes, presentations, announcement boards etc. providing students with the facility to store content in a digital format in their smartphones.
  
  ◦ Automated Lectures - Recording The students can provide their undivided attention during lectures while the application takes the notes. Users can create personalized notes from the recorded lectures and can save them for future reference in portable document format
  
  ◦ Smart Attendance System: To reduce disparities in attendance records and to reduce time usage to record attendance in every class, the module provides a robust system to improve efficiency by automation. The feature provides security, reduces errors, generates reports, helps administration to keep track in realtime. The system expects the instalment of Wi-Fi routers in every classroom of education centers which connect with the central server at the campus and users can access data preserved in the database by establishing a connection between their smartphones using Wi-Fi routers and the server.
  To record attendance for every lecture, the students need to capture their image. OpenCV, provides sdk files for a face detection model named haarcascades in which using many negative and positive images the classifier is trained and then used on other images to detect images. After detection, facial recognition is performed using local binary patterns histograms (LBPH) algorithm.
  
  ◦ IoT based Smart Systems: The paradigm of having appliances connected to the internet provides users with enhanced capabilities to control devices. This module provides a methodology to reinvent the architecture of lighting systems and electronic appliances to promote practices to reduce energy consumption in universities. The hardware model powered on an Arduino and various sensors are connected to the user's smartphone via the mobile application. Access to control appliances is strictly based on user personas to help reduce disturbances during lectures. To reduce physical contact and improve safety measures due to the ongoing pandemic, this tool provides various other approaches such as smart door unlocking mechanism, automated lighting system etc.
  
  

• Technologies Used:
  ◦ Java, XML, JavaScript
  ◦ Sprintboot, REST API's,
  ◦ Android Studio, IoT, ICR/OCR
  ◦ OpenCV, Computer Networking concepts (MAC address configuration with routers & cell phones)