RESEARCH INTEREST
STATEMENT
JANUARY 21, 2020
University of Oulu – Master’s WCE, Admissions
Authored by: Eugene Owilla
ECO 2020
1
Contents
Research area & approach ................................................................................................................. 3
Problem definition (What?) ............................................................................................................... 4
Purpose & relevance of study (Why?) ................................................................................................ 6
Methodological approach (How?) ...................................................................................................... 8
Systematic plan .............................................................................................................................. 9
1.
Feasibility study ................................................................................................................... 9
2.
Literature review ................................................................................................................. 9
3.
Design................................................................................................................................ 10
4.
Coding ............................................................................................................................... 10
5.
Testing & Implementation.................................................................................................. 10
6.
Documentation .................................................................................................................. 11
Methods, Tools & Techniques....................................................................................................... 11
Method of analysis ....................................................................................................................... 12
Performance evaluation of the proposed research work ............................................................... 12
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 13
ECO 2020
2
Research area & approach
This section tackles what my research interest area is and why I am specifically drawn to it.
My main research interest pertains to the integration of Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G and its
optimization with Sub-Saharan Africa as the target consumer demographic. As I have articulated in
my motivation letter, it is my hope to use the knowledge acquired from your program to alleviate the
challenges facing the common man in our continent. IoT and 5G integration provides a runway for
this dream to be actualized. So far, IoT research has proved to be positively pervasive in up to 75% of
social services needed in our daily lives.
Investing in this area of research kills two birds with one stone. Intensive research that is done at the
right time helps avoid the apocalypse of the two elephants that essentially results in a poor
understanding of the subject matter if standards are written (too early) before the research results
are well established or in wasteful investment by the concerned parties if the standards are written
too late. The latter mentioned wasteful investment fosters the environment for societal atrocities
such as embezzlement of public funds by the powers that be which ends up repulsing foreign and
local investors. As scholars we owe it to society to stifle any factors that create a conducive space for
those that seek to take advantage of those not in power.
ECO 2020
3
Problem definition (What?)
It is no secret that a healthy and adequately educated population is the backbone of any economy, be
it first or third world. What sub-Saharan Africa as a people need more than food and financial aid is a
clear-cut path or strategy aimed toward proactive self-reliance. The strategic plan ought to be geared
toward investing in the future and be as environment friendly as possible. This can all be achieved by
ensuring that the research phase of the program is intensive and thorough.
Proactive self-reliance comes into play when the African folk come to the realization that it is not
enough to access the information available but also that they augment it with their own ideas. Think
of the situation from an agriculturalists point of view. If one has a strain of crop or a breed of farm
animal, to ensure that the genes or strengthened enough for the stock to persevere in hard times,
one has to cross breed the species in question. If one simply zeroes down (interbreeds) the crop or
farm animal, one runs the risk of weakening it. The crop or animal would not survive given tougher
conditions than those when the program was initiated. It is of paramount importance to understand
that the current ideas on business and agriculture, for example, are not set in stone.
The basis of proactive self-reliance endeavor to provide adequate information toward answering the
query, “how best can I use the current information (availed via internet – this is the part of the
equation where speedy wireless communications fit in) to create something (a business idea, for
instance) that is better, stronger and able to withstand a harsh climate (both from physical and
economic perspectives)?”
ECO 2020
4
It is important to recognize that for a region with a GDP per capita of USD 1720 as per 2017 (relative
to USD 45730 in the Republic of Finland around the same time), such a project may come off as
irrelevant or not dealing with the current issues of providing basic needs to the population. To this
effect, it is paramount to tout the “proactive” part of “proactive self-reliance”. This project is about
investing in the future of sub-Saharan Africa. It is time to end the cycle of ‘hand-to-mouth’
mentality that has plagued the sub-Saharan people for generations. Ergo, research alone is not
sufficient to dig a people out of this abyss. It is important to note that public awareness and
education be a key part of the market research component of this program.
ECO 2020
5
Purpose & relevance of study (Why?)
As enunciated in the title above, this section tackles how my research interest area solves the
problem at hand – providing faster wireless communications to communities in sub-Saharan Africa
and how this would translate to proactive self-reliance in the aforementioned sub-continent.
Speedy communication infrastructure means that students, both young and old can access study
material at a moment’s notice. Speedy communication infrastructure translates to abundance in
information available to the public regarding their health, their businesses, and even open up
channels for new online business opportunities. All these culminate in proactive self-reliance of the
next generation. It is my strong conviction that allocation of the proper funding to this research for
literature review, design and later on implementation would be beneficial to this endeavor. 5G
technology aims to further alleviate strained packet delivery due to terrain issues.
In the words of Marco Contento (Feb 13, 2019) in his blog, “integration of 5G and IoT aims at
connecting more devices at higher speeds and making things like lag nearly non-existent, thereby
giving way to seamless user experience”.
As per current research, an understandable increase in the number of IoT devices per person is
projected to be six to seven devices by this year. This calls into question the scalability of available
communication infrastructure from a software (maintained or improved packet delivery - QoS) and a
physical perspective (in terms of the physical infrastructure required to deliver this service to the
people).
Regarding the latter, it is imperative to recognize the role of subsets of modern tech research such as
green computing in harnessing natural resources already present in the region and incorporating said
research in designing environment friendly IoT devices for consumption by this demographic.
ECO 2020
6
With the right expertise, it is my conviction that engineered devices can be made out of materials
that are environment friendly as would be their energy consumption. This would make them more
appealing to the target market and help save the Earth in the process.
Regarding the former, as I have previously articulated, intensive research in integration of IoT and 5G
technology would translate to faster communication which in turn means timely dissemination of
information – touching on education sector, agricultural sector, business sector, security and social
services - in the sub-continent and thus fostering proactive self-reliance among the people.
ECO 2020
7
Methodological approach (How?)
The bulk of this research would be a combination of comparative study and prototype design/creation –
full stack research. The goal is to engineer 5G enabled IoT (but not dependent) devices that are lowcost, low power consumption and *proactively environment friendly – plastic components made out of
recycled plastic material, for instance.
*contrary to a design that is reactively environment friendly – seeking to prevent further environmental
degradation with regard to plastic pollution, proactively environment friendly device engineering aims
at negating the current pervasive pollution levels.
In this section, I will roughly elaborate the methodological approach of the proposed research in the
following breakdown:
•
Systematic plan – basically a derivative of the (software) engineering but tailored to include the IoT
devices’ engineering design i.e. the physical layer.
•
Methods, tools and techniques.
•
Methods of analysis.
ECO 2020
8
Systematic plan
Current individual research of IoT trends and 5G suggests an optimization of IoT potential should this
phenomenon be implemented at the ground level of the consumer pyramid.
1. Feasibility study – an integral part of any proposed research. It epitomizes rationality and avoids
wastage of time and funds. It would further involve timing estimations of the research process to
enable more accurate budgeting of available funds.
2. Literature review – of current available research to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the
current designs, to determine the adaptability of these designs to modifications in hardware (due
to physical conditions) and scalability of the software (due to load disparity) components.
Moreover, literature review would aid in augmenting current understanding the subject material
to enable the concerned parties to make more informed design decisions. This part of research
also touches on market and geographical research of the target mainly from existing data collected
from ad-hoc interviews or questionnaires to assist in comprehending the targeted consumers’
environment in which these IoT devices will be used.
ECO 2020
9
3. Design – if we are to consider this process as similar to that of the software engineering Dev-Op
cycle, the above step in the systematic plan would comprise the problem definition and
requirements gathering part of our research. Thus, the system design would be the next step of
the process. Based on the design (in hardware – on the physical devices - or software – in packet
delivery) weaknesses (relative to the target environment), the research personnel would redesign
the IoT devices (tough in our case there would only be one device for a case study) to fit the new
specifications that counter the aforementioned weaknesses in service delivery or improve on the
strengths based on the literature review.
4. Coding – using up to date system simulation and queuing modelling techniques, this would tackle
the software corrections and/or improvements (as per the designs in the previous step) in the
current 5G enabled IoT to cater for - for instance – timely packet delivery in case of signal
attenuation and interference. It is important to note that I do recognize that this is merely a rough
sketch of the whole process to provide an idea of comprehension of the breakdown in the
research.
5. Testing & Implementation – tackles testing the above prototype - the word ‘prototype’ implies the
implementation of SCRUM methods in this process. The inclusion of software components much
less in a very dynamic domain and target environment, hence ever changing user requirements,
calls for the use of an agile development method. This testing process will be intensive, running
from unit testing of each component to integration testing for the interfaces regression testing and
stress testing for austerity.
ECO 2020
10
6. Documentation – as per current software engineering development methods, this would be a
continuous process running from start to finish of the research. The documentation would provide
a summary of the literature review/research, full description of design and analytical models
(system simulation – this would include the various models considered, which model(s) were
eventually chosen and justification for why they were chosen) for the proposed device changes
and documentation of the coding and testing processes – which would run concurrently to
optimize time and funds.
Methods, Tools & Techniques
As enunciated before, 5G in IoT as a subset of wireless communications engineering is a very dynamic
domain. To this effect, the process of deciding on methods, tools and techniques would have to be
with the go-ahead of the Scrum team under the Scrum leader’s directive to foster accountability,
uniformity in documentation and adaptability in the event of a change in trends – which is bound to
happen.
In a nutshell, it would be premature to limit the choice of methods, tools and techniques applied at
this point in time.
ECO 2020
11
Method of analysis
Queue modelling and system simulation analysis would make up the bulk of the software portion (the
network layer) of the analysis – this process is heavily mathematical. As mentioned before, the
analytical methods would be thorough to cater for as many possibilities in the real world as possible.
Regarding the physical layer, analysis of engineering design of current 5G enabled IoT devices and
emerging microprocessor and embedded system design would be necessary to tailor the devices to
meet the target environment needs – a comparative study, if you will, to determine how best to
augment the strengths of the current and the proposed designs.
Performance evaluation of the proposed research work
This would be based on the success of the designed prototype at the end of the estimated running time
of the research as per the feasibility study, how the funds were budgeted for and consequently used
and how thorough the documentation process was/is so as to ease work in the event of a technical
follow-up or future literature review.
ECO 2020
12
Conclusion
In this document, I have shared with you what my research interest is, why I am interested in this
field of research, how this research topic impacts our society – hence why it is a valid research
interest worth pursuing and my methodological approach to the proposed research.
I would like to reiterate that as I am just completing my undergraduate studies, this document may
not be a full depiction of my depth in understanding of this topic’s subject matter – as seconded by
my comprehensive transcript and description of courses that I have undertaken. It is merely an
insight into and/or justification of my research interest.
In addition, I would also like to point out that IoT and 5G integration as a genuine research interest
incorporates all subject material that is undertaken at the University of Oulu, WCE Master’s program.
To this effect, I trust that given the chance at your institution, I would thrive in further understanding,
researching and implementing the practical aspects of this rich field.
ECO 2020
13