Internet of Acoustic Things (IoAT):
Challenges, Opportunities, and Threats

Nirupam Roy, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

10:30-11:30am Wed. 28 March 2018, ITE325b, UMBC

The recent proliferation of acoustic devices, ranging from voice assistants to wearable health monitors, is leading to a sensing ecosystem around us — referred to as the Internet of Acoustic Things or IoAT. My research focuses on developing hardware-software building blocks that enable new capabilities for this emerging future. In this talk, I will sample some of my projects. For instance, (1) I will demonstrate carefully designed sounds that are completely inaudible to humans but recordable by all microphones. (2) I will discuss our work with physical vibrations from mobile devices, and how they conduct through finger bones to enable new modalities of short range, human-centric communication. (3) Finally, I will draw attention to various acoustic leakages and threats that arrive with sensor-rich environments. I will conclude this talk with a glimpse of my ongoing and future projects targeting a stronger convergence of sensing, computing, and communications in tomorrow’s IoT, cyber-physical systems, and healthcare technologies.

Nirupam Roy is a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). His research interests are in mobile sensing, wireless networking, and embedded systems with applications to IoT, cyber-physical-systems, and security. Roy is the recipient of the Valkenburg graduate research award, the Lalit Bahl fellowship, and the outstanding thesis awards from both his Bachelor’s and Master’s institutes. His recent research on “Making Microphones Hear Inaudible Sounds” received the MobiSys’17 best paper award and was selected for the ACM SIGMOBILE research highlights of the year in 2017.