Course director
Co-director
Communicating objects are present throughout society (e.g. city, home, health, safety, or mobility). Some studies predict up to 150 billion connected objects of varying shape, function and interaction by 2025.
It is therefore essential that engineers from IMT Atlantiqueare able to both manage and create these objects, while questioning their roles and their place in society. This is the raison d'être for the Designing Communicating Objects theme.
To design these communicating objects, we wish to provide our students with the necessary tools for understanding the underlying technologies. The relevant design choices thus obtained will allow engineers to develop these autonomous communicating systems and to position them in the Internet of Things.
In terms of innovative tools and methods, the Fablab on the Brest campus is a great place for experimentation that allows people from a variety of professions (designers, engineers, sociologists, etc.) to meet and practice innovative, user-centred design methods with rapid prototyping. IMT Atlantique engineers will thus be able to develop at all phases of the innovation process.
Finally, we hope that the design choices described above can be informed by a broader social reflection, including eco-design, environmental impact, and ethics, to name but a few.
At the end of this specialization, IMT Atlantique engineers will master a multidisciplinary approach with the tools to meet the technical, human and social challenges posed by connected objects. Thus, they will combine their skills in electronics, transmission, operating systems, protocols, signal processing, design, social sciences and humanities.
Opportunities and possible careers
The uses of communicating objects concern a wide range of professions and sectors of activity. New professions are emerging or have yet to be invented at the crossroads between traditional professions such as insurers or doctors and clients or connected patients.
- designer and developer of communicating objects in start-up or for large accounts,
- manager of an R&D center, a TechShop, a ProtoSpace,
- director of innovation around connected objects,
- innovation-design pilot,
- engineer-designer of connected services,
- consultant specialized in communicating objects,
Target companies & fields
- companies offering connected objects and services,
- local authorities (linked to home care for example)
- major accounts setting up TechShops and looking for "hybrid" profiles of engineers capable of dialoguing with designers,
- banks-insurers, health, sports and well-being, automobiles, home automation, equipment manufacturers, industry, agriculture, energy, etc. All fields featuring communicating objects, which are accessible through this theme.
Brest Campus