Mathematics

The Mathematics Strand underpins most of the other strands: its purpose is to provide a rigorous foundation for many of the more applied concepts met in the other Strands. As such it is offered early in the course.

Discrete Mathematics represents a breath first rather than depth first treatment of concepts such as logic (cf. Programming), complexity and recurrence (cf. Algorithms), sets (cf. Data Structures), enumeration (cf. Statistics), relations (cf. Databases) and graphs (cf. Algorithms and Networking). Its purpose is to ensure that all students have a basic mathematical literacy in such topics. In such a one semester course, the treatment will necessarily be at an introductory level, but the concepts will be covered in greater depth later in the course, mainly in modules on other Strands

Applied Calculus ensures that students understand features of the real world such as rates of change (which are critical to many sensing systems) and can manipulate relationships between quantities that vary on a continuous scale. It also covers much of the engineering mathematics needed to understand the devices themselves, needed for the Devices and Systems Strand, and shows how numerical methods reconcile the finite, discrete world of digital computers and networks with the continuous world in which the IoT devices and networks are deployed. Mathematical Methods (in Semester 3) builds on the Applied Calculus module in Semester 2, and shows how the rate of change concept is extended to multivariate functions and its subsequent applications. However, the major focus of this module is on the concepts and methods of linear algebra, and the various applications in other modules during the programme (e.g., state-space modeling, computer vision and machine learning).