“Smart System”: A miniature and unobtrusive electronic system comprising sensors, data processing, decision making and communication, for example:

• a system that monitors temperature and mechanical stresses in a material

• a system that monitors and warns of excessive impact forces


“Smart Systems Integration”: Putting a smart system on or in an object so that it does something useful, is reliable and does not interfere with the object’s ordinary function, for example:

• putting the temperature and mechanical stress sensing system in wet concrete to monitor curing

• putting the impact force sensing system in the base of a shoe so that it can warn a person with arthritis or artificial joints of potential acute or accumulated joint damage

The Smart Systems Integration Group (SSIG), recently funded under the Irish Technological Sector Research Programme, brings together research leaders from the Department of Electronic Engineering and of Department of Manufacturing, Biomedical and Facilities Engineering at Cork Institute of Technology (www.cit.ie) with the objective of establishing CIT as a Centre of Expertise in Smart Systems Integration. Smart Systems can enable entirely new applications and concepts across many engineering and non-engineering disciplines.