Information engineering is the engineering discipline that deals with the generation, distribution, analysis, and use of information, data, and

knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is disti ...

in systems. The field first became identifiable in the early 21st century. Intersection over Union - object detection bounding boxes

The components of information engineering include more theoretical fields such as

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machine A machine is a physical system using Power (physics), power to apply Force, forces and control Motion, moveme ...

control theory Control theory is a field of mathematics that deals with the control of dynamical systems in engineered processes and machines. The objective is to develop a model or algorithm governing the application of system inputs to drive the system to a ...

signal processing Signal processing is an electrical engineering subfield that focuses on analyzing, modifying and synthesizing '' signals'', such as sound, images, and scientific measurements. Signal processing techniques are used to optimize transmissions, ...

, and

information theory Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. ...

, and more applied fields such as

computer vision Computer vision is an Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate t ...

natural language processing Natural language processing (NLP) is an interdisciplinary subfield of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human language, in particular how to program computers to proc ...

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combin ...

, medical image computing,

cheminformatics Cheminformatics (also known as chemoinformatics) refers to use of physical chemistry theory with computer and information science techniques—so called "''in silico''" techniques—in application to a range of descriptive and prescriptive proble ...

autonomous robotics An autonomous robot is a robot that acts without recourse to human control. The first autonomous robots environment were known as Elmer and Elsie, which were constructed in the late 1940s by W. Grey Walter. They were the first robots in history th ...

, mobile robotics, and telecommunications. Many of these originate from

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...

, as well as other branches of engineering such as

computer engineering Computer engineering (CoE or CpE) is a branch of electrical engineering and computer science that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer enginee ...

, electrical engineering, and

bioengineering Biological engineering or bioengineering is the application of principles of biology and the tools of engineering to create usable, tangible, economically-viable products. Biological engineering employs knowledge and expertise from a number o ...

The field of information engineering is based heavily on mathematics, particularly

probability Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an Event (probability theory), event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and ...

, statistics,

calculus Calculus, originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", is the mathematics, mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizati ...

linear algebra Linear algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning linear equations such as: :a_1x_1+\cdots +a_nx_n=b, linear maps such as: :(x_1, \ldots, x_n) \mapsto a_1x_1+\cdots +a_nx_n, and their representations in vector spaces and through matric ...

optimization Mathematical optimization (alternatively spelled ''optimisation'') or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element, with regard to some criterion, from some set of available alternatives. It is generally divided into two subfi ...

differential equations In mathematics, a differential equation is an equation that relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives. In applications, the functions generally represent physical quantities, the derivatives represent their rates of change, a ...

variational calculus The calculus of variations (or Variational Calculus) is a field of mathematical analysis that uses variations, which are small changes in functions and functionals, to find maxima and minima of functionals: mappings from a set of functions t ...

, and

complex analysis Complex analysis, traditionally known as the theory of functions of a complex variable, is the branch of mathematical analysis that investigates functions of complex numbers. It is helpful in many branches of mathematics, including algebra ...

. Information engineers often hold a

degree Degree may refer to: As a unit of measurement * Degree (angle), a unit of angle measurement ** Degree of geographical latitude ** Degree of geographical longitude * Degree symbol (°), a notation used in science, engineering, and mathemati ...

in information engineering or a related area, and are often part of a

professional body A professional association (also called a professional body, professional organization, or professional society) usually seeks to further a particular profession, the interests of individuals and organisations engaged in that profession, and th ...

such as the

Institution of Engineering and Technology The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is a multidisciplinary professional engineering institution. The IET was formed in 2006 from two separate institutions: the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), dating back to 1871, and ...

or Institute of Measurement and Control. They are employed in almost all

industries Industry may refer to: Economics * Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity * Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery * The wider industrial secto ...

due to the widespread use of information engineering.

History

In the 1980s/1990s term information engineering referred to an area of software engineering which has come to be known as

data engineering Data engineering refers to the building of systems to enable the collection and usage of data. This data is usually used to enable subsequent analysis and data science; which often involves machine learning. Making the data usable usually involve ...

in the 2010s/2020s.

Elements

Machine learning and statistics

Machine learning is the field that involves the use of statistical and

probabilistic Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1, where, roughly speaking, ...

methods to let computers "learn" from data without being explicitly programmed. Data science involves the application of machine learning to extract knowledge from data. Subfields of machine learning include deep learning,

supervised learning Supervised learning (SL) is a machine learning paradigm for problems where the available data consists of labelled examples, meaning that each data point contains features (covariates) and an associated label. The goal of supervised learning alg ...

unsupervised learning Unsupervised learning is a type of algorithm that learns patterns from untagged data. The hope is that through mimicry, which is an important mode of learning in people, the machine is forced to build a concise representation of its world and t ...

reinforcement learning Reinforcement learning (RL) is an area of machine learning concerned with how intelligent agents ought to take actions in an environment in order to maximize the notion of cumulative reward. Reinforcement learning is one of three basic machine ...

semi-supervised learning Weak supervision is a branch of machine learning where noisy, limited, or imprecise sources are used to provide supervision signal for labeling large amounts of training data in a supervised learning setting. This approach alleviates the burden of ...

, and

active learning Active learning is "a method of learning in which students are actively or experientially involved in the learning process and where there are different levels of active learning, depending on student involvement." states that "students partici ...

. Causal inference is another related component of information engineering.

Control theory

Control theory refers to the control of ( continuous)

dynamical systems In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in ...

, with the aim being to avoid delays, overshoots, or instability. Information engineers tend to focus more on control theory rather than the physical design of control systems and circuits (which tends to fall under electrical engineering). Subfields of control theory include classical control, optimal control, and

nonlinear control Nonlinear control theory is the area of control theory which deals with systems that are nonlinear, time-variant, or both. Control theory is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering and mathematics that is concerned with the behavior of d ...

Signal processing

Signal processing refers to the generation, analysis and use of signals, which could take many forms such as

image An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensio ...

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by ...

, electrical, or biological. Use of Fourier transformation chest radiography

Information theory

Information theory studies the analysis, transmission, and storage of information. Major subfields of information theory include coding and

data compression In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compressi ...

Computer vision

Computer vision is the field that deals with getting computers to understand image and video data at a high level.

Natural language processing

Natural language processing deals with getting computers to understand human (natural) languages at a high level. This usually means

text Text may refer to: Written word * Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including: **Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred **Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...

, but also often includes

speech processing Speech processing is the study of speech signals and the processing methods of signals. The signals are usually processed in a digital representation, so speech processing can be regarded as a special case of digital signal processing, applied ...

and recognition.

Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics is the field that deals with the analysis, processing, and use of

biological Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...

data. This usually means topics such as

genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

and

proteomics Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital parts of living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replication of DNA. In ...

, and sometimes also includes medical image computing.

Cheminformatics

Cheminformatics is the field that deals with the analysis, processing, and use of

chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wit ...

data.

Robotics

Robotics in information engineering focuses mainly on the

algorithms In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...

and

computer programs A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes documentation and other intangible components. A computer progra ...

used to control robots. As such, information engineering tends to focus more on autonomous, mobile, or probabilistic robots. Major subfields studied by information engineers include control,

perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system, ...

, SLAM, and

motion planning Motion planning, also path planning (also known as the navigation problem or the piano mover's problem) is a computational problem to find a sequence of valid configurations that moves the object from the source to destination. The term is used ...

Tools

In the past some areas in information engineering such as signal processing used

analog electronics Analogue electronics ( en-US, analog electronics) are electronic systems with a continuously variable signal, in contrast to digital electronics where signals usually take only two levels. The term "analogue" describes the proportional rela ...

, but nowadays most information engineering is done with

digital computers A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These program ...

. Many tasks in information engineering can be

parallelized Parallel computing is a type of computation in which many calculations or processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. There are several different for ...

, and so nowadays information engineering is carried out using

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...

s, GPUs, and

AI accelerators An AI accelerator is a class of specialized hardware accelerator or computer system designed to accelerate artificial intelligence and machine learning applications, including artificial neural networks and machine vision. Typical application ...

. There has also been interest in using quantum computers for some subfields of information engineering such as

and

robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist human ...

References

{{Authority control Engineering disciplines Information

History

Elements

Machine learning and statistics

Control theory

Signal processing

Information theory

Computer vision

Natural language processing

Bioinformatics

Cheminformatics

Robotics

Tools

See also

References