A recent article has been published that talks about wireless location tracking. Location is often referred to as the "holy grail" for wireless solutions since it allows motes to be deployed in a truly ad-hoc manner. There are multiple methods for figuring out where a mote is--the most commonly used method is GPS. GPS chipsets have significantly advanced in the last 10 years, where the power consumption is low and the accuracy is very high. Integrating GPS with motes is more commonplace and provides a very good solution for outdoor deployments with a clear view of the sky.
For indoor situations, the options are less abudant and less accurate. Companies like Rosum offer location positioning based on TV signals, but these only work well in metropolitan areas. Why is that a problem? Well, as the article points out, determining the location of a person in burning building or a mine is not possible using traditional techniques. Instead, the motes must rely on each other to figure out their location. This approach is the most difficult, the least accurate, but has extremely promising uses.
We're constantly tracking the new location technologies that are coming on to the market. Some companies are proposing ultra-wideband which uses a slew of different frequencies to address the issues with a single signal bouncing around like in the case of WiFi. But the most fundamental is to measure and calibrate the strength of signal received from other motes. Basically each mote listens to its neighbors and then computes the distance based on how loud its neighbors are talking. Not very accurate, but sometimes knowing within 10-20m where someone is located is more than enough to rescue them from a dangerous situation.
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With the recent bridge collapse in Minnesota and mine collapse in Utah, the need to detect critical failures is necessary for public safety. Imagine authorities in Minnesota receiving real-time updates on each bridge and then correlating this data with periodic maintenance exams. Authorities can quickly react to any problems, dispatch crews to problem spots, and maintain a healthy infrastructure.
This notion is not infeasible or science fiction; Professor Kerop Janoyan at Clarkson University in New York is leading a project to monitor bridges in upstate New York using wireless sensors based on Moteiv's technology. He has designed a system that monitors acceleration and vibration in all dimensions, analyzes the data, transmits it wirelessly using Moteiv's Tmote Sky module. Strain gauges are also used; they can alert authorities of significant deformations in the bridge's structure that may lead to collapse. Strain gauges are also commonly used to monitor the integrity of pillars in mines to detect the possibility of collapse before such an event occurs. (Gory details about strain gauges and how they work are available at wikipedia).
An article on the system appears online at EETimes and Professor Janoyan's webpage includes an overview of the system. An older article was written and published by Clarkson University.
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Boeing Phantom Works has published a very interesting paper on a system to detect corrosion in aircraft using wireless sensors at IMECE 2006. Previous research into aircraft maintenance has shown that "by far, the largest single maintenance problem facing the operators [airlines] is structural corrosion."
Their proposed solution is an environmentally powered wireless network of Tmote Sky nodes with corrosion sensors. The system is powered by a piezoelectric bimorph energy harvester with a power conditioning circuit. It operates at a 0.13% duty cycle, sending corrosion readings every 30 minutes.
According to the authors, "Moteiv's Tmote Sky transceiver design requires the least amount of power to operate. In addition, the Moteiv transceiver met all of our requirements and was the lowest in cost."
For more information, see the ASME website and look for paper IMECE2006-13381.
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Grape Networks, a California startup, has released a product that monitors vineyards using miniature wireless sensors. The "Climate Genie" uses Moteiv's Tmote Sky wireless sensor node with humidity, temperature, and light sensors. The system runs Boomerang, Moteiv's business-ready open-source software.
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Texas Instruments is showing videos and handing out flyers about Moteiv's FIRE project at this week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. If you are attending, but sure to stop by the Texas Instruments booth to check out all of their low power options. The exhibit is at South 2 26426E.
Here is an image of the flyer:
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In addition to the videos on the Discovery Channel and CNN, the FIRE project from UC Berkeley and Moteiv has been written up by a number of different websites and journals. Below are links to articles about the FIRE project.
RFID Journal
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/2717/1/1/
Bill Koslosky's Blog
http://billkosloskymd.typepad.com/wirelessdoc/2006/10/wireless_sensor.html
Gadgetnutz
http://www.gadgetnutz.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=192
Sensors Magazine
http://www.sensorsmag.com/sensors/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=375570
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If you missed the Discovery Channel or CNN broadcasts, the videos are now available on YouTube and embedded into this blog post.
The CNN video can be viewed in its full definition via the CNN website at:
http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/clickability/index.html?url=/video/tech/2006/10/06/velshi.explorers.fire.eye.cnn
Check the YouTube videos at:
WIRED NextFest 2006: Intelligent Fire Information and Rescue Equipment (FIRE)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFky26RedOM
On CNN and CNN Headline News:
CNN Explorer: FireEye and FIRE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzMwj7lLvcA
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CNN has picked up the FIRE project, joint work between the University of California, Berkeley and Moteiv Corporation, for a segment that will air this weekend on CNN and CNN Headline News. The segment on FIRE will air between the following times:
On CNN USA: Friday 11A-12P, 2-3P Saturday 10-11A, 4-5P Sunday 9-10A
On CNN Headline News Friday 6:30-7A, 11-11:30A, 6-7P Saturday 9:30-10A, 12:30-1P Sunday 8-8:30A, 1-1:30P
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The joint work between the University of California, Berkeley, Moteiv, and Chicago on the innovative Fire, Safety, and Rescue Equipment (FIRE) project profiled in our previous post will be featured in a segment on the Discovery Channel and Science Channel next weekend. The story includes live footage of the system in action and interviews with Berkeley students and staff and Moteiv employees.
The full television schedule for the NextFest 2006 show is available at the Science Channel TV Listings and Discovery Channel TV Listings.
The show will air on the following channels at these times (check local listings or TiVo it!)
Science Channel
Sept. 29 9 PM ET/PT
Oct. 1 9 PM ET/PT
Discovery Channel
Oct. 1 11 AM ET/PT
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Moteiv and the University of California, Berkeley are featured in the September issue of Wired Magazine for work on an intelligent fire, safety, and rescue system, aptly called FIRE. The FIRE project is headed by Professor Paul Wright and his gang of students, including Andrew Redfern, Dan Steingart, and Joel Wilson.
The FireEye project highlighted in the Wired article is a head-mounted display (HMD) in the firefighter's mask, designed to relay performance and safety enhancing decision support information in a hands free format. This is exciting because firefighting can be extremely demanding and chaotic where quick decisions are mandatory and information is scarce. Firefighters must constantly divide their attention between many immediate events, which makes it difficult to complete critical tasks such as search and rescue, possibly costing lives.
The FireEye system, led by Joel Wilson, mounts two heads up displays inside the fire fighters helmet -- one transparent, the other opaque. The design is based on user needs studies with the Chicago and Berkeley Fire Departments, with primary design goals being rugged, inexpensive relative to most HMDs, minimally distracting, and easy to operate. The FireEye shows an interactive floor plan map with current locations of the user, their Buddy according to the National Fire Protection Agency "Buddy System", other company members, areas where smoke alarms have activated, and remaining air supply. The GUI is simple to prevent the FireEye from becoming an excessive attention cost.
The Research @ Berkeley Magazine has a much more in depth write up of the FIRE system.
Moteiv is glad to provide Tmote Sky for sensing and Boomerang, an enhanced distribution of the open source operating system TinyOS, which helps the wireless sensor devices sense, react, and report changes in the environment to the mobile firefighters.
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The University of California Demand Response project was featured on ABC 7 news in San Francisco for their pioneering work to reduce energy consumption across the state, preventing blackouts and protecting the environment. Nate Ota, a graduate student, described the system that receives information from the power company and then uses it to inform wireless thermostats and sensors placed throughout a house. The intelligent sensors use the information to decide when to use energy and when to conserve.
The University is using Tmote Sky motes in their prototype system, which can be seen in the video.
To view the segment, fast forward to 4:40 into the video below:
mms://MEDIA.citris.berkeley.edu/Energy-on-demand
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In a follow up to last week's discussion of smart vineyards, Texan and Israeli scientists are building wireless irrigation sensing systems. By monitoring the leaf temperatures, water can be conserved while preventing the crop from being exposed to extreme temperature. Cotton is used as the example in the story.
http://www.axcessnews.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=10822
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Wineries in Northern California are testing systems that provide detailed microclimate, irrigation, and health data about their vines. By using technology, wine makers are controlling the size and growth of their crop, measuring acidity and salinity, and irrigating more effectively and efficiently.
A group at UC Davis showed a smart irrigation system using Moteiv's motes that opens and closes an electronic valve based on the surrounding soil moisture content. Nodes compute the available water content and turn on and off irrigation valves to achieve consistent growth.
An article in Fortune (reprinted at cnn.com) talks about the science and technology being introduced to winemaking.
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Iowa State is developing a system of wireless sensors that monitoring America's power infrastructure. Although primarily for security, they can also help in response to disasters and storms that bring down power lines.
http://www.iastate.edu/~nscentral/news/2006/jun/grid.shtml
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Our good friend Matt Welsh appears in an article about volcano monitoring that was previously featured on the front page of Moteiv's website. Matt and his team at Harvard deployed a system using Tmote Sky to monitor seismic activity and infrasound (low frequency) vibrations. Details about the project, although with some technical inaccuracies, are included in the article from Network World.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/062606widernet-volcano.html
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An undergraduate student from Boston University has designed a smart trash can using motes that can detect if a public trash can is full or empty. Just yesterday I walked past an overflowing trash can with garbage spread all over the street and thought "why doesn't the city pick up the trash more often?" Here is a compelling solution as part of the business plan competition at BU. One point though--it may cost $212 to build today (something tells me they're using motes more expensive than our very own Tmote Sky), but should reduce to much less than $100 in volume. Check out the article here:
http://www.boston.com/business/personaltech/articles/2006/06/05/motes_make_trash_cans_smarter/
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This entry recaps some of the events over the past few weeks and a look forward to upcoming events.
Upcoming:
May 30 & 31, there will be a panel at Emnets in Boston called "Show me the money" discussing the opportunities for wireless sensor startups. Dr. Joe Polastre (me) is on the panel as well as Rob Poor, former CTO from Ember, and Jay Werb, CTO at Sensicast.
May 25, Dr. David Culler, who advised two of the Moteiv founders at UC Berkeley, is speaking at the monthly wireless sensor network SIG in San Jose
May 31, Chris Peterson, the Chief Wharfinger at the Port of Oakland, discusses their RFID rollout for monitoring and tracking containers. The talk will be held in San Jose.
News:
Boeing and FedEx are testing active RFID tags for tagging airplane parts on FedEx jets. From Ken Porad, program manager at Boeing, "If we can use active tags on flights, that sets the stage to begin deploying wireless sensor networks, in which things like temperature sensors could be attached to the tags and used to monitor perishable goods in transit." Unfortunately RFID and wireless sensor networks are terms that are commonly interchanged in the media.
DHS is asking companies to submit proposals by May 30th for securing America's borders with innovative technology.
Sun showed off their SunSPOTS platform, a 32-bit hefty mote with similar capabilities to Intel's iMote2, at the JavaOne conference here in San Francisco last week.
Crossbow has partnered with Honeywell for sensing and control applications. The press release doesn't mention specific target applications or when a product will be announced/released/available.
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Raytheon tested a system architecture for border control over a 200-mile span of border. The test uses ground-air surveillance and communicates through a "secure wireless network". The system focuses on coordinating resources effectively from a central location. Border control agents can be dispatched and cameras control from remote locations over the secure wireless network. Their architecture includes the need for remote wireless sensors, which will hopefully play a bigger role in future tests of the system.
Two articles:
http://www.telematicsjournal.com/content/newsfeed/6957.html
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060418-113614-1566r
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ShotSpotter has recently announced its ~$9m of funding and system for locating the origin of a gunshot. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle describes a potential trial of the technology to help prevent homicides in Oakland. Readers of the Chronicle are split on whether the system would save lives or be a half million dollar waste of funds.
The ShotSpotter system is nothing new. Vanderbilt University has shown a very accurate sniper location system that they had tested for urban warfare use. As part of the same DARPA project that originally funded the Moteiv founders when we were at Berkeley, the Shooter Localization project at Vanderbilt achieved accuracy of less than 1 meter in 3-dimensions, compared with 10 meter accuracy in the ShotSpotter system.
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Vinayak Ramesh, a Sophomore at Oak Ridge High School in El Dorado Hills, California has won 1st place overall at the 2006 Sacramento Regional Science and Engineering Fair for his work enhancing camera-based security with wireless sensor networks.
Vinnie taught himself TinyOS, purchased Tmote Sky motes with help from his family, and integrated application specific sensors to enable work on his award winning project titled "A Collaborative Framework to Enhance Camera-Based Security Systems Using Intelligent Wireless Sensor Networks". His work combines wireless sensor networks with his school's camera-based security system to reduce deployment costs and increase security coverage.
Vinnie was also awarded 2nd place in the engineering category and received additional awards from the National Society of Professional Engineers, Professional Engineers in California Government, Intel for Excellence in Computer Science, and the U.S. Army. He will now be competing at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in May.
Vinnie also received support and encouragement for his project from Assistant Principal Stuart MacKay and the school's security officer Phillip Espinosa.
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Moteiv announced today that we're expanding our operations to Asia and Greater China through a partnership with Bandwave Technology. Due to the growing demand for wireless sensors in Asia and the real-world deployment experience that Bandwave has with Moteiv products, we are pleased the region will have better access to Moteiv products, world-class design and integration services from Bandwave, and overall lower cost of ownership of wireless sensor systems.
Bandwave has deployed a number of successful systems with Moteiv products, including an outdoor microclimate monitoring application accessible via the web. The deployment is described in detail at Bandwave's site and live readings can be accessed anywhere in the world.
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Four vendors remain in the running to win the contract from the Department of Homeland Security to secure America's borders. Ericsson, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon have submitted proposals that are under review. The project is one part of a $10billion integrated wireless network from DHS and the Treasury and Justice departments.
An obvious major concern is how to deal with a huge amount of data from each sensor and camera, more data than all the eyeballs in the world could process. The solution proposed: use wireless sensors to trigger cameras and other devices when an event of interest occurs. A major challenge will be the development and deployment of such a large scale system with potentially hundreds of thousands of wireless nodes in harsh environmental conditions. While the article focuses on video surveillance, the real win is the acknowledgement that a tiered network utilizing miniature wireless sensors will be required for any system to be feasible.
Washington Technology published a feature article today about the project with a follow up letter from the editor.
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With the upcoming centennial anniversary of the San Francisco earthquake, there has been a bit of a buzz about structural monitoring with wireless sensor networks. The basic idea is straightforward: put in a WSN with equipped with accelerometers; measure responses of the accelerometers to determine whether the structure as a whole (or individual members of it) is sound.
This year, NSF recognized the importance of this research, and allocated the $400,000 5 year CAREER award to Prof. Yufeng Zhang at Lehigh University. Prof. Zhang wants to push forward the structural monitoring with sensor networks; a key element in his research is the development of suitable data compression algorithms that will help overcome the bandwidth limitations of sensor nets. Full story at Lehigh University
Researchers at North Carolina State University are building a system for structural monitoring based around Tmote Sky. They are using strain gauges as the main sensors, and have constructed a Tmote Sky sensor board that provides signal conditioning for their sensors. A technical report documenting the design and its performance is available here
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A recent article in the LA Times talks about how WalMart may be lobbying for reduced port security in order to keep profits up. The union blames WalMart for the lack of increased port security.
The Retail Industry Leaders Association (a lobbying group of which WalMart is one of the largest members) opposes smart containers, which have wireless sensors to monitor for signs of tampering, and electronic seals because the association claims that the technologies are not completely reliable. According to the article, the association fights a slew of other techniques, including adding additional inspections, to increase port security too.
The trade association cautioned Congress against requiring use of "smart containers" and electronic seals for cargo entering U.S. ports, fought efforts to require outside inspections of its members' supply-chain security claims and opposed container-handling fees to fund better port security, the report said.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-walport6apr06,1,7249250.story?coll=la-headlines-business