New products, Conferences, Books, Papers, Internet of Things

Archive for October, 2010

Bruce Sterling on the Internet of Chinese Things

From Wired:

CCID Consulting: Internet of Things, Beachhead in New Wave of Competition among Chinese Cities

“CCID Consulting’s Latest Research Report Gives an Overview on the Landscape of China’s Emerging Internet of Things Industry, Featuring Key Players Including the City of Wuxi

“BEIJING–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Wuxi City in eastern China’s Jiangsu Province was undoubtedly the most extraordinary player in the area of the Internet of Things in 2009. (((Who would have guessed.)))

“Following Wuxi’s suit, cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Fuzhou, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Kunshan, Chengdu, and Hangzhou have also joined the first contingent for the development of the Internet of Things. Thus a new wave of competition among Chinese cities has emerged after a recession of enthusiasm in the development of the information industry represented by PC and the Internet.

“Unlike the Pearl River Delta cities in Southern China which emerged as China’s first information industry base due to their advantages in geographic location, cost and government policies, Wuxi is leading the new wave of the Internet of Things with both strong capabilities and aspirations. (((I’m really wondering what Chinese power group wants this to be said and what they expect to get out of it.)))

Read the complete article here.

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CONET MSc/PhD Thesis Award at EWSN 2011

The Chairs of the 8th European Conference on Wireless Sensor Networks (EWSN 2011) and the CONET Consortium are pleased to announce the Master and PhD Thesis Award Competitions in the area of Cooperating Objects. The prize is donated by CONET, the Cooperating Objects Network of Excellence.

Cooperating Objects combine the strong functional aspects of embedded systems, pervasive computing and wireless sensor networks. Cooperating objects entities federate themselves into dynamic and loose networks in order to reach a common goal. This common goal will typically be related to sensing or control.

Theses eligible for the competition have to be written in English, have to be supervised to a major part by an official European university (EU and EFTA), and have to be completed between Dec 1st, 2009 and Nov 30th, 2010. Requirements: 1) Application letter, including the name of the student, the title of the thesis, its duration, and its date of completion, the date of the defence, the overall grade and a report on the outstanding contributions of the thesis. 2.) Letter of recommendation from Advisor. 3.) The thesis itself.

The award will be assessed by CONET members. Criteria for selecting the winner are scientific originality, scientific significance for the field of  Cooperating Objects, quality of the presentation and potential for practical application. Each category of thesis (MSc or PhD) will have separate  prizes assigned by separate academic and industrial juries. The jury can decide not to award some of the prizes if the quality or significance of the submitted works is not relevant. The jury will decide on which track the thesis will be evaluated. The winners of each category will be awarded during EWSN 2011.

Submission of a single document file in PDF format must be done thru EDAS here.

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Awarepoint Spreads Awareness for Wireless Sensor Networks in Hospitals

ZigBee-based wireless sensor networks are ideal for use in acute care hospitals and beyond, noted Matt Perkins, chief technology officer and senior vice president of engineering at Awarepoint, a provider of ZigBee-based real-time location solutions (RTLS) for healthcare.

Perkins recently addressed attendees about real-time location, condition sensing and ZigBee-based wireless sensor networks for use in acute care hospitals and beyond at the 2010 Mobile Health Expo.

Those attending Awarepoint’s ‘Transformational Services Track’ breakout session will get useful insight about Real-time Location System (RTLS) applications in hospitals. Perkins will describe in detail, at the session, the benefits of knowing location, status and movement of assets, patients, healthcare workers, visitors, vendors and any other resources or people within the hospital infrastructure.

In addition, the session will also cover how ZigBee-based wireless sensor networks offer a promising solution for a variety of healthcare applications beyond acute care hospitals.

The session was held at the Las Vegas Caesars Palace Convention Center, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd South, Las Vegas, NV 89109, during the Mobile Health Expo, Oct. 19 to Oct. 21.

Prior to working at Awarepoint, Matt Perkins worked 10 years at Motorola as technical director of the Things-to-Things Research Center. At Motorola, Perkins was responsible for aligning business partnerships with technology roadmaps, directing strategic joint research related to distributed sensor networks and leading the development of Motorola’s Asset Tracking and Smart Energy technologies.

In addition to leading research on radio-location technologies and wireless sensor network protocol development, Perkins contributed to the IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.15.3 standards and actively participates in the ZigBee Alliance.

More info here.

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ACM BuildSys: Call for Participation

The ACM BuildSys’10 workshop on WSNs for Energy-Efficiency in Buildings in conjunction with SenSys’10 has published its exciting Final Technical Program and is inviting researchers to consider participation.
In addition it features a poster session for key European and International projects within the scope of the event.
BuildSys is a selective forum for the presentation of research results on systems’ issues in the area of building controls, energy management, embedded, and networked sensors. The workshop provides an ideal convergence venue for the Sensor, Building and Energy research communities to address the research challenges facing the design, deployment, use, and fundamental limits of these systems.

The workshop will be held in Zurich, Switzerland on November 2, 2010, in conjunction with ACM SenSys 2010.

More info are available at the BuildSys workshop webpage.

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wsn-conferences, wsn-general

Postdoc at WiSAR Lab in Ireland

The Wireless Sensor Applied Research (WiSAR) Lab is a developing national centre in wireless sensor network research based at Letterkenny Institute of Technology (LYIT), Donegal, Ireland. The core research is in the field of wireless body area networks (WBAN). Funded by Enterprise Ireland and led by the CNRG research team at LYIT, the WiSAR Lab is becoming a centre of excellence in wireless sensor networks and our goal is to become the hub of research and applied wireless solutions for technology companies in the North West of Ireland.

The WiSAR Lab is seeking to recruit a Postdoctoral Researcher in Wireless Sensor Networks to undertake research and design work in the development of ultra low­-power protocols in wireless sensor network solutions, with an emphasis on Body Area Networks.

More info are available here

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Job offers

Scientists pioneer wireless sensors to explore little known glacier phenomenon

Professor Jane Hart from the School of  and Dr Kirk Martinez of the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) have been awarded a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant to study glacier ‘stick-slip’ motion as it affects the Skalafellsjökull glacier in Iceland.

According to the team, scientists know surprisingly little about ‘stick-slip’ motion, the term given to the events which cause ice sheet movement, and occur in the normal course of glacier sliding.

“Due to the logistical problems of studying glaciers and the subglacial environment, we know very little about the process,” said Professor Hart. “Until recently, it was assumed that  flowed slowly and continuously, but there is a growing body of evidence that glacier movement can be episodic and can be modelled in a similar way to earthquakes as stick-slip motion.”

To measure the ‘stick’ phase, the researchers plan to use an innovative wireless multisensory probe, which they developed to use on Glacsweb, a project which deployed the world’s first wireless probe to measure in-situ processes at the base of a glacier in Briksdalsbreen, Norway.

They plan to use a GPS and accelerometers on the glacier surface to measure the ‘slip’ phase.

More info here.

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IEEE Special issue on "Sensor Network Applications"

It’s now out! After more than 18 months in planning, writing, and editing, the Special Issue on “Sensor Network Applications” of the Proceedings of the IEEE is out and available on IEEExplore. There are eleven articles on the current state of the art in sensor network research, including articles on technologies that are enabling sensor networks, and articles on the applications of sensor networks.
We hope you find it a good read!
More info here.

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NYT: A Landlord Learns From His Son

From the New York Times:

In his father’s house are many rooms. Roberto Fata has put sensors in a lot of them: Water sensors that warn when toilets are backing up. Temperature sensors that showed “we were baking the tenants,” he said — the average living-room temperature in one building was 96 degrees in the winter of 2004, when he installed the first ones. Oil-tank sensors that provide the evidence when a delivery is 200 gallons short.

Mr. Fata, 42, remembers the moment when his father said, “This is a good thing.”

Read the complete article here.

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New Smart Metering sensor board for Waspmote

The new Smart Metering Sensor Board for Libelium’s Waspmote platform enables very high reliability monitoring of 6 parameters for electricity & water supply, logistics and industrial automation.The new board extends the current features by supporting the measurement of the following key parameters:

  • Electric current
  • Water flow
  • Weight of materials and goods
  • Liquid level
  • Distance by ultrasounds
  • Displacement of an object

Applications include: electricity and water consumption, pipe leakage detection, liquid storage management, tanks and silos level control, supplies control in manufacturing, industrial automation, agricultural irrigation.

Read more here.

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Mayfield researchers harvest electricity from trees

THE answer was simply blowing in the wind for researchers at Mayfield’s CSIRO Energy Centre who wanted to harvest electricity from trees.

The deceptively simple solution to their problem involved using string to connect tree branches to a small electricity generator. As the branches sway, they drive the generator, which is connected to a small battery transmitter. With an average daily output of 1 milliwatt, the generator can power a range of wireless monitoring equipment used in remote locations.

The tree harvester was created in response to a request to create a remote sensor network to monitor the microclimate of a forest regeneration project in south-east Queensland.

“Currently this technology mostly relies on batteries to provide the energy to power the networks,” Energy Harvesting Research Project team leader Chris Knight said. ”Most wireless sensor nodes last months in the field before batteries need to be replaced.”

The technology could also be used to power networks used in the early detection of bushfires or to monitor the movement of cane toads through farmland. ”One of its real strengths is that it can be used in dark locations where you can’t use solar power, like a forest floor or beside a building,” Mr Knight said. ”Its applications are limited only by the imagination.”

More info here.

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