Rapid Prototyping Methodology of Lightweight Electronic Drivers for Smart Home Appliances

Many researches have been conducted in smart home topic. Mostly, they discussed on the specific aspect of application. On the other side, many applications still can be explored and attached into the system. Several main challenges in designing the application devices are system complexity, reliability, user friendliness, portability, and low power consumption. Thus, design of electronic driver is one of the key elements for overcoming these challenges. Moreover, the drivers have to comply the rules of smart home system, data protocol, and application purpose. Hence, we propose a rapid prototyping methodology on designing lightweight electronic drivers for smart home appliances. This methodology consists of three main aspects, namely smart home system understanding, circuitry concept, and programming concept. By using this method, functional and lightweight drivers can be achieved quickly without major changes and modifications in home electrical system. They can be remotely controlled and monitored anytime and from anywhere. For prototyping, we design several drivers to represent common electronic and mechanical based applications. Experimental results prove that the proposed design methodology can achieve the research target

A Fault-Tolerant Multiple Sensor Fusion Approach Applied to UAV Attitude Estimation

A novel sensor fusion design framework is presented with the objective of improving the overall multisensor measurement system performance and achieving graceful degradation following individual sensor failures. The Unscented Information Filter (UIF) is used to provide a useful tool for combining information from multiple sources. A two-step off-line and on-line calibration procedure refines sensor error models and improves the measurement performance. A Fault Detection and Identification (FDI) scheme crosschecks sensor measurements and simultaneously monitors sensor biases. Low-quality or faulty sensor readings are then rejected from the final sensor fusion process. The attitude estimation problem is used as a case study for the multiple sensor fusion algorithm design, with information provided by a set of low-cost rate gyroscopes, accelerometers, magnetometers, and a single-frequency GPS receiver’s position and velocity solution. Flight data collected with an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) research test bed verifies the sensor fusion, adaptation, and fault-tolerance capabilities of the designed sensor fusion algorithm

Optimization strategies for two-tiered sensor networks.

Sensor nodes are tiny, low-powered and multi-functional devices operated by lightweight batteries. Replacing or recharging batteries of sensor nodes in a network is usually not feasible so that a sensor network fails when the battery power in critical node(s) is depleted. The limited transmission range and the battery power of sensor nodes affect the scalability and the lifetime of sensor networks. Recently, relay nodes, acting as cluster heads, have been proposed in hierarchical sensor networks. The placement of relay nodes in a sensor network, such that all the sensor nodes are covered using a minimum number of relay nodes is a NP-hard problem. We propose a simple strategy for the placement of relay nodes in a two-tiered network that ensures connectivity and fault tolerance. We also propose two ILP formulations for finding the routing strategy so that the lifetime of any relay node network may be maximized.Dept. of Computer Science. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2006 .B37. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-01, page: 0348. Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2006

Unified Role Assignment Framework For Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are made possible by the continuing improvements in embedded sensor, VLSI, and wireless radio technologies. Currently, one of the important challenges in sensor networks is the design of a systematic network management framework that allows localized and collaborative resource control uniformly across all application services such as sensing, monitoring, tracking, data aggregation, and routing. The research in wireless sensor networks is currently oriented toward a cross-layer network abstraction that supports appropriate fine or course grained resource controls for energy efficiency. In that regard, we have designed a unified role-based service paradigm for wireless sensor networks. We pursue this by first developing a Role-based Hierarchical Self-Organization (RBSHO) protocol that organizes a connected dominating set (CDS) of nodes called dominators. This is done by hierarchically selecting nodes that possess cumulatively high energy, connectivity, and sensing capabilities in their local neighborhood. The RBHSO protocol then assigns specific tasks such as sensing, coordination, and routing to appropriate dominators that end up playing a certain role in the network. Roles, though abstract and implicit, expose role-specific resource controls by way of role assignment and scheduling. Based on this concept, we have designed a Unified Role-Assignment Framework (URAF) to model application services as roles played by local in-network sensor nodes with sensor capabilities used as rules for role identification. The URAF abstracts domain specific role attributes by three models: the role energy model, the role execution time model, and the role service utility model. The framework then generalizes resource management for services by providing abstractions for controlling the composition of a service in terms of roles, its assignment, reassignment, and scheduling. To the best of our knowledge, a generic role-based framework that provides a simple and unified network management solution for wireless sensor networks has not been proposed previously

Air Force Institute of Technology Research Report 2006

This report summarizes the research activities of the Air Force Institute of Technology’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management. It describes research interests and faculty expertise; lists student theses/dissertations; identifies research sponsors and contributions; and outlines the procedures for contacting the school. Included in the report are: faculty publications, conference presentations, consultations, and funded research projects. Research was conducted in the areas of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Electro-Optics, Computer Engineering and Computer Science, Systems and Engineering Management, Operational Sciences, Mathematics, Statistics and Engineering Physics

Dagstuhl News January - December 2006

"Dagstuhl News" is a publication edited especially for the members of the Foundation "Informatikzentrum Schloss Dagstuhl" to thank them for their support. The News give a summary of the scientific work being done in Dagstuhl. Each Dagstuhl Seminar is presented by a small abstract describing the contents and scientific highlights of the seminar as well as the perspectives or challenges of the research topic