A real-time networked camera system:a scheduled distributed camera system reduces the latency

This report presents the results of a Real-time Networked Camera System, com-missioned by the SAN Group in TU/e. Distributed Systems are motivated by two reasons, the first reason is the physical environment as a requirement and the second reason is to provide a better Quality of Service (QoS). This project describes the distributed system with a video processing application. The aim is to deal with the distributed system as one system thus minimizing delays while keeping the predictability in a real-time context. Time is the most crucial ingredient for the real-time systems in the sense that the tasks within the application should meet with the task deadline. With respect to the distributed system we need to consider a couple of issues. The first one is to have a distributed system and a modular application that is mapped to multiple system nodes. The second issue is to schedule the modules collectively and the third is to propose a solution when shared resource(s) (such as the network) are required by several nodes at the same time. In order to provide a distributed system, we connect 2 cameras with 1 PC via a network switch. Video processing has two parts; the first part consists of creating a frame, encoding the frame, and streaming it to the network and the second part deals with receiving the frame, decoding the frame, and displaying the frame. The first part is running on the cameras and the second part is running on the PC. In order to give real-time behavior to the system, the system components should provide the real-time behavior. The camera is installed with the µC/OS-II (Open Source Real-time Kernel). We investigated the Real-time Operating System and its installation on the PC. In order to provide resource management to the shared resources, we designed and implemented Admission control which controls access to the required con-nection to the PC. We designed and implemented a component to delay the start of any of the cameras in order to synchronize the network utilization. We also designed an enforcement component to allow the tasks to run as much as they should and monitor the frames streamed to the network. The results show that with the Admission Control, cameras only send as many frames as the network can transport. The given start delay to the system shows that overlap can be prevented, but we could not evaluate it because of the semi-tested/unreleased code which is provided by the camera providers. The source code we used is the test source code which was not mature

FireFly Mosaic: A Vision-Enabled Wireless Sensor Networking System

Abstract — With the advent of CMOS cameras, it is now possible to make compact, cheap and low-power image sensors capable of on-board image processing. These embedded vision sensors provide a rich new sensing modality enabling new classes of wireless sensor networking applications. In order to build these applications, system designers need to overcome challanges associated with limited bandwith, limited power, group coordination and fusing of multiple camera views with various other sensory inputs. Real-time properties must be upheld if multiple vision sensors are to process data, com-municate with each other and make a group decision before the measured environmental feature changes. In this paper, we present FireFly Mosaic, a wireless sensor network image processing framework with operating system, networking and image processing primitives that assist in the development of distributed vision-sensing tasks. Each FireFly Mosaic wireless camera consists of a FireFly [1] node coupled with a CMUcam3 [2] embedded vision processor. The FireFly nodes run the Nano-RK [3] real-time operating system and communicate using the RT-Link [4] collision-free TDMA link protocol. Using FireFly Mosaic, we demonstrate an assisted living application capable of fusing multiple cameras with overlapping views to discover and monitor daily activities in a home. Using this application, we show how an integrated platform with support for time synchronization, a collision-free TDMA link layer, an underlying RTOS and an interface to an embedded vision sensor provides a stable framework for distributed real-time vision processing. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first wireless sensor networking system to integrate multiple coordinating cameras performing local processing. I

Monitoring the CMS strip tracker readout system

The CMS Silicon Strip Tracker at the LHC comprises a sensitive area of approximately 200 m2 and 10 million readout channels. Its data acquisition system is based around a custom analogue front-end chip. Both the control and the readout of the front-end electronics are performed by off-detector VME boards in the counting room, which digitise the raw event data and perform zero-suppression and formatting. The data acquisition system uses the CMS online software framework to configure, control and monitor the hardware components and steer the data acquisition. The first data analysis is performed online within the official CMS reconstruction framework, which provides many services, such as distributed analysis, access to geometry and conditions data, and a Data Quality Monitoring tool based on the online physics reconstruction. The data acquisition monitoring of the Strip Tracker uses both the data acquisition and the reconstruction software frameworks in order to provide real-time feedback to shifters on the operational state of the detector, archiving for later analysis and possibly trigger automatic recovery actions in case of errors. Here we review the proposed architecture of the monitoring system and we describe its software components, which are already in place, the various monitoring streams available, and our experiences of operating and monitoring a large-scale system

Spatially distributed control netowork for flow proportional chemical injection with center pivot irrigation

The agricultural production practice of injecting a chemical into an operating irrigation system and applying it to the field area with the water is known as chemigation. Chemigation is a widely adopted practice with center pivot sprinkler irrigation. However, the practice of chemical injection at a constant rate with center pivot sprinkler irrigation systems equipped with an end gun and/or swing?arm corner watering system results in systematic chemical application errors ranging from 7% to 21% due to systematic changes in system flow rate. Chemical injection proportional to center pivot sprinkler system flow rate is one approach to reduce systematic chemical application errors. The objective of this project was to test the feasibility of using real?time monitoring of center pivot sprinkler irrigation system operating status to control chemical injection rate proportional to calculated system flow rate, thus minimizing systematic chemical application errors. A spatially distributed control network was developed to facilitate real?time monitoring of end gun and swing?arm corner watering system operating status and pressure. The spatially distributed control network consisted of three network nodes at specific locations along a center pivot sprinkler irrigation lateral that used the 480 VAC 3?phase power cable on the center pivot sprinkler irrigation system as the communication medium. The spatially distributed control network was installed on a commercial 460?m (1510?ft) long center pivot sprinkler system equipped with an end gun and swing?arm corner watering system. Performance of chemical injection proportional to calculated flow rate based on real?time center pivot sprinkler irrigation system operating status was evaluated by injecting Rhodamine WT dye into the center pivot sprinkler irrigation system water supply and measuring its concentration in the applied water. Mean dye concentration varied by 26% under constant rate chemical injection and 2% under flow proportional chemical injection due to systematic changes in center pivot sprinkler irrigation system flow rate. Use of the flow proportional chemical injection system reduced the coefficient of variability in measured dye concentration of applied water by 54% from 0.100 to 0.046. Use of the spatially distributed control network for calculating center pivot sprinkler system flow rate eliminates the need for straight sections of unobstructed piping at the chemical injection site. Display and/or data logging of real?time center pivot sprinkler operating status is an added benefit of using the spatially distributed control network. This information provides the ability to monitor, diagnose, and troubleshoot center pivot sprinkler system operation. Commercialization and adoption of the technology could reduce systematic chemical application errors and facilitate maintenance and operation of center pivot sprinkler irrigation systems equipped with an end gun and/or swing?arm corner watering system

The Development of the Puerto Rico Lightning Detection Network for Meteorological Research

A land-based Puerto Rico Lightning Detection Network (PR-LDN) dedicated to the academic research of meteorological phenomena has being developed. Five Boltek StormTracker PCI-Receivers with LTS-2 Timestamp Cards with GPS and lightning detectors were integrated to Pentium III PC-workstations running the CentOS linux operating system. The Boltek detector linux driver was compiled under CentOS, modified, and thoroughly tested. These PC-workstations with integrated lightning detectors were installed at five of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) campuses distributed around the island of PR. The PC-workstations are left on permanently in order to monitor lightning activity at all times. Each is networked to their campus network-backbone permitting quasi-instantaneous data transfer to a central server at the UPR-Bayam n campus. Information generated by each lightning detector is managed by a C-program developed by us called the LDN-client. The LDN-client maintains an open connection to the central server operating the LDN-server program where data is sent real-time for analysis and archival. The LDN-client also manages the storing of data on the PC-workstation hard disk. The LDN-server software (also an in-house effort) analyses the data from each client and performs event triangulations. Time-of-arrival (TOA) and related hybrid algorithms, lightning-type and event discriminating routines are also implemented in the LDN-server software. We also have developed software to visually monitor lightning events in real-time from all clients and the triangulated events. We are currently monitoring and studying the spatial, temporal, and type distribution of lightning strikes associated with electrical storms and tropical cyclones in the vicinity of Puerto Rico

Web based monitoring system in wireless sensor networks

Goal of the project is to develop a scalable web application to monitor a wireless sensor network. Wireless sensor network, an upcoming technology, is comprised of multiple data sensors that send back packets of information back to the base station. The sensor network runs on a real time operating system called TinyOS and the application is implemented using Moteiv Telos Revision B wireless sensors. The web application collects the reading from the base station and generates graphical representation of the readings for the front end and creates PDF reports when readings are not within defined thresholds. This application incorporates various realms of computer science like ad-hoc networking, distributed systems and web development. The project is implemented using technologies like Java, JSP, SQL Server 2000. A data reading layer is implemented that communicates with the motes using base station and checks if the anomaly occurred or not and updates the database. Front end displays the readings in the graphical format and allows user to control the monitoring, mote status etc. some of the few goals of this project is to implement user scalability, data storage and analysis, report generation and real time monitoring

AN IP-BASED LIVE DATABASE APPROACH TO SURVEILLANCE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

With the proliferation of inexpensive cameras, video surveillance applications are becoming ubiquitous in many domains such as public safety and security, manufacturing, intelligent transportation systems, and healthcare. IP-based video surveillance technologies, in particular, are able to bring traditional video surveillance centers to virtually any computer at any location with an Internet connection. Today’s IP-based video surveillance systems, however, are designed for specific classes of applications. For instance, one cannot use a system designed for incident detection on highways to monitor patients in a healthcare facility. To support rapid development of video surveillance applications, we designed and implemented a new class of general purpose database management system, the live video database management system (LVDBMS). We view networked IP cameras as a special class of storage devices, and allow the user to formulate ad hoc queries expressed over live video feeds. These continuous queries are processed in real time using novel distributed computing techniques. With this environment, the users are able to develop various specific web-based video surveillance systems for a variety of applications. These systems can coexist in a unified LVDBMS framework to share the expensive deployment and operating costs of the camera networks. Our contribution is the introduction of a live database approach to video surveillance software development. In this paper, we describe our prototype and present the live video data model, the query language, and the query processing technique. 1

Predictable migration and communication in the Quest-V multikernal

Quest-V is a system we have been developing from the ground up, with objectives focusing on safety, predictability and efficiency. It is designed to work on emerging multicore processors with hardware virtualization support. Quest-V is implemented as a ``distributed system on a chip'' and comprises multiple sandbox kernels. Sandbox kernels are isolated from one another in separate regions of physical memory, having access to a subset of processing cores and I/O devices. This partitioning prevents system failures in one sandbox affecting the operation of other sandboxes. Shared memory channels managed by system monitors enable inter-sandbox communication. The distributed nature of Quest-V means each sandbox has a separate physical clock, with all event timings being managed by per-core local timers. Each sandbox is responsible for its own scheduling and I/O management, without requiring intervention of a hypervisor. In this paper, we formulate bounds on inter-sandbox communication in the absence of a global scheduler or global system clock. We also describe how address space migration between sandboxes can be guaranteed without violating service constraints. Experimental results on a working system show the conditions under which Quest-V performs real-time communication and migration.National Science Foundation (1117025

Holistic debugging - enabling instruction set simulation for software quality assurance

We present holistic debugging, a novel method for observing execution of complex and distributed software. It builds on an instruction set simulator, which provides reproducible experiments and non-intrusive probing of state in a distributed system. Instruction set simulators, however, only provide low-level information, so a holistic debugger contains a translation framework that maps this information to higher abstraction level observation tools, such as source code debuggers. We have created Nornir, a proof-of-concept holistic debugger, built on the simulator Simics. For each observed process in the simulated system, Nornir creates an abstraction translation stack, with virtual machine translators that map machine-level storage contents (e.g. physical memory, registers) provided by Simics, to application-level data (e.g. virtual memory contents) by parsing the data structures of operating systems and virtual machines. Nornir includes a modified version of the GNU debugger (GDB), which supports non-intrusive symbolic debugging of distributed applications. Nornir's main interface is a debugger shepherd, a programmable interface that controls multiple debuggers, and allows users to coherently inspect the entire state of heterogeneous, distributed applications. It provides a robust observation platform for construction of new observation tools

Deep Space Network information system architecture study

The purpose of this article is to describe an architecture for the Deep Space Network (DSN) information system in the years 2000-2010 and to provide guidelines for its evolution during the 1990s. The study scope is defined to be from the front-end areas at the antennas to the end users (spacecraft teams, principal investigators, archival storage systems, and non-NASA partners). The architectural vision provides guidance for major DSN implementation efforts during the next decade. A strong motivation for the study is an expected dramatic improvement in information-systems technologies, such as the following: computer processing, automation technology (including knowledge-based systems), networking and data transport, software and hardware engineering, and human-interface technology. The proposed Ground Information System has the following major features: unified architecture from the front-end area to the end user; open-systems standards to achieve interoperability; DSN production of level 0 data; delivery of level 0 data from the Deep Space Communications Complex, if desired; dedicated telemetry processors for each receiver; security against unauthorized access and errors; and highly automated monitor and control