Real-time image streaming over a low-bandwidth wireless camera network

In this paper we describe the recent development of a low-bandwidth wireless camera sensor network. We propose a simple, yet effective, network architecture which allows multiple cameras to be connected to the network and synchronize their communication schedules. Image compression of greater than 90% is performed at each node running on a local DSP coprocessor, resulting in nodes using 1/8th the energy compared to streaming uncompressed images. We briefly introduce the Fleck wireless node and the DSP/camera sensor, and then outline the network architecture and compression algorithm. The system is able to stream color QVGA images over the network to a base station at up to 2 frames per second. © 2007 IEEE

A sub-mW IoT-endnode for always-on visual monitoring and smart triggering

This work presents a fully-programmable Internet of Things (IoT) visual sensing node that targets sub-mW power consumption in always-on monitoring scenarios. The system features a spatial-contrast $128\mathrm{x}64$ binary pixel imager with focal-plane processing. The sensor, when working at its lowest power mode ($10\mu W$ at 10 fps), provides as output the number of changed pixels. Based on this information, a dedicated camera interface, implemented on a low-power FPGA, wakes up an ultra-low-power parallel processing unit to extract context-aware visual information. We evaluate the smart sensor on three always-on visual triggering application scenarios. Triggering accuracy comparable to RGB image sensors is achieved at nominal lighting conditions, while consuming an average power between $193\mu W$ and $277\mu W$, depending on context activity. The digital sub-system is extremely flexible, thanks to a fully-programmable digital signal processing engine, but still achieves 19x lower power consumption compared to MCU-based cameras with significantly lower on-board computing capabilities.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, submitteted to IEEE IoT Journa

An IoT Endpoint System-on-Chip for Secure and Energy-Efficient Near-Sensor Analytics

Near-sensor data analytics is a promising direction for IoT endpoints, as it minimizes energy spent on communication and reduces network load - but it also poses security concerns, as valuable data is stored or sent over the network at various stages of the analytics pipeline. Using encryption to protect sensitive data at the boundary of the on-chip analytics engine is a way to address data security issues. To cope with the combined workload of analytics and encryption in a tight power envelope, we propose Fulmine, a System-on-Chip based on a tightly-coupled multi-core cluster augmented with specialized blocks for compute-intensive data processing and encryption functions, supporting software programmability for regular computing tasks. The Fulmine SoC, fabricated in 65nm technology, consumes less than 20mW on average at 0.8V achieving an efficiency of up to 70pJ/B in encryption, 50pJ/px in convolution, or up to 25MIPS/mW in software. As a strong argument for real-life flexible application of our platform, we show experimental results for three secure analytics use cases: secure autonomous aerial surveillance with a state-of-the-art deep CNN consuming 3.16pJ per equivalent RISC op; local CNN-based face detection with secured remote recognition in 5.74pJ/op; and seizure detection with encrypted data collection from EEG within 12.7pJ/op.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication to the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems - I: Regular Paper

Mandate-driven networking eco-system : a paradigm shift in end-to-end communications

The wireless industry is driven by key stakeholders that follow a holistic approach of "one-system-fits-all" that leads to moving network functionality of meeting stringent End-to-End (E2E) communication requirements towards the core and cloud infrastructures. This trend is limiting smaller and new players for bringing in new and novel solutions. For meeting these E2E requirements, tenants and end-users need to be active players for bringing their needs and innovations. Driving E2E communication not only in terms of quality of service (QoS) but also overall carbon footprint and spectrum efficiency from one specific community may lead to undesirable simplifications and a higher level of abstraction of other network segments may lead to sub-optimal operations. Based on this, the paper presents a paradigm shift that will enlarge the role of wireless innovation at academia, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME)'s, industries and start-ups while taking into account decentralized mandate-driven intelligence in E2E communications

Description and Experience of the Clinical Testbeds

This deliverable describes the up-to-date technical environment at three clinical testbed demonstrator sites of the 6WINIT Project, including the adapted clinical applications, project components and network transition technologies in use at these sites after 18 months of the Project. It also provides an interim description of early experiences with deployment and usage of these applications, components and technologies, and their clinical service impact

Experimental Evaluation of a Low-Cost Digital Sign-Posts Architecture for ITS Applications

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40509-4_21Integrating road signs information is becoming a critical goal for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Unlike other driving automation features, this capacity requires not only the vehicle, but also posts and infrastructure to be adapted thus involving an investment that can only be justified by a substantial number of users. In this paper we describe an architecture that aims to facilitate the introduction and deployment of this technology based on low cost devices as the digital sign-posts and the integration of smartphones as an alternative in-vehicle user-interface. Wireless communications based on IEEE 802.11 is used for the basic connectivity requirements. From the results obtained through an experimental evaluation, we show that, despite the smartphone constraints, we can achieve successful detection and recognition experiences at up to 90 km/h. Ultimately the experiment described confirms that the use of smartphones represents an opportunity to expand wireless technology in the traffic sign digitalisation area.This work was partially supported by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Programa Estatal de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad, Proyectos I+D+I 2014, Spain, under Grant TEC2014-52690-R.Fernandez Laguía, CJ.; Cano Escribá, JC.; Tavares De Araujo Cesariny Calafate, CM.; Manzoni, P. (2016). Experimental Evaluation of a Low-Cost Digital Sign-Posts Architecture for ITS Applications. En Ad-hoc, Mobile, and Wireless Networks. Springer. 294-307. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40509-4_21S294307Alkim, T.P., Bootsma, G., Hoogendoorn, S.P.: Field operational test the assisted driver. In: IEEE 2007 Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, pp. 1198–1203. IEEE, Istanbul (2007)Trübswetter, N., Bengler, K.: Why should i use ADAS? Advanced driver assistance systems and the elderly: knowledge, experience and usage barriers. In: Proceedings of the 7th International Driving Symposium on Human Factors in Driver Assessment, Training and Vehicle Design, pp. 495–501. Bolton Landing, New York (2013)Maenpaa, K., Sukuvaara, T., Ylitalo, R., Nurmi, P., Atlaskin, E.: Road weather station acting as a wireless service hotspot for vehicles. In: 2013 IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Computer Communication and Processing (ICCP), pp. 159–162. IEEE, Cluj-Napoca (2013)Djahel, S., Smith, N., Wang, S., Murphy, J.: Reducing emergency services response time in smart cities: an advanced adaptive and fuzzy approach. In: 2015 IEEE First International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2), pp. 1–8. IEEE, Guadalajara (2015)Yoshimichi, S., Koji, M.: Development and evaluation of in-vehicle signing system utilizing RFID tags as digital traffic signs. Int. J. ITS Res. 4(1), 53–58 (2006)Pérez, J., Seco, F., Milanés, V., Jiménez, A., Díaz, J.C., De Pedro, T.: An RFID-based intelligent vehicle speed controller using active traffic signals. Sensors 10(6), 5872–5887 (2010)Naja, R.: Wireless Vehicular Networks for Car Collision Avoidance. Springer, New York (2013)Huang, W., Zhongdong, Y., Zhu, F., Yang, L., Wang, F. Y.: Applicability of short range wireless networks in V2I applications. In: 2013 16th International IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems-(ITSC), pp. 231–236. IEEE, The Hage (2013)ETSI, TCITS: Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS); European profile standard on the physical and medium access layer of 5 GHz ITS. Draft ETSI ES 202.663 (2009): V0Murray, D., Dixon, M., Koziniec, T.: Scanning delays in 802.11 networks. In: The 2007 International Conference on Next Generation Mobile Applications, Services and Technologies (NGMAST 2007), pp. 255–260. IEEE, Cardiff (2007)Brouwers, N., Zuniga, M., Langendoen, K.: Incremental wi-fi scanning for energy-efficient localization. In: 2014 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom), pp. 156–162. IEEE, Budapest (2014)Choi, P., Gao, J., Ramanathan, N., Mao, M., Xu, S., Boon, C.C., Fahmy, S.A., Peh, L.S.: A case for leveraging 802.11 p for direct phone-to-phone communications. In: Proceedings of the 2014 International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design, pp. 207–212. ACM, La Jolla (2014