An inertial motion capture framework for constructing body sensor networks

Motion capture is the process of measuring and subsequently reconstructing the movement of an animated object or being in virtual space. Virtual reconstructions of human motion play an important role in numerous application areas such as animation, medical science, ergonomics, etc. While optical motion capture systems are the industry standard, inertial body sensor networks are becoming viable alternatives due to portability, practicality and cost. This thesis presents an innovative inertial motion capture framework for constructing body sensor networks through software environments, smartphones and web technologies. The first component of the framework is a unique inertial motion capture software environment aimed at providing an improved experimentation environment, accompanied by programming scaffolding and a driver development kit, for users interested in studying or engineering body sensor networks. The software environment provides a bespoke 3D engine for kinematic motion visualisations and a set of tools for hardware integration. The software environment is used to develop the hardware behind a prototype motion capture suit focused on low-power consumption and hardware-centricity. Additional inertial measurement units, which are available commercially, are also integrated to demonstrate the functionality the software environment while providing the framework with additional sources for motion data. The smartphone is the most ubiquitous computing technology and its worldwide uptake has prompted many advances in wearable inertial sensing technologies. Smartphones contain gyroscopes, accelerometers and magnetometers, a combination of sensors that is commonly found in inertial measurement units. This thesis presents a mobile application that investigates whether the smartphone is capable of inertial motion capture by constructing a novel omnidirectional body sensor network. This thesis proposes a novel use for web technologies through the development of the Motion Cloud, a repository and gateway for inertial data. Web technologies have the potential to replace motion capture file formats with online repositories and to set a new standard for how motion data is stored. From a single inertial measurement unit to a more complex body sensor network, the proposed architecture is extendable and facilitates the integration of any inertial hardware configuration. The Motion Cloud’s data can be accessed through an application-programming interface or through a web portal that provides users with the functionality for visualising and exporting the motion data

Internet of Things Strategic Research Roadmap

Internet of Things (IoT) is an integrated part of Future Internet including existing and evolving Internet and network developments and could be conceptually defined as a dynamic global network infrastructure with self configuring capabilities based on standard and interoperable communication protocols where physical and virtual “things” have identities, physical attributes, and virtual personalities, use intelligent interfaces, and are seamlessly integrated into the information network

Service-oriented design of microfludic devices

Microfluidics is a relatively new and, with an estimation of the market for these devices exceeding $3 billion in 2014, it is considered a profitable domain. Constant development of new technologies and growing demand for more versatile products cause increasing complexity in this area. To address this, the current trends for the domain include automation, standardisation and customisation. At the same time, the society is moving from product types offering to services. Due to the customisation trend this transition appears beneficial for microfluidics. Taking advantage of these opportunities, an investigation of microfluidic design has been undertaken to address the issues at their origins. The literature review showed a lack of a general design methodology applicable for all microfluidic devices, identified existing approaches as technology driven and the domain as unique in terms of design. Also, it highlighted a number of automation and standardisation attempts in the area. In addition, microfluidics shows limited customer and service-orientation. Meanwhile, an investigation of complexity and its implications in microfluidics narrowed the study to sub-section interactions, which allowed standardisation and automation without compromising customisation. In response to these gaps, an aim of the research is to develop a guideline for service- oriented design of microfluidic devices that can deal with sub-section interactions. This research reviews: existing methodologies for design in micro-scale, their applicability to the domain, microfluidic practitioners’ approach to design, state of service-thinking and services in the area and how sub-section interactions are dealt with for these devices. The developed guideline and design enablers present a proposal for a general process for the design of microfluidics. The solution attempts to tackle the issue of sub- section interactions and brings the domain one step towards an ‘experience economy’ by incorporating service-considerations into the design process. The usefulness of this contribution has been confirmed by a variety of methods and numerous sources including experts in the field.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Efficient Modelling and Simulation Methodology for the Design of Heterogeneous Mixed-Signal Systems on Chip

Systems on Chip (SoCs) and Systems in Package (SiPs) are key parts of a continuously broadening range of products, from chip cards and mobile phones to cars. Besides an increasing amount of digital hardware and software for data processing and storage, they integrate more and more analogue/RF circuits, sensors, and actuators to interact with their (analogue) environment. This trend towards more complex and heterogeneous systems with more intertwined functionalities is made possible by the continuous advances in the manufacturing technologies and pushed by market demand for new products and product variants. Therefore, the reuse and retargeting of existing component designs becomes more and more important. However, all these factors make the design process increasingly complex and multidisciplinary. Nowadays, the design of the individual components is usually well understood and optimised through the usage of a diversity of CAD/EDA tools, design languages, and data formats. These are based on applying specific modelling/abstraction concepts, description formalisms (also called Models of Computation (MoCs)) and analysis/simulation methods. The designer has to bridge the gaps between tools and methodologies using manual conversion of models and proprietary tool couplings/integrations, which is error-prone and time-consuming. A common design methodology and platform to manage, exchange, and collaboratively develop models of different formats and of different levels of abstraction is missing. The verification of the overall system is a big problem, as it requires the availability of compatible models for each component at the right level of abstraction to achieve satisfying results with respect to the system functionality and test coverage, but at the same time acceptable simulation performance in terms of accuracy and speed. Thus, the big challenge is the parallel integration of these very different part design processes. Therefore, the designers need a common design and simulation platform to create and refine an executable specification of the overall system (a virtual prototype) on a high level of abstraction, which supports different MoCs. This makes possible the exploration of different architecture options, estimation of the performance, validation of re-used parts, verification of the interfaces between heterogeneous components and interoperability with other systems as well as the assessment of the impacts of the future working environment and the manufacturing technologies used to realise the system. For embedded Analogue and Mixed-Signal (AMS) systems, the C++-based SystemC with its AMS extensions, to which recent standardisation the author contributed, is currently establishing itself as such a platform. This thesis describes the author's contribution to solve the modelling and simulation challenges mentioned above in three thematic phases. In the first phase, the prototype of a web-based platform to collect models from different domains and levels of abstraction together with their associated structural and semantical meta information has been developed and is called ModelLib. This work included the implementation of a hierarchical access control mechanism, which is able to protect the Intellectual Property (IP) constituted by the model at different levels of detail. The use cases developed for this tool show how it can support the AMS SoC design process by fostering the reuse and collaborative development of models for tasks like architecture exploration, system validation, and creation of more and more elaborated models of the system. The experiences from the ModelLib development delivered insight into which aspects need to be especially addressed throughout the development of models to make them reusable: mainly flexibility, documentation, and validation. This was the starting point for the development of an efficient modelling methodology for the top-down design and bottom-up verification of RF Systems based on the systematic usage of behavioural models in the second phase. One outcome is the developed library of well documented, parameterisable, and pin-accurate VHDL-AMS models of typical analogue/digital/RF components of a transceiver. The models offer the designer two sets of parameters: one based on the performance specifications and one based on the device parameters back-annotated from the transistor-level implementation. The abstraction level used for the description of the respective analogue/digital/RF component behaviour has been chosen to achieve a good trade-off between accuracy, fidelity, and simulation performance. The pin-accurate model interfaces facilitate the integration of transistor-level models for the validation of the behavioural models or the verification of a component implementation in the system context. These properties make the models suitable for different design tasks such as architecture exploration or overall system validation. This is demonstrated on a model of a binary Frequency-Shift Keying (FSK) transmitter parameterised to meet very different target specifications. This project showed also the limits in terms of abstraction and simulation performance of the "classical" AMS Hardware Description Languages (HDLs). Therefore, the third and last phase was dedicated to further raise the abstraction level for the description of complex and heterogeneous AMS SoCs and thus enable their efficient simulation using different synchronised MoCs. This work uses the C++-based simulation framework SystemC with its AMS extensions. New modelling capabilities going beyond the standardised SystemC AMS extensions have been introduced to describe energy conserving multi-domain systems in a formal and consistent way at a high level of abstraction. To this end, all constants, variables, and parameters of the system model, which represent a physical quantity, can now declare their dimension and associated system of units as an intrinsic part of their data type. Assignments to them need to contain besides the value also the correct measurement unit. This allows a much more precise but still compact definition of the models' interfaces and equations. Thus, the C++ compiler can check the correct assembly of the components and the coherency of the equations by means of dimensional analysis. The implementation is based on the Boost.Units library, which employs template metaprogramming techniques. A dedicated filter for the measurement units data types has been implemented to simplify the compiler messages and thus facilitate the localisation of unit errors. To ensure the reusability of models despite precisely defined interfaces, their interfaces and behaviours need to be parametrisable in a well-defined manner. The enabling implementation techniques for this have been demonstrated with the developed library of generic block diagram component models for the Timed Data Flow (TDF) MoC of the SystemC AMS extensions. These techniques are also the key to integrate a new MoC based on the bond graph formalism into the SystemC AMS extensions. Bond graphs facilitate the unified description of the energy conserving parts of heterogeneous systems with the help of a small set of modelling primitives parametrisable to the physical domain. The resulting models have a simulation performance comparable to an equivalent signal flow model

Design for microassembly: a methodology for product design and process selection

The thesis presents research carried out in the field of design for microassembly (DFµA), a field that has hereto been characterised by the absence of well defined methodologies intended to facilitate transfer of prototypes from the research lab to production on industrial scale. A DFμA methodology has been developed, serving the purpose of integrating product and micro assembly process development. It aims in particular at increasing the efficiency of the microproduct development process, decreasing the development time and the product and process cost, and enhancing the product quality. Chapter 1 presents the motivations, objectives, and structure of the thesis. The work carried out is inspired by the need to overcome barriers currently existing between the making of single research products and production on an industrial level. The main objective is to contribute to the creating of a novel DFμA that supports product design and process selection, thereby facilitating the efficient assembly of complex three-dimensional miniaturised devices. This is complemented by a range of secondary targets that deal with the development and verification of supporting methods and models related to DFμA. The summary of a comprehensive literature review is given in chapter 2. The survey provides results of studies closely related to the work reported in this thesis and relates that work to a larger ongoing dialogue about the topic of assembly and design in the microworld. Chapter 3 outlines the research approach adopted here for the developing of a DFμA methodology. It carefully analyses the way in which the knowledge gaps identified can be addressed and how the stated objectives can best be achieved. The key contributions made to the developing of a DFμA methodology are presented in chapters 4,5, and 6. The micro assembly process capability model is described first, in Chapter 4. It constitutes the first attempt made at introducing a general framework for capturing of microassembly characteristics. The model developed enables selection and characterisation of microassembly processes. A framework to characterise the model's application to microjoining, -feeding, and -handling is as well suggested. Chapter 5 concerns the actual DFμA methodology. The methodology's layout and structure are introduced in detail. Moreover, the main functions and key phases of the methodology are explained. Special attention is paid to the integration of the microassembly process capability model and to the development of further elements used within the methodology, such as support in product design. Provided in Chapter 6 is a comprehensive analysis of conventional DFA guidelines, intended to explain how the microspecific guidelines have been formulated. The chapter also describes how these are implemented within the overall DFμA methodology. The procedure of validating and illustrating the methodology, which includes applying it to practical test cases, takes place in Chapter 7. The thesis is concluded in Chapter 8, wherein evidence of the originality of the knowledge contribution achieved through the work presented is highlighted. Opportunities for further research work building on th

A modular multi electrode array system for electrogenic cell characterisation and cardiotoxicity applications

Multi electrode array (MEA) systems have evolved from custom-made experimental tools, exploited for neural research, into commercially available systems that are used throughout non-invasive electrophysiological study. MEA systems are used in conjunction with cells and tissues from a number of differing organisms (e.g. mice, monkeys, chickens, plants). The development of MEA systems has been incremental over the past 30 years due to constantly changing specific bioscientific requirements in research. As the application of MEA systems continues to diversify contemporary commercial systems are requiring increased levels of sophistication and greater throughput capabilities. [Continues.

Internet of Things Applications - From Research and Innovation to Market Deployment

The book aims to provide a broad overview of various topics of Internet of Things from the research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies, nanoelectronics, cyber physical systems, architecture, interoperability and industrial applications. It is intended to be a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC – Internet of Things European Research Cluster from technology to international cooperation and the global "state of play".The book builds on the ideas put forward by the European research Cluster on the Internet of Things Strategic Research Agenda and presents global views and state of the art results on the challenges facing the research, development and deployment of IoT at the global level. Internet of Things is creating a revolutionary new paradigm, with opportunities in every industry from Health Care, Pharmaceuticals, Food and Beverage, Agriculture, Computer, Electronics Telecommunications, Automotive, Aeronautics, Transportation Energy and Retail to apply the massive potential of the IoT to achieving real-world solutions. The beneficiaries will include as well semiconductor companies, device and product companies, infrastructure software companies, application software companies, consulting companies, telecommunication and cloud service providers. IoT will create new revenues annually for these stakeholders, and potentially create substantial market share shakeups due to increased technology competition. The IoT will fuel technology innovation by creating the means for machines to communicate many different types of information with one another while contributing in the increased value of information created by the number of interconnections among things and the transformation of the processed information into knowledge shared into the Internet of Everything. The success of IoT depends strongly on enabling technology development, market acceptance and standardization, which provides interoperability, compatibility, reliability, and effective operations on a global scale. The connected devices are part of ecosystems connecting people, processes, data, and things which are communicating in the cloud using the increased storage and computing power and pushing for standardization of communication and metadata. In this context security, privacy, safety, trust have to be address by the product manufacturers through the life cycle of their products from design to the support processes. The IoT developments address the whole IoT spectrum - from devices at the edge to cloud and datacentres on the backend and everything in between, through ecosystems are created by industry, research and application stakeholders that enable real-world use cases to accelerate the Internet of Things and establish open interoperability standards and common architectures for IoT solutions. Enabling technologies such as nanoelectronics, sensors/actuators, cyber-physical systems, intelligent device management, smart gateways, telematics, smart network infrastructure, cloud computing and software technologies will create new products, new services, new interfaces by creating smart environments and smart spaces with applications ranging from Smart Cities, smart transport, buildings, energy, grid, to smart health and life. Technical topics discussed in the book include: • Introduction• Internet of Things Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda• Internet of Things in the industrial context: Time for deployment.• Integration of heterogeneous smart objects, applications and services• Evolution from device to semantic and business interoperability• Software define and virtualization of network resources• Innovation through interoperability and standardisation when everything is connected anytime at anyplace• Dynamic context-aware scalable and trust-based IoT Security, Privacy framework• Federated Cloud service management and the Internet of Things• Internet of Things Application