Building consumer trust during the productization phase of a new, smart health tech consumer product

Abstract. The thesis aims to investigate the role of trust during the New Product Development (NPD) phase of smart health tech products, focusing on the consumer testing phase. The central research question examines the factors related to trust that arise during the productization/NPD process, and how these factors can be incorporated and enhanced during the development of a new smart health tech product. The study seeks to understand the factors influencing trust in smart health tech products, validate these factors in a real-life business setting, and provide recommendations for future research and productization processes. The research employs a two-step methodology, starting with a literature review to identify general and specific trust-building factors and establish a theoretical framework. Following this, empirical research is conducted with WellO2, a Finnish health tech company planning to launch a new smart mouthpiece designed to measure lung and breathing functions. This phase involves real-life testing of the product to validate the identified trust-building factors and uncover any previously unrecognized factors. The most crucial findings of the study are expected to highlight the key trust-building factors that emerge during the consumer testing phase of the NPD process and offer practical recommendations for incorporating these factors into future product development processes for SMEs. The results of this study are intended to be used by companies involved in the development of smart health tech products to enhance trust during the NPD process, leading to successful product adoption and commercialization. While the research is conducted in the context of a specific company and product, the findings and recommendations may have broader applicability and generalizability to other companies and products in the smart health tech sector.Asiakasluottamuksen rakentaminen uusien ja älykkäiden terveysteknologiatuotteiden tuotteistamisvaiheessa . Tiivistelmä. Tämä diplomityö pyrkii tutkimaan luottamuksen roolia älykkäiden terveysteknologiatuotteiden uuden tuotekehityksen (NPD) vaiheessa, keskittyen kuluttajatestausvaiheeseen. Keskeinen tutkimuskysymys tarkastelee tuotteistamis-/NPD-prosessin aikana esiin tulevia luottamukseen liittyviä tekijöitä ja sitä, kuinka näitä tekijöitä voidaan sisällyttää ja vahvistaa uuden älyterveysteknologiatuotteen kehityksessä. Tutkimus pyrkii ymmärtämään tekijöitä, jotka vaikuttavat luottamuksen kehittymiseen älyterveysteknologiatuotteissa, arvioimaan näitä tekijöitä todellisessa liiketoimintaympäristössä ja antamaan suosituksia tulevalle tutkimukselle ja tuotteistamisprosesseille. Tutkimus alkaa kirjallisuuskatsauksella, joka pyrkii tunnistamaan luottamuksen rakentamiseen liittyviä tekijöitä ja luomaan täten teoreettisen viitekehyksen aiemman kirjallisuuden pohjalta. Tämän jälkeen teoreettista viitekehystä ja tunnistettuja luottamusta rakentavia tekijöitä tutkitaan todellisessa liiketoimintaympäristössä. Case-yrityksenä on suomalainen terveysteknologiayritys WellO2, joka suunnittelee uuden tuotteen (älysuukappaleen) lanseerausta, jonka tarkoituksena on pystyä mittaamaan keuhkojen hengitystoimintoja. Tutkimuksen aikana tuotetta testattiin todellisessa kuluttajatestausympäristössä ja sillä pyrittiin validoimaan tunnistetut luottamuksen rakentamisen tekijät ja löytämään uusia, vielä tuntemattomia tekijöitä. Tutkimuksen tärkeimmät tulokset korostavat avaintekijöitä uuden tuotteen luottamuksen rakentamiseen, mitkä nousevat esiin NPD-prosessin kuluttajatestausvaiheessa ja tarjoavat käytännön suosituksia näiden tekijöiden sisällyttämiseksi tuleviin tuotekehitysprosesseihin PK-yrityksille. Tämän tutkimuksen tulosten on tarkoitus palvella yrityksiä, jotka ovat mukana älyterveysteknologiatuotteiden kehittämisessä ja joiden tarkoituksena on parantaa kuluttajien luottamusta tuotteeseen NPD-prosessin aikana, mikä helpottaisi tuotteen menestyksekästä käyttäjähyväksyntää ja kaupallistamista. Vaikka tutkimus on tehty yhden yrityksen ja tuotteen kontekstissa, tuloksilla ja suosituksilla voi olla laajempaa käyttöä ja yleistettävyyttä myös muille yrityksille ja tuotteille älyterveysteknologia-alalla

Comparison of ZigBee Replay Attacks Using a Universal Software Radio Peripheral and USB Radio

Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks are a prevalent solution for communication among embedded devices. ZigBee is a leading network protocol stack based on the low-rate IEEE 802.15.4 standard that operates smart utility meters, residential and commercial building automation, and heath care networks. Such networks are essential, but low-rate, low-cost hardware is challenging to protect because end devices have tight limitations on hardware cost, memory use, and power consumption. KillerBee is a python-based framework for attacking ZigBee and other 802.15.4 networks that makes traffic eavesdropping, packet replay, and denial of service attacks straightforward to conduct. Recent works investigate software-defined radios as an even more versatile attack platform. Software defined radios can operate with greater flexibility and at greater transmit power than traditional network hardware. Software-defined radios also enable novel physical-layer attacks including reflexive jamming and synchronization header manipulation that are not possible with traditional hardware. This research implements a replay attack against a ZigBee device using a software defined radio. Replay attacks consist of an attacker recording legitimate traffic on a network and then replaying that traffic at will to cause malicious effects. Replay attacks can be very disruptive to operational systems, from turning valves in industrial controls systems to disarming door locks. Specifically, how software-defined radios can extend the effective attack range far beyond what is possible with hardware currently utilized by KillerBee is investigated. A software defined radio is tested with both directed and omnidirectional antennas and the effective attack range is compared to that of a USB radio. Tests are conducted both line-of-sight outdoors and through interior walls. The replay attack is implemented with beacon request frames

Etude et conception de convertisseur analogique numérique large bande basé sur la modulation sigma delta

The work presented in this Ph.D. dissertation deals with the design of a wideband and accurate Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) able to digitize signals of different wireless communications standards. Thereby, itresponds to the Software Defined Radio concept (SDR). The purpose is reconfigurability by software andintegrability of the multistandard radio terminal. Oversampling (Sigma Delta) ADCs have been interestingcandidates in this context of multistandard SDR reception thanks to their high accuracy. Although they presentlimited operating bandwidth, it is possible to use them in a parallel architecture thus the bandwidth isextended. Therefore, we propose in this work the design and implementation of a parallel frequency banddecomposition ADC based on Discrete-time modulators in an SDR receiver handling E-GSM, UMTS andIEEE802.11a standard signals. The novelty of this proposed architecture is its programmability. Where,according to the selected standard digitization is made by activating only required branches are activated withspecified sub-bandwidths and sampling frequency. In addition the frequency division plan is non-uniform.After validation of the theoretical design by simulation, the overall baseband stage has been designed. Resultsof this study have led to a single passive 6th order Butterworth anti-aliasing filter (AAF) permitting theelimination of the automatic gain control circuit (AGC) which is an analog component. FBD architecturerequires digital processing able to recombine parallel branches outputs signals in order to reconstruct the finaloutput signal. An optimized design of this digital reconstruction signal stage has been proposed. Synthesis ofthe baseband stage has revealed modulators stability problems. To deal with this problem, a solution basedon non-unitary STF has been elaborated. Indeed, phase mismatches have been shown in the recombinedoutput signal and they have been corrected in the digital stage. Analytic study and system level design havebeen completed by an implementation of the parallel ADC digital reconstruction stage. Two design flows havebeen considered, one associated to the FPGA and another independent of the chosen target (standard VHDL).Proposed architecture has been validated using a VIRTEX6 FPGA Xilinx target. A dynamic range over 74 dB hasbeen measured for UMTS use case, which responds to the dynamic range required by this standard.Les travaux de recherche de cette thèse de doctorat s’inscrivent dans le cadre de la conception d’unconvertisseur analogique-numérique (ADC, Analog-to-Digital Converter) large bande et à haute résolution afinde numériser plusieurs standards de communications sans fil. Il répond ainsi au concept de la radio logiciellerestreinte (SDR, Software Defined Radio). L’objectif visé est la reconfigurabilité par logiciel et l’intégrabilité envue d’un système radio multistandard. Les ADCs à sur-échantillonnage de type sigma-delta () s’avèrent debons candidats dans ce contexte de réception SDR multistandard en raison de leur précision accrue. Bien queleur bande passante soit réduite, il est possible de les utiliser dans une architecture en parallèle permettantd’élargir la bande passante. Nous nous proposons alors dans cette thèse de dimensionner et d’implanter unADC parallèle à décomposition fréquentielle (FBD) basé sur des modulateurs à temps-discret pour unrécepteur SDR supportant les standards E-GSM, UMTS et IEEE802.11a. La nouveauté dans l’architectureproposée est qu’il est programmable, la numérisation d’un signal issu d’un standard donné se réalise enactivant seulement les branches concernées de l’architecture parallèle avec des sous-bandes defonctionnement et une fréquence d’échantillonnage spécifiée. De plus, le partage fréquentiel des sous-bandesest non uniforme. Après validation du dimensionnement théorique par simulation, l’étage en bande de base aété dimensionné. Cette étude conduit à la définition d’un filtre anti-repliement passif unique d’ordre 6 et detype Butterworth, permettant l’élimination du circuit de contrôle de gain automatique (AGC). L’architectureFBD requière un traitement numérique permettant de combiner les signaux à la sortie des branches enparallèle pour reconstruire le signal de sortie finale. Un dimensionnement optimisé de cet étage numérique àbase de démodulation a été proposé. La synthèse de l’étage en bande de base a montré des problèmes destabilité des modulateurs . Pour y remédier, une solution basée sur la modification de la fonction detransfert du signal (STF) afin de filtrer les signaux hors bande d’intérêt par branche a été élaborée. Unediscontinuité de phase a été également constatée dans le signal de sortie reconstruit. Une solution deraccordement de phase a été proposée. L’étude analytique et la conception niveau système ont étécomplétées par une implantation de la reconstruction numérique de l’ADC parallèle. Deux flots de conceptionont été considérés, un associé au FPGA et l’autre indépendant de la cible choisie (VHDL standard).L’architecture proposée a été validée sur un FPGA Xilinx de type VIRTEX6. Une dynamique de 74 dB a étémesurée pour le cas d’étude UMTS, ce qui est compatible avec celle requise du standard UMTS

Realizing mobile multimedia systems over emerging fourth-generation wireless technologies

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (p. [161]-167) and index.by Pei-Jeng Kuo.M.Eng

Low-power adaptive control scheme using switching activity measurement method for reconfigurable analog-to-digital converters

Power consumption is a critical issue for portable devices. The ever-increasing demand for multimode wireless applications and the growing concerns towards power-aware green technology make dynamically reconfigurable hardware an attractive solution for overcoming the power issue. This is due to its advantages of flexibility, reusability, and adaptability. During the last decade, reconfigurable analog-to-digital converters (ReADCs) have been used to support multimode wireless applications. With the ability to adaptively scale the power consumption according to different operation modes, reconfigurable devices utilise the power supply efficiently. This can prolong battery life and reduce unnecessary heat emission to the environment. However, current adaptive mechanisms for ReADCs rely upon external control signals generated using digital signal processors (DSPs) in the baseband. This thesis aims to provide a single-chip solution for real-time and low-power ReADC implementations that can adaptively change the converter resolution according to signal variations without the need of the baseband processing. Specifically, the thesis focuses on the analysis, design and implementation of a low-power digital controller unit for ReADCs. In this study, the following two important reconfigurability issues are investigated: i) the detection mechanism for an adaptive implementation, and ii) the measure of power and area overheads that are introduced by the adaptive control modules. This thesis outlines four main achievements to address these issues. The first achievement is the development of the switching activity measurement (SWAM) method to detect different signal components based upon the observation of the output of an ADC. The second achievement is a proposed adaptive algorithm for ReADCs to dynamically adjust the resolution depending upon the variations in the input signal. The third achievement is an ASIC implementation of the adaptive control module for ReADCs. The module achieves low reconfiguration overheads in terms of area and power compared with the main analog part of a ReADC. The fourth achievement is the development of a low-power noise detection module using a conventional ADC for signal improvement. Taken together, the findings from this study demonstrate the potential use of switching activity information of an ADC to adaptively control the circuits, and simultaneously expanding the functionality of the ADC in electronic systems

Apport de l'échantillonnage aléatoire à temps quantifié pour le traitement en bande de base dans un contexte radio logicielle restreinte

The work presented in this Ph.D. dissertation deals with the design of multistandard radio receivers that process signals with heterogeneous specifications. The originality of these research activities comes from the application of random sampling at the baseband stage of a software defined radio receiver. The purpose behind the choice of random sampling is to take advantage of its alias-free feature. The originality of this work is the analytic proof of the alias attenuation feature of the time quantized random sampling, the implementation version of the random sampling. A second contribution concerns also the analytic study of the simplest implementation version of the random sampling, the time quantized pseudo-random sampling (TQ-PRS). Theoretical formulas allow the estimation of the alias attenuation in terms of time quantization factor and oversampling ratio. Alias attenuation measurement permits to design the baseband stage of the proposed multistandard radio receiver architecture. The design concerns different configuration of the baseband stage according to the performances of the used analog-to-digital converters (ADC). The TQPRS allows decreasing the anti-aliasing filter order or the sampling frequency. The design of the baseband stage reveals a difference on the choice of the time quantization factor for each standard. The power consumption budget analysis demonstrates a power consumption gain of 30% regarding the power consumption of the analog baseband stage. This gain becomes 27.5% when the TQ-PRS clock and the digital canal selection stages are considered.Ces travaux de recherche s’inscrivent dans le cadre de la conception de récepteurs multistandard optimisés pouvant traiter des signaux à spécifications hétérogènes. L’idée est d’appliquer l’échantillonnage aléatoire au niveau de l’étage en bande de base d’un récepteur radio logicielle restreinte afin de tirer profit de son pouvoir d’anti-repliement. La nouveauté dans ces travaux est l’étude analytique de la réduction du repliement spectral par l’échantillonnage aléatoire à temps quantifié, candidat favorable à l’implémentation matérielle. Une deuxième contribution concerne aussi l’étude analytique de l’échantillonnage pseudo-aléatoire à temps quantifié (TQ-PRS) dont l’importance réside en sa grande facilité d’implémentation matérielle. Les formulations théoriques ont permis d’estimer l’atténuation des répliques en fonction du facteur de la quantification temporelle et du facteur du sur-échantillonnage. Les mesures de l’atténuation du repliement spectral ont permis de dimensionner l’étage en bande de base d’une architecture de réception multistandard. Le dimensionnement s’intéresse à différentes configurations de l’étage en bande de base régies par les performances du convertisseur analogique numérique (ADC) utilisé.Les travaux de recherche ont démontré que l’application du TQ-PRS au niveau de l’ADC mène soit à une réduction de l’ordre du filtre anti-repliement soit à une réduction de la fréquence d’échantillonnage. Un bilan global de la consommation de puissance a permis un gain de 30% de la consommation de l’étage en bande de base analogique. En tenant compte du générateur de l’horloge TQ-PRS et de l’étage de sélection numérique du canal, ce gain devient 25%

Software defined radio : a system engineering view of platform architecture and market diffusion

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2002.Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-181).As complexity and ambiguity in products and customer needs increase, existing companies are being forced toward new organizational models. New products require integrating knowledge across technologies, architectures, and functions in new ways, building product platforms that can adapt to changes in markets and product design throughout the product development process. In particular, the wireless telecommunications industry is plagued by multiple incompatible dominant second-generation standards, with each with separate migration paths to future third generation functionality. The high initial investments in spectrum and infrastructure, and corresponding switching costs, call out for a technological solution that can both evolve with the rapid advances in technology and potentially operates seamlessly across multiple incompatible networks to unify a highly fragmented system. In a system engineering context, this thesis investigates the use of software define radio technology (SDR) as a potential replacement for hardware solutions to the multiple air interface standard problem. This thesis investigates the role of product platform architectures in product market diffusion by studying the selection of appropriate system and product architectures, product market diffusion, and the formation of a system dominant design. Using software defined radio (SDR) technology in the wireless telecommunications industry as a case study, the emergence of SDR as a potential replacement for multiple mobile phone standards is investigated. Compared with interim compatibility solutions that combine multiple air interfaces through hardware. SDRs are an emerging technology that promises to combine multiple air-interfaces into a single wireless phone platform though software configuration. Market and organizational disruptions are determined, and how platform architecture concepts can be used to mitigate these disruptions. The history of the wireless telecommunications industry is presented to highlight the determinants of product and standards success in the wireless industry. The transition between first-generation (1G) wireless, second-generation (2G) wireless, and the interim high data rate second-generation (2.5 G) system currently being rolled out is discussed. Geographical differences in standards acceptance and the role of government policies are discussed. The strong network effects in the industry are illustrated by the late success of GSM technology in the United States market. The mode of technological standard interaction or competition is determined through the use of the Lotka-Volterra model of technological interaction and lessons learned applied to third generation systems. Plans for third generation (3G) wireless are presented, and the various transition paths from 2G to 3G are discussed. The challenges of transitioning between technologies (technological discontinuities) are highlighted through a discussion of the installed base of legacy equipment. Software defined radio (SDR) technology is presented, and a platform architecture is developed in the context of 3G market penetration. The use of appropriate flexible SDR system architectures in light of rapidly changing technological and market innovations is discussed.by Moise N. Solomon.S.M

Radio and computing resource management in SDR clouds

The aim of this thesis is defining and developing the concept of an efficient management of radio and computing resources in an SDR cloud. The SDR cloud breaks with today's cellular architecture. A set of distributed antennas are connected by optical fibre to data processing centres. The radio and computing infrastructure can be shared between different operators (virtualization), reducing costs and risks, while increasing the capacity and creating new business models and opportunities. The data centre centralizes the management of all system resources: antennas, spectrum, computing, routing, etc. Specially relevant is the computing resource management (CRM), whose objective is dynamically providing sufficient computing resources for a real-time execution of signal processing algorithms. Current CRM techniques are not designed for wireless applications. We demonstrate that this imposes a limit on the wireless traffic a CRM entity is capable to support. Based on this, a distributed management is proposed, where multiple CRM entities manage a cluster of processors, whose optimal size is derived from the traffic density. Radio resource management techniques (RRM) also need to be adapted to the characteristics of the new SDR cloud architecture. We introduce a linear cost model to measure the cost associated to the infrastructure resources consumed according to the pay-per-use model. Based on this model, we formulate the efficiency maximization power allocation problem (EMPA). The operational costs per transmitted bit achieved by EMPA are 6 times lower than with traditional power allocation methods. Analytical solutions are obtained for the single channel case, with and without channel state information at the transmitter. It is shown that the optimal transmission rate is an increasing function of the product of the channel gain with the operational costs divided by the power costs. The EMPA solution for multiple channels has the form of water-filling, present in many power allocation problems. In order to be able to obtain insights about how the optimal solution behaves as a function of the problem parameters, a novel technique based on ordered statistics has been developed. This technique allows solving general water-filling problems based on the channel statistics rather than their realization. This approach has allowed designing a low complexity EMPA algorithm (2 to 4 orders of magnitude faster than state-of-the-art algorithms). Using the ordered statistics technique, we have shown that the optimal transmission rate behaviour with respect to the average channel gains and cost parameters is equivalent to the single channel case and that the efficiency increases with the number of available channels. The results can be applied to design more efficient SDR clouds. As an example, we have derived the optimal ratio of number of antennas per user that maximizes the efficiency. As new users enter and leave the network, this ratio should be kept constant, enabling and disabling antennas dynamically. This approach exploits the dynamism and elasticity provided by the SDR cloud. In summary, this dissertation aims at influencing towards a change in the communications system management model (typically RRM), considering the introduction of the new infrastructure model (SDR cloud), new business models (based on Cloud Computing) and a more conciliatory view of an efficient resource management, not only focused on the optimization of the spectrum usage.El objetivo de esta tesis es de nir y desarrollar el concepto de gesti on e ciente de los recursos de radio y computaci on en un SDR cloud. El SDR cloud rompe con la estructura del sistema celular actual. Un conjunto de antenas distribuidas se conectan a centros de procesamiento mediante enlaces de comunicaci on de bra optica. La infraestructura de radio y procesamiento puede ser compartida entre distintos operadores (virtualizacion), disminuyendo costes y riesgos, aumentando la capacidad y abriendo nuevos modelos y oportunidades de negocio. La centralizaci on de la gesti on del sistema viene soportada por el centro de procesamiento, donde se realiza una gesti on de todos los recursos del sistema: antenas, espectro, computaci on, enrutado, etc. Resulta de especial relevancia la gesti on de los recursos de computaci on (CRM) cuyo objetivo es el de proveer, din amicamente, de su cientes recursos de computaci on para la ejecuci on en tiempo real de algoritmos de procesado del señal. Las t ecnicas actuales de CRM no han sido diseñadas para aplicaciones de comunicaciones. Demostramos que esta caracter stica impone un l ímite en el tr áfi co que un gestor CRM puede soportar. En base a ello, proponemos una gesti on distribuida donde m ultiples entidades CRM gestionan grupos de procesadores, cuyo tamaño optimo se deriva de la densidad de tr áfi co. Las t ecnicas actuales de gesti on de recursos radio (RRM) tambi en deben ser adaptadas a las caracter sticas de la nueva arquitectura SDR cloud. Introducimos un modelo de coste lineal que caracteriza los costes asociados al consumo de recursos de la infraestructura seg un el modelo de pago-por-uso. A partir de este modelo, formulamos el problema de asignaci on de potencia de m axima e ciencia (EMPA). Mediante una asignaci on EMPA, los costes de operaci on por bit transmitido son del orden de 6 veces menores que con los m etodos tradicionales. Se han obtenido soluciones anal ticas para el caso de un solo canal, con y sin informacion del canal disponible en el transmisor, y se ha demostrado que la velocidad optima de transmisi on es una funci on creciente del producto de la ganancia del canal por los costes operativos dividido entre los costes de potencia. La soluci on EMPA para varios canales satisface el modelo "water- lling", presente en muchos tipos de optimizaci on de potencia. Con el objetivo de conocer c omo esta se comporta en funci on de los par ametros del sistema, se ha desarrollado una t ecnica nueva basada en estadí sticas ordenadas. Esta t ecnica permite solucionar el problema del water- lling bas andose en la estadí stica del canal en vez de en su realizaci on. Este planteamiento, despu es de profundos an alisis matem aticos, ha permitido desarrollar un algoritmo de asignaci on de potencia de baja complejidad (2 a 4 ordenes de magnitud m as r apido que el estado del arte). Mediante esta t ecnica, se ha demostrado que la velocidad optima de transmisi on se comporta de forma equivalente al caso de un solo canal y que la e ciencia incrementa a medida que aumentan el numero de canales disponibles. Estos resultados pueden aplicarse a diseñar un SDR cloud de forma m as e ciente. A modo de ejemplo, hemos obtenido el ratio optimo de n umero de antenas por usuario que maximiza la e ciencia. A medida que los usuarios entran y salen de la red, este ratio debe mantenerse constante, a fin de mantener una efi ciencia lo m as alta posible, activando o desactivando antenas din amicamente. De esta forma se explota completamente el dinamismo ofrecido por una arquitectura el astica como el SDR cloud. En de nitiva, este trabajo pretende incidir en un cambio del modelo de gesti on de un sistema de comunicaciones (t ípicamente RRM) habida cuenta de la introducci on de una nueva infraestructura (SDR cloud), nuevos modelos de negocio (basados en Cloud Computing) y una visi on m as integradora de la gesti on e ciente de los recursos del sistema, no solo centrada en la optimizaci on del uso del espectro