Duty-cycle passive time characterisation for input power and energy storage variation of an energy harvesting tailored wireless sensing system

Open access journalThis experimental study investigates the duty-cycle passive times modifications for a low power wireless sensing system (WSS) designed for energy harvesting technology when its input power level and energy storage size are varying. The different low power WSSs presented in the literature feature specific designs aimed at solving particular problems, and due to their specificity their performance indicators are not directly comparable. As a result of this incompatibility, one cannot identify a correlation between the input power, energy storage element size, passive and active time variations to evaluate the potential usability of the system for static or dynamic testing. The present work covers this result comparison gap induced by the incompatibility factor, providing the experimental data obtained as a result of input power level and energy storage size variation for the same low power WSS, thus generating a reference point for the advanced designer and also for the inexperienced user. The experimental results illustrate that, by varying the storage capacity of a low power WSS, its input power range can be enlarged by up to 20 times.Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC

Thermococcus Thioreducens sp. Nov., a Novel Hyperthermophilic, Obligately Sulfur-reducing Archaeon from a Deep-sea Hydrothermal Vent

A hyperthermophilic, sulfur-reducing, organo-heterotrophic archaeon, strain OGL-20P was isolated from black smoker chimney material from the Rainbow hydrothermal vent site on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (36.2 N, 33.9 W). The cells of strain OGL-20P(sup T) have an irregular coccoid shape and are motile with a single flagellum. Growth was observed within the pH range 5.0-8.5 (optimum pH 7.0), NaCl concentration range 1-5 % (w/v) (optimum 3%), and temperature range 55-94 C (optimum 83-85 C). The novel isolate is strictly anaerobic and obligately dependent upon elemental sulfur as an electron acceptor, but it does not reduce sulfate, sulfite, thiosulfate, iron (III) or nitrate. Proteolysis products (peptone, bacto-tryptone, casamino-acids, and yeast extract) are utilized as substrates during sulfur-reduction. Strain OGL-20P(sup T) is resistant to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, kanamycin, and gentamycin, but sensitive to tetracycline and rifampicin. The G+C content of DNA is 52.9 mol%. The 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that strain OGL-20P(sup T) is closely related to Thermococcus coalescens and related species, but no significant homology by DNA-DNA hybridization was observed between those species and the new isolate. On the basis of physiological and molecular properties of the new isolate, we conclude that strain OGL-20P(sup T) represents a new separate species within the genus Thermococcus, and propose the name Thermococcus thioreducens sp. nov. The type strain is OGL-20P(sup T) (= ATCC BAA-394(sup T) = JCM 12859(sup T) = DSM 14981(sup T))

Low Power Consumption Wireless Sensor Communication System Integrated with an Energy Harvesting Power Source

This paper presents the testing results of a wireless sensor communication system with low power consumption integrated with an energy harvesting power source. The experiments focus on the system's capability to perform continuous monitoring and to wirelessly transmit the data acquired from the sensors to a user base station, for realization of completely battery-free wireless sensor system. Energy harvesting technologies together with system design optimization for power consumption minimization ensure the system's energy autonomous capability demonstrated in this paper by presenting the promising testing results achieved following its integration with structural health monitoring and body area network applications. © 2013 IFSA.We would like to thank DSTL (Defence Science and Technology Laboratory in the UK), IMRC (Cranfield’s Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre) and EPSRC (the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in the UK) for providing the research premises by funding these investigations

Multimodal User Interface for Mission Planning

This paper presents a multimodal interface featuring fusion of multiple modalities for natural human-computer interaction. The architecture of the interface and the methods applied are described, and the results of the real-time multimodal fusion are analyzed. The research in progress concerning a mission planning scenario is discussed and other possible future directions are also presented. Keywords Multimodal interfaces, speech recognition, microphonearray, force-feedback tactile glove, military maps INTRODUCTION Current human-machine communication systems predominantly use keyboard and mouse inputs that inadequately approximate human abilities for communication. More natural communication technologies such as speech, sight and touch, are capable of freeing computer users from the constraints of keyboard and mouse. Although they are not sufficiently advanced to be used individually for robust human-machine communication, they have adequately advanced to serve simultaneous multisen..

Integration of Speech and Gesture for Multimodal Human-Computer Interaction

This paper presents a multimodal interface featuring fusion of multiple modalities for natural human-computer interaction. The architecture of the interface and the methods applied are described, and the results of the real-time multimodal fusion are analyzed. The research in progress concerning a mission planning scenario is discussed and other possible future directions are also presented