MICS Newsletter Mar09

8/14/2019 MICS Newsletter Mar09

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March 2009N E W S L E T T E r The measurement technologyused in the PermaSense programcould pave the way or a uturereal-time monitoring o potential

rock all in areas o high vulner-ability (see the picture taken on theMatterhorn eld site)

Pges 2&3

This year, the NCCR-MICS oers orthe 6th time 6-10 weeks internships,between June and mid-September,in laboratories to interested under-graduates. Apply now!

Pges 5&6

Since its launching in 2007, theSwiss Experiment project has madea name or itsel and the commu-nity is now understanding its pur-pose and value.

Pge 4

The move towards Phase 3... Findout about MICS main objectives orthe coming years.

Pges 9&10


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pge 2 | March 2009 MICS NEWSLETTER

ThE QuEST for uPTiME

iN ThE MouNTaiNS

Ater an initial phase o prototypedevelopment and experience with

deployments on the Jungraujochthe PermaSense project has devel-

oped rapidly, increased its teamand is now successully operating

two high alpine eld sites basedon a second generation technol-

ogy platorm. The goal o thePermaSense project is to provide

long-term high-quality sensingin harsh environments, to obtain

better quality data more efective-ly and make measurements that

have previously been impossible.

The measurement technology usedin the PermaSense program couldpave the way or a uture real-timemonitoring o potential rock all or

large scale slope instability in areaso high vulnerability. Thereore, reli-ability and precision o the data col-lected are o primary importanceor a successul exploitation in geo-science and risk-assessment.

At present, a network o miniature,autonomous wireless sensors is re-cording diverse parameters relatedto reezing processes as well as rock

movement and temperature in thepermarost area o the Hrnligratridge o the Matterhorn. A secondnetwork exists around the Sphinxobservatory and high altitude re-

search station on Jungraujoch. Thedata is collected at a base stationand relayed to a database server us-ing GSM/GPRS or Wireless LAN. Formuch o the technology involved,PermaSense is relying on seasoneddevelopments rom within theMICS community: The Dozer proto-col (Wattenhoer) is driving the lowpower data gathering based on Ti-nyNodes (Shocksh). The Global

Sensor Network (Aberer) is an inte-gral part o the data backend andthe Deployment Support Network(Thiele) is heavily used in develop-ment and system testing.

ThE EXPLoiTaTioN PhaSE

Ater initial installation o sensorsin September 2007 and simple datalogging over the ollowing winter,the Matterhorn eld site has been

equipped with wireless sensors inJuly and August 2008. It has beenoperational since, continuously de-livering data that will improve theunderstanding o processes occur-ring in permarost regions. Morerecently the Jungraujoch eld sitehas also been equipped with wire-less sensors in February 2009.

In eect the PermaSense project

has now moved on rom gainingand initial understanding o therequirements but also researchculture o the interdisciplinary proj-ect partners, technology develop-


3/10


PemSense n Ntsell

Computer scientists, electronicsengineers, and geoscientists alike,prot rom this interdisciplinaryproject. Stephan Gruber, Senior As-sistant at the Department o Geog-raphy at the University o Zurich,

and head geoscientist o the Per-maSense project has been study-ing permarost at high altitudes oryears.

In order to get a reliable model othe permarost, authentic data isneeded, something the researchersare aiming to get rom their newmeasuring system. The researchershave already come up with some

promising rst ndings, but an ex-act analysis will only be possibleater a ew months o continuouscollection o data. Results are ex-pected to show as rom mid-June.

ment, research, system integrationand test to a phase o operations,maintenance, data managementand exploitation. This is signi-cantly dierent rom shorter termexperiments, be it in or out o thelab, and posing real challenges thatare calling or innovative solutions.Apart rom pretty standard 24/7uptime o relevant inrastructure,e.g. servers, network trunks and

sensor nodes, gathering data overa period o multiple years means alot o logistics around equipment,data and congurations.

a coMPLEX ProcESS

A simple exchange o a sensor nodenot only requires a climbing trip(possibly with an helicopter fight),trained personnel and avorableweather, but also a slurry o actions

and conguration changes in doc-umentation data bases and serverinrastructure. Remember that theactual goal would be to just clickon a simple query hidden behinda colorul icon in a web browser todisplay a set o data captured in theeld, ready to be analyzed.

This data should automatically in-clude the appropriate correction

unctions, calibration parameters,origin, type, circumstances, date othe sensor installation and muchmore that is today primarily kepton paper, emails and whiteboard

sketches. Thus, the meaning ometa-data is extended beyond justauxiliary inormation about themeasurement site and methods toa complete documentation o theinstrumentation history to allow atraceable and reproducible conver-sion o measured digital numbersto relevant inormation. So clearly,the list o todos or the PermaSenseproject is not done yet, now that

sensor nodes have been deployedand data is streaming o the moun-tain in minute intervals.

For PermaSense the next steps havealready begun that will allow turn-ing data into relevant inormationand so acilitating geo-science re-search. Joining orces with Karl Ab-erers team and also with the SwissExperiment on questions o datamanagement, procedures and the

integration o the necessary inra-structure is expected to allow ob-taining both a critical mass and thenecessary expertise or the tasksahead. An improved ability to doc-ument and process sensor networkdata streams is urgently needednow: With six months o near-con-tinuous data gathered to date, thethorough geo-science exploitationo results is about to begin.

Meanwhile, measurements mustcontinue because environmen-tal research oten requires severalyears o data, and likewise, uture

warning systems will have to dem-onstrate their quality by long-termreliable operation the quest oruptime in the mountains.

Jan Beutel (etH ZuricH) &

StepHan GruBer (uni ZuricH)

Pjet webpge:

ttp://www.pemsense.

onlne dt ess:ttp://t42x.ee.etz.:22001


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Michael Lehning is an atmospheric

physicist and environmental scien-tist. He works on snow cover mod-

eling and on snow-atmosphereinteraction. He leads the research

unit Snow and Permarost at theSwiss Federal Institute or Forest,

Snow and Landscape Research(WSL). He is also the Swiss Experi-

ment projects head, partly undedby the MICS Center...

- The SwissEx project was launched

in 2007. Where does it stand now?

We have just had the annual reviewrecently, and has been good to seehow well the launch and progresso SwissEx was received. It is verysatisactory to see that a lot o in-

dividual projects now want to beintegrated or related to SwissExand how SwissEx serves the envi-ronmental science projects. We re-ceive plenty o demands e.g. or theSensorscope stations. Finally, I cansay that the community is now un-derstanding the purpose and valueo SwissEx.

- Is WSL contribution to the Swiss-

Ex project expected to developurther in the uture?

WSL acts as bridge between puretheoretical science and the praticalimplementation o scientic nd-

ings. Monitoring environmentalaspects is part o its mission. Thus,we will work hard to have the in-rastructure and support throughSwissEx continuing even ater thecurrent project may end.

- How are the numerous partners

o the SwissEx getting together?Are there productive results?

Everybody is at work, there is norace or notoriety. We operate adatabase and all the partners col-laborate. Every group collects thedata it needs. Thereore, it guaran-tees that all inormation is beingused and analyzed. I also want to

SWiSS EXPEriMENT

MakES a NaME for iTSELf

mention that MICS has developedand is developing a lot o the keytechnology to be used or environ-mental sciences in general and orSwissEx in particular.

- Recently, the SwissEx was pre-

sented at the World Economic Fo-rum in Davos. What kind o impact

can it have?

Yes, SwissEx was presented at both

the Microsot house at WEF and atSLF Davos, but it is always hard tojudge the impact this will have. Wemight get some eedback in the u-ture...

interviewBy Florence luy

Dominique Meienberg/SNF


5/10


This year, the NCCR-MICS o-

ers or the 6th time 6-10 weeksinternships, between June and

mid-September, in laboratoriesat EPF Lausanne, ETH Zurich and

the Universities o Bern, Neucha-tel, Lugano and Basel to inter-

ested undergraduates who wouldlike to gain experience work-

ing in a research environment.

The internships are designed or uni-versity students who are interestedin pursuing a PhD ater graduation,but would like to experience a uni-

aPPLY NoW or ThE SuMMEriNTErNShiP ProGraM!

WhaT Do ThEY SaYaBouT ThE ProGraM...

raPhaELLE LuiSiEr was nish-ing her rst year o the Master pro-gram when she applied or an in-ternship. She was assigned a topicmore or less close to her studies inlie sciences or ten weeks.

Participants have to write a re-port at the end o their training,explains Raphaelle. It was the op-

portunity to prepare a document inEnglish, but also to have somethingthat could be useul or the uture.

The title o her report? Design andabrication o an hydrophilic mi-

crochannel or complete on-chipimmunoassay. The young lady isvery enthousiastic about her expe-

rience: I really shared the labos lie,while having a lot o reedom.

Today, she is about to nalize herMaster work - on 3D skin models - in

versity research environment rsthand beore making a decision. Thesalary is around Fr. 1900/month. Aspecial Female UndergraduateInternship is also proposed, soto encourage women to pursuewithin the academic environment..

The internships are oered on acompetitive basis and cover a widerange o research topics in the eld

o inormation and communicationsciences. While many o the researchprojects are technical in nature, suc-cessul candidates do not necessari-ly need an engineering background.Last year, out o 23 internships

the Queensland University o tech-nology, in Brisbane (Australia). Shewants to pursue an academic ca-

reer. The internship convinced meo that choice. I advise everybodyto have this kind o experience be-ore deciding to pursue with a PhD,she says. (read next page)

oered, 17 applications were ac-cepted. A report refecting the par-ticipants comments, showed thatmost students thought they hadlearned a lot regarding methodol-ogy and work organization. On theother hand, most o them wouldhave liked to see the requirementsbetter dened.

inteested stdents e e

qested t pply nw t ttp://www.ms.g/msEdtn.

pp?tn=ndegd. They willbe notied i their application issuccessul.

Florence luy


6/10


roBiN SchEiBLEr chose an in-ternship to know better about theacademic world while having apaid summer job. He was satisedwith the topic that he was givensince he knew the proessor andcould discuss with him.

Actually, Robin is accomplishinghis Master work at IBM Zurich. Hethinks the students should be better

inormed about the internships: Toreceive just one mail is not enough.More advertisement needs to bedone. He also suggests that par-ticipants interact more with eachother so that they could exchangeabout their experience.For Robin Scheibler, the internship

enabled him to practice all o whathe had learned previously, as wellas to discover the PhD students en-vironment.

PoLiNa MakEEVa chose thisMICS internship because she want-ed to gain more experience in theresearch work. Ater three years oBachelor, she still elt a lack o ex-perience in developing a complete

project, rom design to testing andobtaining experiment results.

She noticed that the subject othe project was a little bit dierentthen the one described in the listo available topics, but it was evenmore interesting or her. She had

to implement a distributed hashtable (DHT) lookup in peer-to-peernetworks.

Although she suggests that a talkwith the supervisor should takeplace beore the internship to bet-ter clariy the work, she says sheacquired a useul experience in re-viewing a lot o theoretical mate-rial.

Later, the internship helped her orher courses and other projects, aswell as or her search or other in-ternships and jobs. I recommendthis kind o experience to every-body, she concludes.

interviewSBy Fl

PuLSar GETS MicS

SPiNuND uNDED

Under the project name Pulsar,MICS researchers Nicolas Burri,Remo Meier, and Dr. Pascal vonRickenbach have been granteda MICS Spinund. The project ishosted by Pro. Wattenhoer atETH Zurich and will commercial-ize an academic prototype o a

new multimedia streaming tech-nique in the months to come.

Multimedia streams over the in-ternet have recently become very

popular. Especially events like the

inauguration o Barrack Obamaprovoke a massive user interest.Standard server-based streamingsolutions are oten not capable oproviding a large audience withthe requested quality o service.

Pulsar solves these scalability prob-lems by incorporating peer-to-peer technology to increase thestreaming quality and stability o

popular audio or video content.Users viewing a video or listeningto an audio stream do no longerdownload the whole content romthe server o the provider but also

rom other users consuming the

same stream. As a consequenceusing the already existing band-width and computation powermore users can be served withaudio and video streams in betterquality than it was possible so ar.

During the time o unding, Pulsarwill move rom a prototype to amarket-ready product and developbusiness relations with content pro-

viders. Initially, the ocus will be onthe Swiss market to acquire rst cus-tomer reerences and thereater ex-pand the business activities to ur-ther European countries and the US.


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pge | March 2009 MICS NEWSLETTER

Alcherio Martinoli holds a M.Sc.degree in Electrical Engineering

rom the ETH Zurich, and a Ph.D.degree in Computer Science rom

the EPF Lausanne. Ater a stay oabout three and an hal years at

the Caliornia Institute o Technol-ogy, he joined again EPFL as an

SNF Junior Proessor at the Schoolo Computer and Communication

Sciences (I&C) in Fall 2003.

oSTEriNG iNTErDiSciPLiNarYrESEarch WiThiN MicS

During his master studies and evenmore so during his ollowing aca-demic career, Alcherio Martinoli has

been ascinated by robotics and,more generally, intelligent devicesable to perceive, compute, decide,and act in the physical world. Morespecically, he has built his proes-

sional and academic reputation indistributed, possibly networkedand sel-organized, intelligent sys-tems able to collaborate to achievea common mission.

His work addresses system engi-neering both at the hardware andsotware level, model-based anddata-based methods or designand optimization o the system

with particular emphasis on dis-tributed control algorithms. Alche-rio joined the NCCR-MICS at the be-ginning o the Phase II, starting inNovember 2005. Within the Center,he has brought the multi-disciplin-ary system design expertise typicalo robotics and thus contributedto move the center o gravity oMICS towards more experimentalresearch work.

coLLaBoraTioN WiTh ENac

Among several parallel projectsduring his SNF junior proessor pe-riod, the one sponsored by MICS o-cusing on distributed odor localiza-tion using multi-robot systems haspromoted the collaboration withthe School o Architecture, Civil,and Environmental Engineering(ENAC), because o the availability

o expertise and tools in wind en-gineering, in particular within thelaboratory o Pro. Marc Parlange,also involved in MICS since thePhase II.

Starting rom experiments withmulti-robot systems within theENAC wind tunnel and stimulatedby exciting activities o other MICSlaboratories working in environ-mental monitoring, Alcherio real-ized that the scientic knowledgeand technology developed in hisgroup could have been appliedmore and more to environmental,civil, and architectural research

problems.

ToWarDS NEW acTiViTiES

This initial intellectual curiosity hasbecome a more concrete daily re-ality or Alcherio since May 2008,when he has been appointed asAssociate Proessor at ENAC. Themoving o his laboratory has beencompleted in Fall 2008 and whilethe core activities in distributed ro-

botic systems have been conservedand actually reinorced, new neigh-boring activities ocusing on sen-sors and actuators networks areemerging. For instance, Alcherioslaboratory is now involved in theSwiss Experiment project ocusingon environmental monitoring inthe Alpine Region or, in an originalproject investigating distributedmechatronic solutions or increas-

ing the stability o long-span bridg-es solicited by strong wind elds.

On the teaching ront, he has juststarted with his collaborators to


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pge | March 2009 MICS NEWSLETTER

MicS WorkShoP aT EPLteach an innovative, introductorycourse in embedded systems orcivil and environmental engineersat the bachelor level and will re-sume rom next year a course in dis-tributed intelligent systems oeredto both I&C and ENAC students atmaster level, thus even urther pro-moting the cross-ertilization o thetwo schools and respective core re-search areas.

Florence luy

EPL rESEarch DaY 09

EPFL Research Day will take placeon April 30 and will be dedicatedto robotics at large. Pro. GauravSukhatme (University o SouthernCaliornia, Los Angeles), an expertin distributed robotics, is playinga similar role as Alcherio Martinoli

in the NCCR-MICS or the Center oEmbedded Networked Sensing atUCLA. He will be one o the speak-ers o the Research Day and willemphasize this cross-ertilizationtrends between distributed robot-ics and wireless sensor networks,nding exciting deployments inenvironmental and civil engineer-ing applications.MICS will be represented at the

EPFL Research Day by AlcherioMartinoli and other laboratoriesshowcasing activities directly cen-tered on robotics or crucial or theprogress o this eld.

This year, the NCCR MICS is orga-nizing its annual event in the ormo a Workshop on 9 and 10 June atEPFL.

The goal o this workshop is topresent some o the main research

results o MICS Phase 2 and to pro-vide an outlook to Phase 3 (Nov2009 - Oct 2013).

The keynote speakers will be Pro.Anja Feldmann, TU Berlin, and Pe-ter Landrock, CEO o Cryptomathic.

The technical sessions will be com-prised o 2-3 presentations each.

These presentations will be select-ed based on 1-page proposals, with

a priority given to those that wouldcontribute most to cross-pollina-tion. A 1-page proposal shouldcontain:- Title o the presentation;- Authors o the presented work, a-liation;- Name o the potential speaker (aPhD student, typically);- Abstract o the presentation (upto 20 lines);

- I and where this work has alreadybeen published;- Explanation o why this presen-tation could be o interest to re-searchers in other elds o MICS;

concrete examples o other eldsthat could benet rom this workare most welcome.

The presentation proposals will bereviewed by an ad-hoc committee;non-selected presentations will be

presented as posters.

all ent MicS PD stdents eexpeted t pvde ppsls.

Plese send tese by 2 M t Jqes Bvy (jqes.bvy@

epf.).

JacqueS Bovay

te nmtn:

www.ms.g


9/10


NCCR MICS has realized an excel-lent academic research program

in its rst two phases, led to thecreation o strong research part-

nerships among Swiss researchersin diferent institutions and loca-

tions, to an extent beyond whatcould have been expected, and

created important and long-last-ing multidisciplinary synergies, by

opening up to disciplines beyondcomputer science and electrical

engineering.

In particular, the decision to con-centrate in Phase 2 on wirelesssensing networks or environmen-tal monitoring has proven to be avery wise choice. The challenge orthe NCCR-MICS in a 3rd phase will

be to maintain the momentum,the breadth o the project porto-lio, and preserve a sense o cohe-sion. As the Centre goes towards itsplanned end, an important aspectwill be to dene a coherent blendbetween the continuation o pres-ent activities and the start o newwork.

oVEraLL ViSioN

The main objectives o MICS phase3 are to consolidate the researchwork o phases 1 and 2, includingthe technology transer to industry,

the establishment o long term re-search and collaboration structuresacross institutions, and to ensurethe long-term impact o the pro-gram beyond its duration as a cen-tre. To that extend we will urther develop the applications,in particular in environmentalmonitoring complement the existing techno-logical developments through se-

lected research eorts addressingnovel challenges rom applicationsin MICS complementing and com-pleting earlier research pursue various exploitation andtechnology transer strategies develop strategies to connect toemerging research initiatives andresearch programs, in such a waythat they will draw optimal benetrom MICS.

coMMoN ThEME

In MICS phase 3 we will study thewhole data lie cycle using wire-less technology or capturing in-ormation rom the environment,securely transmitting it throughheterogeneous networks, process-ing the resulting data and provideplatorms or personalized use anddecision-making. Environmental

monitoring or scientic purposeswill remain the specic ocus toexempliy this approach and a sub-stantial raction o our eort willdirectly or indirectly contribute to

this application space. The SwissExperiment will be used as a plat-orm to perorm interdisciplinaryresearch or understanding o com-plex environmental systems in theirentirety using wireless inormationand communication systems. It hasstarted to develop critical activitiesin the areas o sensor node develop-ment, data technology, educationand community building which will

be urther pursued in phase 3.

Dierent but related technologieswill be explored in collaborationwith other research programs orachieving mutual benet. We iden-tied three main research challeng-es to be addressed in order to dealwith the expected growth o wire-less sensor network applications: data management to deal withthe massively growing sensor data

volumes, practicability o wireless sensornetwork technology to enable itswide-spread use, wireless security to deal with po-tential threats.In addition, we will urther pursuelow-power UWB communicationas a case or building a technologyportolio o intellectual propertyin an academic research environ-

ment.

SPEciaL ProGraMS

The main objectives in technology

Nccr-MicS: ThE MoVEToWarDS PhaSE 3


10/10


Editor : Florence LuyMail : fene.ly@epf.

The National Centres o Competence

in Research are a research instrument

o the Swiss National Science Foundation

EPFL IC NCCR MICS

Station 14CH-1015 Lausanne

Tel +41 (0)21 693 8106

Fax +41 (0)21 693 8140

www.mics.org | [email protected]

NEW PuBLicaTioNScneene ppes:

Gilbert, Seth; Guerraoui, Rachid;Kowalski, Dariusz; Newport, Calvin,Interference-Resilient Information

Exchange, IEEE InoCom 2009; Riode Janeiro, Brazil, April 19-25.

coNErENcES 8th ACM/IEEE International Con-erence on Inormation Processingin Sensor Networks, San Francisco(USA), 13-16 April.

7th International Conerence onPervasive Computing, Nara (Japan),11-14 May.

10th International Conerence

on Mobile Data Management: Sys-tems, Services and Middleware, Tai-pei (Taiwan), 18-21 May.

MicS Wsp, EP Lsnne,910 Jne.

6th International Conerence onNetworked Sensing Systems, Pitts-burgh (USA), 17-19 June.

IEEE International Symposium onInormation Theory, Seoul (Korea),28 June-3 July.

International Conerence on High

transer will be to urther intensiythe successul collaboration withindustry, to transer results throughthe creation o spin-os, and to cre-ate IP portolios (in particular in theUWB domain). In education, we willparticularly ocus on the problemo attracting more young people tothe eld o inormation technologywhile ensuring the continuation othe successul existing programs

and impact on the curriculum.

This will also be supported by aspecial action o the promotion owomen program having a bus trav-elling to secondary schools all overSwitzerland, in order to promote ITto young people. In public relations,we will in particular take advantageo the high visibility o issues relat-ed to environmental concerns.

In summary, we are very satisedthat we have converged to a highquality research program with anexciting and relevant applicationdimension and high degree o col-laborative and interdisciplinary re-search. We are condent that, withthe proposed research programand structural measures, we willconsolidate the long-term impacto the NCCR MICS centre at the par-

ticipating institutions, as well as orthe IT eld in Switzerland.

JacqueS Bovay

Perormance Computing, Network-ing and Communication Systems,Orlando (USA), 13-16 July.

International Conerence on Wire-less Algorithms Systems and Appli-cations, Boston (USA), 16-18 August2009.

S-CUBE, 1st Conerence on Wire-less Sensor Network Systems and

Sotware, Pisa (Italy), 7-9 Septem-ber.

9th International Conerence onPeer-to-Peer Computing, 8-11 Sep-tember, Seattle, Washington, USA.

Documents

MICS Newsletter Mar09