opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Anders GrauballeGian Paolo

PerrucciFrank H.P. Fitzek

Aalborg University Denmark

Introducing Contextual Information

to Mobile Phones by External

and Embedded Sensors

St. Louis, MO – April 21 2008

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

Denmark?!?!?!

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

Outline

• Wireless sensor networks– Convergence of WSN and mobile phones

• Opensensor platform– Example of applications

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

Wireless Sensor Networks

• Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are currently an interesting research area

• WSN consists out of many, sometime even thousands of sensors

• Sensor– small electronic system

• battery driven• wireless communication capabilities • sensory part (e.g. temperature, light, and many others)

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

Wireless Sensor Networks

• Field of application for WSN– Military (main source)– Intelligent households– Environmental scenarios– In-Car communication– Gaming– Health Care– …….

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

WSN and mobile phones

• One problem of WSN is the interface to users– No display

• battery constraints • sometimes it just doesn‘t make sense to have displays.

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

WSN and mobile phones

• Billions of sensors are already out there

• How do we convey the information to users?

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

WSN and mobile phones

• The convergence of mobile phones and WSN has already started!!!– Integrated sensors– External sensors

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

Integrated sensors

• Nokia 5500• 3D motion sensor chip

embedded– Exercise application

(step counter)– Enrich the game

experience (turn your phone into a virtual fishing rod)

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

Integrated sensors

• New applications for integrated sensors in mobile phones– Derive overall traffic flow for a whole city by

partial measurements of some phones (e.g. N95 with GPS)

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

External sensors

• External sensors are available too– not optimized for the communication with the

mobile phone – way to expensive– low flexibility

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

External sensors: example

• External sensors– Jogging equipment for iPod from Nike– External sensor placed in the shoe – Step counter conveys information to the iPod

• No flexibility!!!!

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

Opensensor

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

Motivation for the opensensor

• The main motivation to build the opensensor:– have a wireless sensor board with the following

characteristics:• Low cost and easy to build/extend• Get the basic understanding of DSPs and their programming• Build solid teaching material• Easy extendible with sensory parts• Fully programmable

– Test new WSN algorithms directly on board

• Not just WSN, but convergence with mobile phones

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

Motivation for the opensensor

• The opensensor is available for all researcher around the world– Hardware: The plans to build the opensensor are

freely available– Software: Basic functionality is offered already

and maintain in the future– Teaching: All slides are available, so that it

should be easy to integrated it into existing lectures or to build course from scratch

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

Opensensor interfaces

• Serial interface– Opensensor debug and test

• SPI (nRF905) interface

• Bluetooth interface

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

Two approaches

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

• Opensensor can enrich the mobile devices with new services:– Sensing the environment around the user

Mutual benefit

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

• Wireless sensors have nearly no or limited interface for human interaction

Mutual benefit

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

Mutual benefit

• Mobile phones can provide:– Human Interface

• Large and colored display• Alarm sounds• Text to speech capabilities

– Network interface• SMS,MMS• GPRS, 3G

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

• Temperature monitoring• Python implementation

• Example:– <ACTION>SMS– <BODY>Warning!!!Temperature 41 C– <KEYVALUE>+1233456789

Application example: Temperature monitoring

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

Application example: parksensor

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

Application example: Light sensor

• Light sensor application– The opensensor measures the light level and

sends data back to the phone

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

How to get an opensensor

• Order components from us:– Note, you need to solder the pieces together by yourself!!

• Documentation available on the web:– How to build it– How to program it– How to test it– Code example

• Opensensor• Mobile phones

opensensor Aalborg University, Mobile Device Group

Introducing Contextual Information to Mobile Phones by External and Embedded Sensors

Contacts and acknowledgements

Frank H.P. FitzekAnders GrauballeGian Paolo PerrucciBen Kroeger Aalborg University

Stephan ReinTechnical University of Berlin

opensensor@es.aau.dk

http://mobiledevices.kom.aau.dk/opensensor/