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European Research Consortiumfor Informatics and Mathematicswww.ercim.org

ERCIM NEWSNumber 76, January 2009

Also in this issue:

Joint ERCIM Actions:ERCIM at ICT 2008

"Engineering Secure ComplexSoftware Systems andServices" - ExecutiveSummary of the EuropeanCommission-ERCIM Seminaron ICT Security

R&D and Technology Transfer:Enhancing Authentication in eBanking with NFC-Enabled Mobile Phones

Special theme:

THE SENSORWEB

Special theme:

THE SENSORWEB

ERCIM NEWS 76 January 2009

ERCIM News is the magazine of ERCIM. Published quarterly, it reports on joint actions of theERCIM partners, and aims to reflect the contribution made by ERCIM to the European Com-munity in Information Technology and Applied Mathematics. Through short articles and newsitems, it provides a forum for the exchange of information between the institutes and also withthe wider scientific community. This issue has a circulation of 10,500 copies. The printed ver-sion of ERCIM News has a production cost of €8 per copy. Subscription is currently availablefree of charge.

ERCIM News is published by ERCIM EEIG BP 93, F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, FranceTel: +33 4 9238 5010, E-mail: [email protected]: Jérôme ChaillouxISSN 0926-4981

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Cover photo:Synchronization of sensor data in team sports allows team-based queries with a potential todiscover new knowledge from sensed data. Photo: AFP

Next issue:April 2009, Special theme: Future Internet Technology

Editorial Information


There is no doubting the impact that the informationrevolution has had on our everyday lives. How welearn, work, and play has been forever transformed by

the always-on connectivity of the Internet. But this informa-tion revolution has largely been confined to the online worldand, for many of us, we continue to interact with two veryseparate worlds: the physical world in which we live and theonline world of the web. There has been a physical-digitaldivide. Every second of every day information is createdthrough naturally occurring events in the physical world butthese events go largely unnoticed and the information is lost.In the world of the Sensor Web this is set to change.

The catalyst for this change will come in the form of a newgeneration of cheap, reliable, and flexible sensor technolo-gies, which will serve as new peripherals for the internet bybringing a whole new world of input data to the wider web.Accordingly, data will no longer just be generated from thekeyboards and scanners of desktop PCs. Instead, these newsensor technologies will permit the sensing of diverse eventsin the physical world, from the traffic congestion in ourstreets to the pollution in our river systems, and from energyconsumption in our cities to recycling in the home. Sensorsthat can be integrated with garments, and worn on the body,will permit the capture of physiological data as we exerciseor recuperate. In short, this unique combination of sensors,software, and the Internet will enable new types of informa-tion services across a wide range of sectors from health andthe environment to education, retail, and entertainment.

This is the vision of the Sensor Web. Its guiding principle isthat better information helps people to make better decisionsand that by harnessing the potential of the sensor web we canhelp people to live healthier, safer, and more productivelives. For example, decades worth of studies about energyusage in the home have shown that by simply informing peo-ple about the impact of their energy usage in real-time is suf-ficient motivation for them to cut their energy consumptionby up to 15%.

3

Keynote

Of course realising this vision is not without its challengesand as a result there is currently considerable researchinvestment in Sensor Web technologies by funding agenciesand industry players alike. Researchers at the new Centre forSensor Web Technologies (CLARITY) are addressing thesechallenges head-on (see www.clarity-centre.com). CLAR-ITY is funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) andinvolves more than 60 researchers in University CollegeDublin, Dublin City University, and the Tyndall NationalInstitute (TNI). The centre will focus on the developmentand application of sensor web technologies in areas such aspersonal health, environmental monitoring, and media andthe research focus will include three different sensor modal-ities:

1. Sensing the Body – Focusing on the use of wearable tech-nologies to capture physiological data form the wearerwith key applications areas such as exercise, sports andpersonal health.

2. Sensing the Mind – Recognising the preferences of indi-viduals and groups of users by mining sensed interactiondata.

3. Sensing the Place – Focusing on the use of sensors inmonitoring the world in which we live, with applicationsin environmental monitoring.

Within these modalities, the same challenges will arise:bridging the Physical-Digital divide, specification anddeployment of adaptive middleware, and taming the infor-mation overload.

Addressing these challenges and developing practical SensorWeb solutions will, in the near time demonstrate the truepotential of this technology to industry, government, andconsumer alike. Indeed there are reasons to be optimistic thatsuch technologies are accessible in the near-term. For exam-ple, modern mobile phone infrastructure provides an idealcommunication network for the Sensor Web and mobilephones serve as ideal sensor platforms capable of capturinginformation from subscribers and their locale. Comprehen-sive location-sensing technologies such as GPS, for exam-ple, are now built in to most modern mobile devices and thisis already inspiring a new wave of novel applications inwhich location sensing plays a key role. But all of this is justthe beginning.

Barry Smyth

Barry SmythCLARITY: The Centre for Sensor Web Tech-nologies, Ireland.

The Sensor Web: Bringing Information to Life

Joint ERCIM Actions


Contents

2 Editorial Information

KEYNOTE

3 The Sensor Web - Bringing Information to Life

by Barry Smyth, CLARITY: The Centre for SensorWeb Technologies, Ireland.

JOINT ERCIM ACTIONS

6 EVOL 2008 - Fourth International ERCIM

Workshop on Software Evolution and Evolvability

by Michel Wermelinger and Paul Wernick

6 SERENE 2008 International Workshop on Software

Engineering for Resilient Systems

by Nicolas Guelfi, Henry Muccini, Patrizio Pelliccioneand Alexander Romanovsky

7 Interlink Consolidation Workshop

by Dimitris Plexousakis

8 New ERCIM Working Group on Data and

Information Spaces

by Ingeborg Torvik Sølvberg

8 ERCIM office in Brussels

9 ERCIM at ICT 2008

11 Engineering Secure Complex Software Systems

and Services - Executive Summary of the European

Commission- ERCIM Seminar on ICT Security

SPECIAL THEME

Introduction to the Special Theme14 The Sensor Web: Bridging the Physical-Digital

Divide

by Mark Roantree and Mikko Sallinen

Invited Article16 Sensor Networks in the Real World

by Steven D. Glaser and Tommi Parkkila

Wireless Networks18 MARWIS: A Management Platform for

Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

by Gerald Wagenknecht, Markus Anwander and TorstenBraun

20 The IBM Mote Runner

by Thorsten Kramp, Michael Baentsch, Thomas Eirich,Marcus Oestreicher, Ivan Romanov and AlexandruCaraças

21 A Testbed for Sensor Service Networks

by Thomas Usländer and Kym Watson

Management & Maintenance of Sensor Networks22 Bringing the Semantic Sensor Web to Smart

Buildings

by Rob Brennan

Toolkits and Standards24 Building the Sensor Web – Standard by Standard

by Andrew Woolf

26 Revolutionising Sensor Based Automation in

Manufacturing

by R Harrison, F Jammes, H Smit and T Kirkham

Sensor Network Security27 Security and Robustness of Wireless Sensor

Networks

by Václav Matyáš and Petr Švenda

29 Security Challenges for Wireless Sensor Networks –

Dynamic Routing as a Security Paradigm

by Marek Klonowski, Michał Koza and MirosławKutyłowski

Ubiquitious Sensing Systems30 Ubiquitous Machine-to-Machine Service Networks

by Johanna Kallio and Juhani Latvakoski

32 Short-Range Communication in Ubiquitous

Professional and Consumer Applications

by Mikko Sallinen, Esko Strömmer and Pirkka Tukeva

34 The CLARITY Ubiquitous Robotic Testbed

by Gregory O'Hare, Mauro Dragone and JenniferTreanor

ERCIM NEWS 76 January 2009 5

35 Beyond RFID: The Ubiquitous Near-Field

Distributed Memory

by Paul Couderc and Michel Banâtre

Environmental Monitoring36 Rapid Prototyping of Sensor-Based Applications

with SunSPOTs

by Manfred Bortenschlager, Elisabeth Haid andAndreas Wagner

38 Building an Adaptive Environmental Monitoring

System Using Sensor Web Technology

by Jer Hayes, Greg O'Hare, Harry Kolar and DermotDiamond

39 Remote Water Monitoring With Sensor Networking

Technology

by Thiemo Voigt, Nicolas Tsiftes and Zhitao He

40 Sensors Anywhere – Sensor Web Enablement in

Risk Management Applications

by Gerald Schimak and Denis Havlik

Sensor Web Applications42 FLASH: Fine-Grained Localization in Wireless

Sensor Networks using Acoustic Sound and High-

Precision

by Evangelos Mangas and Angelos Bilas

43 High-Density Wireless Geophone Networks for Oil

and Gas Monitoring and Exploration

by Stefano Savazzi, Vittorio Rampa and UmbertoSpagnolini

45 A Software Platform for the Acquisition and Online

Processing of Images in a Camera Network

by Thomas Sarmis, Xenophon Zabulis and Antonis A.Argyros

47 Tackling the Semantic Gap in Multimodal Sensor

Networks

by Eric Pauwels, Albert Salah and Paul de Zeeuw

48 Utilising Wearable Sensor Technology to Provide

Effective Memory Cues

by Aiden R. Doherty and Alan F. Smeaton

49 SENSE – Smart Embedded Network of Sensing

Entities

by Wolfgang Herzner

Wearable Sensors51 Towards Data Management in the Sensor Web: the

MaD-WiSe System

by Giuseppe Amato, Stefano Chessa, Francesco Furfari,Stefano Lenzi, Claudio Vairo

52 Detecting Hazardous Gases in Emergency Disaster

Scenarios using Wearable Sensors

by Tanja Radu, Cormac Fay, King Tong Lau andDermot Diamond

R&D AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

58 Semantically Enhanced Representation of Legal

Contracts for Web Applications

by Mihály Héder and Balázs Rátai

59 Contiki: Bringing IP to Sensor Networks

by Adam Dunkels

60 Preferential Text Classification: Learning

Algorithms and Evaluation Measures

by Fabio Aiolli, Riccardo Cardin, Fabrizio Sebastianiand Alessandro Sperduti

61 DataCell: Exploiting the Power of Relational

Databases for Efficient Stream Processing

by Erietta Liarou and Martin Kersten

62 On looking FORWARD

by Sotiris Ioannidis, Evangelos Markatos and Christopher Kruegel

63 Enhancing Authentication in eBanking with NFC-

Enabled Mobile Phones

by Diego A. Ortiz-Yepes

65 Sino-French IT Lab in Beijing Opens to European

Institutions

by Stéphane Grumbach

66 DocSearch: UHF RFID Technology for Document

Localization

by Marina Buzzi, Marco Conti and Daniele Vannozzi

67 Integrated Site Security for Grids

by Kate Bradshaw

68 Book Review: "From computers to ubiquitous

computing, by 2020"

68 Announcements

71 In Brief

Applying Sensors to Sporting Environments54 TennisSense: A Multi-Modal Sensing Platform for

Sport

by Noel E. O'Connor, Philip Kelly, Ciarán Ó'Conaire,Damien Connaghan, Alan F. Smeaton, Brian Caulfield,Dermot Diamond and Niall Moynahan

55 Synchronizing Sensed Data in Team Sports

by Dónall McCann, Mark Roantree, Niall Moyna andMichael Whelan

56 Inertial Sensing: A Little Bit of CLARITY

by John Barton, Brian Caulfield & Niall Moyna

SERENE 2008International Workshop on Software Engineeringfor Resilient Systemsby Nicolas Guelfi, Henry Muccini, Patrizio Pelliccione and Alexander Romanovsky

The first workshop of the ERCIM Working Group onSoftware Engineering for Resilient Systems (SERENE)was held in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, on 17-19November 2008.

The SERENE series of workshops, organized by the ERCIMworking group SERENE, is an international forum forresearchers and practitioners interested in advances in Soft-ware Engineering for Resilient Systems. SERENE 2008 washeld in cooperation with ACM SIGSOFT, the InternationalConference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security,and was attended by 42 participants. The technical pro-gramme contained two invited talks, three sessions of tech-nical papers, two PhD forum sessions, a project session andan experience/industry session. The workshop organisersreceived 23 submissions (thirteen technical, three industry,five PhD and two projects), 17 of which were accepted forpresentation (seven technical, three industry, five PhD andtwo projects). All papers have been peer-reviewed by at leastthree members of the program committee.

Joint ERCIM Actions


EVOL 2008 - FourthInternational ERCIMWorkshop on SoftwareEvolution and Evolvability by Michel Wermelinger and Paul Wernick

The fourth edition of this annual workshop took place inL'Aquila, Italy, 15-16 September 2008, under theauspices of the ERCIM Working Group on SoftwareEvolution. The event gathered academics to present anddiscuss the state-of-the-art in research on softwareevolution.

This year's workshop was the result of a merger between theERCIM workshop on Software Evolution and the IEEEInternational Workshop on Software Evolvability. Histori-cally, the ERCIM workshops have dealt with the practicali-ties of developing software that can be changed to meetevolving needs and the tools and methods by which this canbe best achieved, while the Software Evolvability work-shops have generally addressed issues at a more abstractlevel, advancing the understanding of the causes and effectsof software evolution using means such as analogies andmodels from biology, the sociology of technology and otherareas.

The workshop was supported by ERCIM co-located with the23rd IEEE/ACM International Conference on AutomatedSoftware Engineering (ASE 2008). The organisers wereMichel Wermelinger (The Open University, UK), Paul Wer-nick (University of Hertfordshire, UK) and Ciarán Bryce(INRIA Rennes, France).

The workshop attracted 20 participants from ten countries.The programme consisted of ten long and four short papers,one keynote talk, and a closing panel. To make the event atrue workshop, the schedule had plenty of discussion timebuilt in, session chairs were asked to prepare in advancesome discussion topics, and participants were given thepapers in advance. The papers covered a wide range of top-ics, from run-time changes to long-term maintenance, fromformal models to empirical studies of the state of practice inindustry. Moreover, joining the two workshop series provedto be successful, with some papers taking up the theme of'bridging boundaries' and looking for new techniques andinsights in other disciplines – in particular healthcare, natu-ral language processing and epidemiology. The full list ofpapers and authors can be seen on the workshop's website(see link at the end). The proceedings will be published inthe IEEE's digital library.

Jean-Marie Favre (University of Grenoble, France) providedin his keynote address under the title 'Past, Present andFuture of Software Evolution: From Software-Now to Soft-ware-over-Centuries' a view of the size of the territory cov-ered by software evolution studies, both in subject matterand time. He made an analogy between the evolution ofinformatics and the evolution of human societies and pointed

to the importance of looking at software evolution at varioustime scales.

Finally, in the closing panel, Jean-Marie Favre, Massimil-iano di Penta (University of Sannio, Italy) and SergeDemeyer (University of Antwerp, Belgium) presented anddiscussed with the audience their views on the challengesand opportunities facing the software evolution researchcommunity.

Links:

Workshop Web site: http://evol08.inria.frWorking Group Web site: http://w3.umh.ac.be/evol/

Please contact:

For information on the workshop:Michel WermelingerThe Open University, UKTel: +44 1908 659 539E-mail: [email protected]

For information on the EVOL Working Group:Tom MensUniversité de Mons-Hainaut, BelgiumTel: +32 65 37 3453E-mail: [email protected]


Interlink ConsolidationWorkshopby Dimitris Plexousakis

The ERCIM-led Future and Emerging Technologies (FET)Coordination Action Interlink (International CooperationActivities in Future and Emerging ICTs) held its consoli-dation workshop in Cannes, France on 12-14 November.

Interlink is a two-and-a-half year endeavour aimed at identi-fying new challenges for basic research in three areas ofstrategic importance, namely Software-Intensive Systemsand New Computing Paradigms, Ambient Computing andCommunication Environments, and Intelligent and Cogni-tive Systems. The workshop brought together all three work-ing groups with the goal of finalizing proposals on strategicresearch directions, related disciplines and fundamentalproblems that need to be addressed within the selected areas.

The first day of the workshop began with an overview of theaims and structure of the workshop by Dimitris Plexousakis,FORTH. This was followed by a presentation by Interlink's

project officer, Walter van de Velde from the European Com-mission (EC), on the collaborative research opportunitiesarising within the programme of the FET unit of the EC inforthcoming years. The workshop also featured a number ofinvited talks. Joseph Sifakis (CNRS Grenoble, ACM TuringAward 2007 recipient) delivered the keynote address on theverification of complex software systems. The coordinatorsof the three thematic areas gave an overview of their respec-tive research areas and group proposals, setting the contextfor the Thematic Group invited talks. Stefan Jaehnichen(Fraunhofer Gesellschaft) talked about challenges arising ingrid computing and computing clouds. Ted Selker (MITMedia Lab) presented his research and ideas on context-aware computing and Henrik Christensen (Georgia Tech)elaborated on the study of artificial cognitive systems.

For the second day of the workshop, the three groups workedin parallel with the aim of identifying major challengeswhere significant added value is expected to be gained fromworldwide cooperation. The groups also deliberated on thescientific, technological and societal impact of the researchproposals as well as on knowledge-building mechanisms,research practices, innovation mechanisms and programmesfor sustainable cooperation. On the third day, representativesof the Working Groups and the scientific steering committee

discussed cross-thematic challenges arising at the intersec-tions of the thematic areas. The group identified the vision of'smart cities' (multiscale smart spaces) as a unifying researchtheme in which major challenges relating to the individualareas arise most prominently. The workshop concluded withpresentations of the research proposals of the WorkingGroups as well as of the cross-thematic challenges.

Links:

http://www.ercim.org/interlinkworkshops/ http://interlink.ics.forth.gr.

Please contact:

Dimitris PlexousakisICS-FORTH, GreeceE-mail: [email protected]

The first invited talk, entitled 'System Complexity, Depend-ability and Failures', was given by Brian Randell from New-castle University, UK. Ralf Reussner of Universität Karl-sruhe, Germany, delivered the second, on “Challenges andResults in Component Quality Certification”.

Organization of such a workshop represents a big chal-lenge. We would like to acknowledge the help of the pro-gramme committee members, the additional referees, theorganization committee members, and the support of thescientific, technical and administrative staff of NewcastleUniversity, UK.

The workshop proceedings, ISBN 978-1-60558-275-7, areincluded in the ACM Digital Library.

SERENE 2008 was supported by ERCIM, FNR (Luxem-bourg National Research Fund), the ICT FP7 DEPLOY IP(on Industrial Deployment of System Engineering MethodsProviding High Dependability and Productivity), LASSY(Laboratory for Advanced Software Systems, University ofLuxembourg), School of Computing Science, NewcastleUniversity, and the ICT FP6 ReSIST (Resilience for Surviv-ability in IST) Network of Excellence.

Links:

http://serene.uni.lu/tiki-index.php?page=Serene2008Overviewhttp://serene.uni.lu/tiki-index.php

Please contact:

Nicolas GuelfiERCIM SERENE WG coordinatorLuxembourg UniversityE-mail: [email protected]

Interlink workshop participants.

Joint ERCIM Actions


New ERCIM WorkingGroup on Data and Information Spacesby Ingeborg Torvik Sølvberg

18 September, 2009 was the kick-off date for the newERCIM Working Group on Data and Information Spaces(DIS). The objective of DIS is to build a strong network ofresearchers in the fields of information repositories anddigital libraries and their interoperation.

DIS will focus on issues relating to digital libraries, and thestorage, preservation and curation of all types of data,including primary and scientific data. Intelligent informationmanagement and interoperability and scalability will beaddressed. The development of methods and tools to makedigital, cultural and scientific content available, searchableand accessible to all kinds of users is of special interest.

Eleven ERCIM organizations have registered for the WG,suggesting the topic is relevant and timely for ERCIM mem-bers. At the kick-off meeting, eight organizations were rep-resented by thirteen individuals. Among the issues discussedwas the name of the WG. It was decided to change it fromWorking Group on Digital Libraries to Working Group onData and Information Spaces, DIS. A draft of the work pro-gram for the two years was discussed. The WG intends toinitiate research projects in areas that are of interest to itsmembers, to arrange workshops and to encourage exchangeof researchers and students. The next meeting is the openWorkshop that will take place in Paris on 27 May, 2009 inconjunction with ERCIM's 20th anniversary meeting. Scien-tists interested in participating in the ERCIM DIS WorkingGroup should contact the coordinator.

Link: http://wiki.ercim.org/wg/DIS/

Please contact:

Ingeborg Torvik SølvbergERCIM DIS Working Group chair, NTNU, NorwayE-mail: [email protected]

ERCIM office in BrusselsERCIM opened an office in Brussels in December 2008. Asrequested by ERCIM's Board of Directors, this will enableERCIM to strengthen its links with European Commissionkey players. The new office is ideally located within thepremises of our Italian member, CNR, in B-1050 Brussels,rue du Trône 98, right in the centre of the European quarter.ERCIM is now able to offer a hosting environment forERCIM staff and ERCIM project meetings in Brussels. Theoffice is headed by Pierre Guisset, formerly head of CETIC.

Please contact:

Pierre Guisset, ERCIM office Brussels E-mail: [email protected].

ERCIM at ICT 2008ERCIM had a major presence at ICT 2008 in Lyon,France, on 25-27 November. This bi-annual event,organised by the European Commission InformationSociety and Media Directorate General, attracted over4,500 delegates and presented Europe's priorities forinformation and communication technologies (ICT)research, development and funding.

Through stands and networking sessions related to ERCIMitself or to European projects in which ERCIM is participat-ing, the consortium had its highest exposure ever at"Europe's biggest research event for ICT".

ERCIM was present on its own booth and on the stands ofthe European projects VITALAS (Video & image Indexingand Retrieval in the Large Scale), EchoGRID (European andChinese cooperation on Grid), GridCOMP (Grids Program-ming with Components: an advanced Component Platformfor an effective invisible Grid), EuroIndia (Euro-India ICTCo-operation Initiative), and Digital World Forum on Acces-sible and Inclusive ICT. Networking sessions were held forInterLink (International Cooperation Activities in FutureAnd Emerging ICTs), EchoGRID and EuroIndia.

InterlinkAs a coordination action supported by the EC IST Pro-gramme, InterLink held a networking Session entitled 'Inter-national Cooperation Activities in Future and EmergingICTs'. The aims and results of InterLink were presentedalong with an outlook on opportunities for future interna-tional collaboration. The results presented were the newresearch proposals that came out of the InterLink consolida-tion workshop held in Cannes in November (see article onpage 7).

Euro-IndiaThe Euro-India (Bringing European & Indian Perspectives forfuture ICT Co-operation) played a central role at ICT 2008 byholding a networking session entitled "Euro-Indian ICTCooperation Gateway". Chaired by Hilary Hanahoe, Trust-ITServices, and opened by Alvis Ancans, European Commission,International Relations Unit, DG Information Society & Mediawho illustrated the EU-India ICT R&D cooperation, the sessionattracted more than 50 participants.

After a brief presentation of the India Mentor project(Mentoring Indian IT organisations in the participation in theICT programme of FP7) by Mauro Bianchi (Teseo Sprl, IndiaMentor project coordinator) and the EuroIndia initiative byMogens Kuehn Pedersen (Copenhagen Business School,EuroIndia Project Coordinator), the session continued withkeynote speakers on different topics. Manesh Kulkarni, fromCDAC Pune (India) presented the Digital Libraries projectsin India. Prof. Dilip Kanhere from the centre for modellingand simulation, Pune University (India) explored distributedcomputing. A. Prabaharan from Jawaharlal Nehru University;New Delhi (India) gave an overview on ICT for learning. IPv6,a topic of huge interest was tackled by T R G Nair, director


of research and industry from the Dayanand Sagar Institution(India), while software and services in India were presentedby Prashant Shukla, COO from CMC Ltd (a TATA enterprise).Finally, Krishna Lakshmi Narasimhan, vice president of CranesSoftwares (India) gave an insight into the successful Indianexperience of the AEE (acquire-enhance-expand) model forintellectual property identification, development andcommercialisation.

The session ended with intensive discussions between theparticipants interested in developing or increasing cooperationwith India and interested in understanding more about EU-Indian ICT collaboration. The participants had the opportunityto continue their discussion and to learn more about the IndiaMentor and EuroIndia projects visiting the joint booth locatedin the 'international village'. Visitors viewed a rollingpresentation with quotes on innovation by a select group ofexperts from India. The presentation highlighted India'sleadership in specific ICT areas, and its potential to invent,innovate and make an impact through collaborativedevelopments with Europe.

Delegates were also invited to participate in the series of eventswhich will be held in India in January, such as 'InformationDays' (Mumbai, 20 January 2009; New Delhi, 21 January2009) and the First EuroIndia international conference in NewDelhi, 22-23 January 2009. The conference will take placeduring the 'Indian R&D 2009: ICT Innovation' event, organizedby the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry(FICCI). This multi-faceted event featured keynote talks,parallel sessions on ICT topics of interest to Europe and India,and an exhibition showcasing technological achievements inboth India and Europe. EuroIndia conference will include asession presenting the main outcomes of EuroIndia's initialtechnology road-mapping and a guide on how to get involvedin European Commission-funded projects as well aspresentations in all sessions.

http://www.euroindia-ict.org/

EchoGRID and GridCOMPICT 2008 offered a prime opportunity for EchoGRID andGridCOMP projects to build on their achievements andspearhead synergies with a number of EC-funded projectsand technology platforms. The joint booth of EchoGRID,GridCOMP and BRIDGE (Cooperation between Europe andChina to Develop Grid Application) on "EU & Chinese Co-

operation on Grids, and ProActive/GCM Demonstration", atthe 'International Village', demonstrated the benefits of Gridsacross a range of commercial and public sectors with livedemos from Bridge and GridCOMP showcasing cutting-edge technologies developed with partners from China andother world regions, BRIDGE presented three applicationscenarios designed to demonstrate co-operative design, sim-ulation and data access between European and Chinese part-ners, with special emphasis on the interoperability approachto combine heterogeneous Grid infrastructures, as well as theworkflows in the Bridge application domains. The network-ing session on Thursday 27 November highlighted currentand future developments and areas for future cooperation ofinterest to both Europe and China.

The GridCOMP ProActive/GCM (Grid Component Model)demonstration tackled the increasing need for both improvedbusiness performance and optimal energy efficiency nowfacing enterprise IT. GridCOMP has developed an open-source reference implementation in the ProActive parallelsuite library that enables businesses to globalise their ITinfrastructure while lowering costs and accelerating applica-tions.

Business intelligence often involves data mining and ETL(Extract Transform Load): relevant information from enor-mous files are analysed, extracted, transformed and loadedinto data warehouses in order to support decision makingprocesses. GridCOMP has enhanced these data-mining andETL processes and has delivered a faster response-timecapability for different departments in a Telco-company sce-nario.

The demonstration showed how the GCM provides an easyway to use deployment framework providing interoperabil-ity with a large set of Grid schedulers and middleware. Thisis one of the industrial use cases developed within Grid-COMP by GridSystems (http://www.gridsystems.com/).

Visitors also learnt about the achievements of EchoGRID inconnecting actors from EU and China through a series ofevents in both regions to deliberate top-level challenges fornew computing paradigms and define research prioritiesmoving forward. In particular, the EU-China cooperationworkshop on 28 October 2008 in Beijing, showcased suc-cessful partnerships between China and Europe in Grids,software and services, and e-infrastructures, with the aim offostering future collaborative developments to address new

9

Euro-India booth. Joint EchoGRID, GridCOMP and BRIDGE booth.

Joint ERCIM Actions

challenges. The workshop brought together around one hun-dred European and Chinese representatives, including theEuropean Commission and Chinese Ministry of Science andTechnology officials.

The networking session held on Thursday 27 November2008, was entitled “Priorities for Future Research on Grids:EU & International Perspectives”. This Session looked atdifferent research agendas around Grid from multiple yetcomplementary perspectives, with the future evolution ofdistributed computing and software and services firmly inmind. Each of the hosting projects, EchoGRID, NESSI-GRID (Network European Software and Services Initiative -GRID), CHALLENGERS and 3S (European Community forSoftware & Software Services), gave a brief talk on the mainoutcome of their road-mapping activities and white papers.BRIDGE then took the floor to present current achievementsin Grid developments, paving the way for discussion.

The session brought into focus future research priorities fordistributed computing and software and services defined byEU road-mapping projects both at a European and interna-tional level, featuring success stories on EU and Chinese co-operation on grids.

EchoGRID: http://echogrid.ercim.org/GridCOMP: http://gridcomp.ercim.org

Digital World ForumThe Digital World Forum EU project staffed a booth in the'International Village' of ICT 2008 and issued a press releaseannouncing a public workshop on the role of mobile tech-nologies in fostering social and economic development inAfrica in Maputo, Mozambique, on 1-2 April 2009. In thisworkshop, participants will explore ways to fulfill the poten-tial of mobile phones as a platform for deploying develop-ment-oriented ICT services towards the poorest segments ofpopulations in developing countries, with an emphasis on theAfrican context. DWF also participated in the networkingsession on "Strategic cooperation opportunities with sub-Saharan Africa".

DWF is an FP7-funded project focusing on the use of ICT toleverage economic development in Africa and Latin Amer-ica. The project explores ways in which advantage can betaken of the new model of low-cost technologies in broad-band infrastructure and devices, as well as the explosion ofmobile telephony to bridge the digital divide and help con-nect the hitherto unconnected.

http://www.digitalworldforum.eu/http://www.w3.org/2008/11/mw4dafrica-pressrelease

VITALASThe VITALAS project (Video and image Indexing andreTrievAl in the LArge Scale) project demonstrated atICT'08 the first release of its cross-media search systemwhich combines semantic search, textual and visual con-cepts search, and visual similarity search on a corpus of10,000 annotated images provided by the Belgian newsagency Belga. The system was previously presented to a


large audience during the the Networked and ElectronicMedia Summit in St Malo, France, 13-15 October 2008

The next release of the prototype, VITALAS V2, available inFebruary 2009, will integrate text, video and audio modules.This version will enable audio queries and visual queries,analyse of non-textual content in such a manner that textualannotation from audio and visual content analysis can beautomatically predicted and generated.

http://vitalas.ercim.org/

Launch of ERCIM InnovationThe first edition of 'ERCIM Innovation' was successfullylaunched during the ERCIM cocktail reception attended bysome 200 people, including 30 representatives from the Euro-pean Commission. This brand new magazine aims at commu-nicating ideas and innovations from ERCIM members inorder to facilitate their uptake by business and industry. Inshort, the purpose of this magazine is to foster innovation inEurope thanks to closer relationships between research, aca-demia, standardisation, industry, and investment. This kind ofactivity demonstrates that ERCIM is not only the Europeannetwork of research but also a unique European network ofinnovation. The content for ERCIM Innovation is providedby our new network of technology/knowledge transfer &

innovation experts working in our member institutes, withadditional articles of interest contributed by external innova-tion experts. The magazine is available for download fromthe ERCIM Web site. Printed copies are being distributed to9,000 people throughout Europe and can also be requestedfrom [email protected].

VITALAS at ICT'08.

The first edition of'ERCIM Innovation'.


Engineering SecureComplex SoftwareSystems and ServicesExecutive Summary of the European Commission-ERCIM Seminar on ICT Security

ERCIM and the European Commission jointly organiseda Strategic Seminar on “Engineering Secure ComplexSoftware Systems and Services”. The seminar was heldin Brussels on October 16th 2008 and is the result ofan effort of ERCIM, its Security and Trust ManagementWorking Group, and the European Commission's DGINFSO Unit F5 "Security".

The seminar aimed at collecting the relevant academic andindustrial expertise in secure software engineering (shortly,SSE) and at linking it with industry's best practices in thefield. As the Information Society continues to develop, thesecurity of its supporting ICT infrastructures will grow inimportance. The need for assurance of software systems andservices demands a set of novel engineering methodologiesand tools in order to ensure secure system behaviour. Thereis clearly the urgency and, actually, the opportunity forexploiting synergies of advanced research approaches withindustrial best practices in order to reduce the gap betweentheory and practice.

The specific objectives of the seminar were: • to present the best practices applied in industry and to dis-

cuss latest progress on key R&D initiatives • to encourage the dialogue and promote collaboration

between scientists and industrial players• to identify future key research challenges, in particular in

the context of the evolution towards the Future Internet.

This report briefly describes the main findings of the semi-nar, which was attended by more than 60 stakeholders fromindustry and academia. The full seminar report, agenda, indi-vidual presentations and list of participants are available athttp://www.ercim.org/activity/strategic_seminar.

1. Industrial Best Practices and PerspectivesThe first panel of the seminar addressed industrial best prac-tices in the field and future perspectives. The panellists alsodiscussed about IT frameworks, models and tools requiredfor improving the development of secure software through-out its lifecycle; creating a sound business case for security;promoting software assurance and measurability and testingprocedures for auditing and security compliance purposes;dealing with the increasing complexity of IT systems; and,education, training and awareness initiatives.

Best practicesIn ever changing and global markets, software companiesare continuously developing and improving their proceduresand tools for embedding security in their software systemsand services. A rich set of best practices is now around interms of documents and guidelines that ask for strict devel-opment process control, supervision, or review. Recently,

joint corporate initiatives on secure software were alsolaunched. They clearly demonstrate the great interest thatmajor industrial players and private and public organisationshave in cooperating in this field by sharing and promotingpragmatic approaches and proven software assurance prac-tices. Automated support for best practice enforcement andthe ability to reason about the business impact of security arekey issues to manage security related efforts in an economi-cally feasible way.

Novel IT frameworks, models and tools during all phases of the software lifecycleSoftware security should be an integral part of every phaseof the software lifecycle (ie, from design to deployment,monitoring and auditing). The existence of common ITdevelopment and execution frameworks enforces the use of

best practices and fosters collaborative work towards theirfurther improvement for achieving higher levels of securesoftware. Formalising and describing how the many possibleprocesses and their security requirements have to be organ-ised into an application or system is essential to softwareindustry. Modelling tools could provide the right abstractschemes to make possible the description and assessment ofalternative scenarios for achieving a balanced secure soft-ware solution. Furthermore, industry needs IT tools that sup-port security in the software that it produces or uses and thatare platform- and programming language-agnostic. In fact,industry requires tools that encapsulate specialised knowl-edge by translating underlying theoretical foundations intoconcrete secure software development practices. Such toolshave to be well integrated into development environmentsand be easy to use by non-experts.

Creating the business case for securityDespite the accrued interest of industry on SSE practices,overall, IT security has to compete with several other invest-ment priorities. With squeezing IT budgets and ever-shortertimes to market, how much do managers need to spend on ITsecurity to achieve enough security and when secure issecure enough? Understanding the value that investments onsecure software can add through the product value chain is

Strategic Seminars

With the seminar on "Engineering Secure Complex Software Systemsand Services" the ERCIM Board of Directors embarked on the initia-tive to organise a series of annual strategic seminars on current topicswithin ICT and Mathematics, responding to the need for closer tieswith the European ICT industry.

The rationale behind this strategic decision is manifold: to enhancethe impact of research taking place within ERCIM institutes andWorking Groups by actively disseminating results towards industrialstakeholders; to expose researchers to ongoing research activitieswith an industrial take-up potential; and to help bridge the gapbetween research and industrial practice.

http://www.ercim.org/activity/strategic_seminar/

Joint ERCIM Actions


vital for business and IT managers taking decisions onspending money on security. Specifically, managers need tounderstand how much risk their company is ready to take fora given threat and manage that risk accordingly.

Dealing with assurance, measurability and testingUnderstanding the value of security and assessing and man-aging risks implies putting in place an appropriate set of"controls" at different levels, business, technology orprocesses. Such a control framework would allow preven-tion of vulnerabilities and monitoring compliance with inter-nal or external security requirements, including legal com-pliance. That requires, however, putting in place an appropri-ate set of independent measurement and testing proceduresfor all phases of the software lifecycle as well as metrics forcollecting data, auditing performance and, ultimately, prov-ing/ensuring security by measuring it.

Dealing with increasing levels of complexity of software systemsPresently, the complexity is rapidly increasing when movingfrom the secure engineering of isolated application compo-nents to that of software systems that mix various infrastruc-ture resources with application functionalities. Such soft-ware systems are usually built incrementally resulting in"systems of systems" with functionality often different fromwhat their underlying components were designed for. More-over, they increasingly rely on real-time dynamic composi-tion involving third-party software components and services.Under these circumstances, achieving secure systems andsecure software products is a huge challenge and key busi-ness success factor.

Promoting education and awarenessSecurity conscious and well-educated software architectsand software developers are needed together with moreinvestments on higher-level education, professional and on-the-job training. Dedicated awareness creation initiativeswould also permit to stress the importance of secure soft-ware within managers, software architects, programmers andusers.

2. Research Advances and PerspectivesThe second panel of the seminar focused on promisingresearch directions for engineering secure complex softwaresystems. It addressed the following topics: security require-ments engineering; model-based techniques and automatedtools for the development of complex secure software sys-tems; methods for secure coding and programming; therecent advances on methodologies and tools for the verifica-tion and validation of specifications and code; and finally,the role of risk in the creation of secure "systems of sys-tems".

Security requirements engineering Several security weaknesses originate in the incomplete orconflicting nature of security requirements of software code.Specific expertise, methods and tools should be devoted tothis task. For example, a step-by-step refinement procedure(eg, model-based requirements design) and automated toolswould help security requirements engineers to improve theprocess from requirements elicitation to analysis and to trackthem during the subsequent software development steps.

Also, mechanisms able to pass from negative-form require-ments to more operational ones (as for functional require-ments) should be envisaged. As a whole, security require-ments engineering is an area where progress is possible andpotentially useful in order to answer common softwareindustry needs.

Models for Secure Software EngineeringThe software development process needs several models todeal with domain specific aspects and to identify the correctsecurity solutions to adopt. These models often have to becombined and refined in a way that ensures that the overallsecurity of the final product is kept. Appropriate techniquesto pursue here are model-driven design, security patterns,and case modelling and analysis of "uses" and "abuses".Process description and model checking techniques could beused to validate specific solutions at a given design stage, egfor validating requirements. Design techniques shouldinvolve component-based approaches allowing modular ver-ification – compositionality is in fact a major security chal-lenge related to the scalability and inherent complexity ofICT systems. Another challenge to deal with, from a securitypoint of view, is dynamic change of systems and code anddynamic evolution of system functionalities.

When applicable, formal methods seem to be able to guaran-tee an increased robustness of software. Today, the high costof applying them is an impediment to their larger industrialdeployment. Therefore, one of the research directions withmajor impact would be to embed formal methods in auto-mated development tools in a transparent way for the user.Finally, methods for measuring the trustworthiness of thesoftware systems, is yet another area of importance forindustry where major research efforts are necessary.

Language-based securityLanguage-based security is regarded as the backbone ofsecure software engineering. Indeed, language-based secu-rity techniques and specific type systems allow verifying, atcompile time, the absence of (certain) vulnerabilities andconstrain the run-time execution of applications. In fact, theymove the burden of ensuring the security of the final codefrom the application programmer to the programming envi-ronment developers. Further progress is expected from sev-eral ongoing efforts aimed at embedding information flowmanagement techniques in programming languages such asJava, or at embedding security mechanisms in BusinessProcess Execution Languages used for composing complexservices. A promising research area is developing techniquesfor proving complex properties of cryptographic algorithmsas well as provably correct implementations.

Advances in security verification and validationSeveral rigorous techniques have been developed for check-ing system specifications, such as model checking and theo-rem proving. However, there are still several limitations thatmust be addressed for their wider deployment in industry.Relevant research issues include addressing their scalabilityand coping with the ever-increasing complexity of software-intensive systems. In addition, one needs to take into accountthe uncertainty about the behaviour of the system compo-nents (eg malicious software) as well as external threats.Overall, more research efforts are necessary to make security


ing all the underlying technology components supportingsuch products. A prerequisite for solving software liability issolving the compositionality problem.

Standardisation, education and other relevant issuesCurrently there is a lack of sufficient standardisation in soft-ware security. In some cases, clear specifications are avail-able at a certain level of abstraction, but implementations ofstandards are often not completely in line with these specifi-cations. Robust tools for testing and validating such imple-mentations are necessary.

Often there is a gap between the methodologies that securesoftware engineers are taught in Universities and the knowl-edge they need when working in industry. A closer and moreproductive cooperation is required between industry andacademia in order to produce curricula dealing with bothfoundational knowledge principles and industrial reality.

4. Concluding Remarks The significant participation of both industry and academiarepresentatives at the event is showing the relevance of thetopics addressed. Industry is showing sufficient motivationfor adopting best practices in the SSE field and the scientificcommunity can already bring several methodologies andtools. Targeting specific priorities as some of the ones iden-tified in this report would certainly help to close the gapbetween foundational and practical work. Security and soft-ware engineering need also to be integrated in one coherentframework. As the complexity of ICT systems increases,easy-to-use software tools that encapsulate highly intensivespecialised knowledge need to be developed throughresearch and industrial partnerships. In order to ease thisprocess, industry and academia should share similar expert-ise and adopt the same language and terminology.

Raising current levels of education and awareness in thefield is another main issue emerging from the discussionsheld. Finally, special attention must be given to new forms ofIT infrastructures such as cloud computing, “the internet ofthings” or, more broadly, the Future Internet, that bring newchallenges for secure software as well as new opportunitiesfor industry and business organizations.

Links:

ERCIM Strategic Seminars:http://www.ercim.org/activity/strategic_seminar/

ERCIM WG on Security and Trust Management:http://www.iit.cnr.it/STM-WG/

European Commission's DG INFSO Unit F5 "Security":http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/security/home_en.html

Please contact:

Dimitris Plexousakis, FORTH-ICS, GreeceE-mail: [email protected]

Fabio Martinelli, IIT-CNR, ItalyE-mail: [email protected]

Thomas Skordas, European CommissionE-mail: [email protected]

verification and validation tools usable in practice duringsoftware development at industrial scale.

Advances in risk assessment for systems of systemsRisk is a crucial notion in security and its role in the designof complex systems of systems needs to be further investi-gated. Issues to address here include assessing the complex-ity and the (cyclic) interdependencies inherent in ICT sys-tems, often composed of several parts developed by differentparties; and, assessing risks linked to changes in the lifecy-cle of systems of systems through, for instance, composi-tional risk-assessment methodologies. Embedding risk in anexplicit manner in all the steps of the software developmentlifecycle could help to reduce the cost and make theimprovements in software engineering more concrete.

3. The Way Forward The last panel considered the findings from the two first pan-els and brought up some additional aspects related to: (a)enabling methodologies and tools for building secure com-plex systems and services; (b) software liability aspects; and(c) standardisation, education and other relevant issues forthe field.

Enabling methodologies and tools for building securecomplex software systemsSecurity engineering and software engineering methodolo-gies and platforms should be integrated. The general (wrong)perception is that software engineering is dealing with con-struction of correct software, while security engineering isdealing with the deployment of software. The softwarearchitecture should be the starting basis. Security, managea-bility and scalability should be the main drivers for the soft-ware architects. Industry also needs usable and efficientmethodologies and tools that automate the security of soft-ware code. Formal methods have proven to be useful forchecking security specifications but not really softwareimplementations. It is therefore urgent to undertake furtherwork for bridging the gap between fundamental theories andpragmatic approaches for industry to use.

Industrial software is often built on top of legacy systemsand/or is outsourced. This calls for tools for verifying thesecurity properties and performance of legacy systemsand/or third party software. The composition environmentshould permit to control the security properties of composedsoftware both at the design phase and dynamically, at runtime. Compositionality is a big challenge. Even if a softwaresystem is built from individually trusted components, theoverall system may not be trusted. Modular verification ofsmaller modules may prove to be a good solution in largecomplex systems.

Software liabilityFor the moment, software companies in general and thosecompanies in particular offering packaged software servicesor Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)-based applicationsand services are not liable for the likely damages they maycause due to software vulnerabilities of their products. Asliability may change with time, it is important for companiesto adopt best practices quickly. Should software companiesbecome liable, they would need to become in full control ofall the products, applications and services they sell, includ-


One of the truly multidisciplinary research efforts involvingcomputer scientists revolves around the topic of sensor net-works. It brings together chemists who develop the sensors,engineers focusing on wireless platforms and other hardwarecomponents, and the computer scientists who develop theservices, knowledge layers and middleware. In many cases,research must also include the knowledge workers associ-ated with the specific domain, many of whom are repre-sented in the articles in this issue of ERCIM News. In almostall cases, some aspect of the research will seek to create abridge or bidirectional channel between the physical worldof the planet, its people and the sensors, and the digital worldof computers and their software applications.

The emergence of the Sensor Web concept is due to the pro-liferation of physical devices that are accessible through theinternet and thus, act as an extension to the World Wide Web.Through new hardware peripherals, connected directly to theWeb, automatically interpreted, integrated and transformedfor human interaction, querying and mining, we create theSensor Web.

The Sensor Web provides a platform for new ideas andapplications for different domains. However, each applica-tion domain has its own unique characteristics and the con-cept of a general platform can be developed only for labora-tory tests. As a result, development tends to focus on propri-etary solutions to meet a varied set of requirements.

The breadth of research in the Sensor Web domain isdemonstrated in the articles in this issue of ERCIM News.Wireless networks are necessary to connect to sensordevices that may be physically unreachable. While sensordata is often analysed after sensing has stopped, wirelessnetworks are essential if we are to perform live queries ofsensor output, and adapt the behaviour of the sensor in realtime. Toolkits for maintaining sensor networks, togetherwith standards for processing and managing sensor data,assist in building more powerful and robust networks. Inaddition, new technology for developing and integratingsmaller nodes enables measuring devices to be placed in afar wider range of products. In an increasing number ofapplications and projects, data generated by sensor devicesis of a confidential nature, perhaps in areas such as personalhealth or body networks. This requires the appropriateresearch effort into security for the data transmitted by themany sensor devices inside the networks. Ubiquitous sys-tems will also provide significant data volumes and chal-lenges for the Sensor Web. Similarly, environmental moni-

toring needs to be continuous, integrated and without loss ofdata, requiring the specification and deployment of softwareservices for the Sensor Web. Personal health (or pHealth) net-works are emerging in many research projects and industrialapplications. Wearable sensors transmit a variety of sensedreadings from human participants, which are harvested andundergo semantic interpretation to allow domain specialiststo make informed decisions on the health and increasingly theperformance of individuals in sporting environments. Thereare several commercial products in this field that enableresearchers and companies to develop more advanced solu-tions for the market. Applications of the Sensor Web coveredin this issue include exploration in oil and gas fields, multi-media sensing, life-logging of human actions and interaction,and environmental hazards, demonstrating the multi-discipli-narity of Sensor Web research and highlighting the need tobring expertise from different backgrounds together.

So what issues arise from the articles presented here? Thereis evidence of a large number of sensor networks in differentdisciplines, as already discussed. They incorporate both smallcheap devices and larger customized, proprietary and highlyexpensive devices. In general, the sole difference betweenthem is accuracy. As the smaller, less accurate sensorsbecome cheaper, they will quickly represent the significantmajority of this device type on the Sensor Web. In manycases, more than one sensor will be required to support deci-sion-making processes. This will demand synchronizationand normalization of sensor feeds before integration takesplace. While this presents problems, as highlighted in a num-ber of the articles, the power of the Sensor Web is that it pro-vides an infrastructure for harvesting the data. Historically,significant volumes of data generated by sensing deviceshave been lost, mainly due to a lack of computer scientists inthe research project. This illustrates the gap between thephysical and digital worlds.

The first step in developing a Sensor Web system is the con-struction of a simulation for the planned sensor network. Thisprocess becomes easier with time as the domains and envi-ronments are better understood. However, when designing anew architecture or software service for one of the layers inan architecture, or perhaps for a new domain, precise simula-tion is of considerable help prior to implementation into realcomponents. A necessary requirement is that all layers areaccurately modelled, otherwise the simulation will give mis-leading results. When this step is completed, the physicalprocess of sensor deployment and sensor network construc-tion can begin.

Introduction to the Special Theme

The Sensor Web: Bridging the Physical-Digital Divideby Mark Roantree and Mikko Sallinen

14

Special Theme: The Sensor Web


The first task for computer scientists in Sensor Web researchis to ensure data crosses safely from the physical to the dig-ital world, where it can be processed and manipulated to bet-ter inform us at to how to proceed in the many environmentsin which sensors now exist. In the past, environmental andpersonal health sensor networks have generated large vol-umes of data that were not captured in a digital format. Forexample, sports scientists have for some time been runningsensor-based tests on athletes, in many of which data isrecorded manually and on paper. Even complex sportingequipment such as speed gates that record the velocity ofplayers as they move through various sections of a trainingcourse, will have their data transmitted wirelessly to a hand-held device, which then has no means of transferring the datato a persistent storage mechanism. Eventually, sensor hard-ware will always provide a means of recording and transfer-ring data but in the meantime, it is the role of data manage-ment researchers to devise a means for ensuring that thisdata is recorded electronically and stored in persistent,query-capable systems.

Analysis of the data and uncovering the essential issues fromhuge volumes of information is the next step. If data remainsin the raw format generated by sensors, many knowledgeworkers will be unable to express the complex queries thatare required to extract knowledge or make the assessmentsrequired to adapt the behaviour of sensors within the net-work. The next challenge for computer scientists is to con-vert the raw data into a usable format, preferably one thatcan be queried and updated by standard query languages

such as SQL and XPath or XQuery. It is likely that the XMLquery languages will find widespread use, as data convertedto XML has highly interoperable properties. This is crucialwhen integrating sensor data, both within a single sensor net-work and with the data generated by other sensor networks.

The final challenge is the identification of the most impor-tant issues in each application, eg closing the loop, control-ling parameters, devices or actuators or giving instructions.These tasks should all be completed by accurate miniaturesensors and nodes, wideband data communication, and theutilization of real-time control with minimum or zero powerconsumption. This final step demonstrates the path from theoriginal sensor device through the engineering layersrequired for transmission of data, through the software serv-ices and human interaction, and finally back to the sensor,where the knowledge generated is used to make the sensingdevice more powerful and more accurate. The aspiration forthe Sensor Web is that it should continue to evolve andaddress its limitations, so that the outcomes of the sensor agelead to an improvement in the planet's environment and thehealth of its citizens.

Please contact: Mark Roantree, Dublin City University, IrelandE-mail: [email protected]

Mikko Sallinen, VTT, FinlandE-mail: [email protected]

15

A new ERCIM Working Group on the"Sensor Web" was recently established.Representatives from seven ERCIM mem-bers (IUA, ICS-FORTH, ISTI-CNR,CRCIM, VTT, SARIT and NTNU), partic-ipated in the kick-off meeting on 19 May2008, or expressed their interest in joiningthe Working Group.

Objectives The objectives of the Sensor Web WorkingGroup is to promote and facilitate interac-tions between various R&D groups insideand outside ERCIM, in multidisciplinarythemes relevant to the Sensor Web. TheWorking Group members cover a widerange of ICT skills (software engineers,information management and databasesincluding information retrieval, wirelessapplications, networks, security and e-mobility, ambient and ubiquitous comput-

ing), and through their collaborators havea broad multidisciplinary base. Areas ofinterest to the group include both appliedand basic research. Examples of deploy-ment areas include personal health, envi-ronmental analysis, ambient intelligence,locomotive and large vehicle monitoring,military applications, deployment of per-sonnel in toxic environments, and trafficanalysis.

Future Plans The group intends to establish an ERCIMInternational Conference on the SensorWeb. This should be of a high quality, withthe intention of raising the group's profile,providing a forum for discussing themeaning and scope of the Sensor Web, andattracting new people for future collabora-tions. The launch of a journal on SensorWeb has also been considered for the

longer term. The Working Group ispreparing for the next round of FP7 callsand intends to participate fully withERCIM's Fellowship Programme.

ERCIM Working Groups are open to anyresearcher in the specific scientific field.Scientists interested in participating in theERCIM Sensor Web Working Groupshould contact the coordinator.

Link:

http://wiki.ercim.org/wg/SensorWeb/

Please contact:

Gregory M. P. O'HareSensor Web Working Group chairThe CLARITY Centre for Sensor WebTechnologies, University College Dublin,IrelandE-mail: [email protected]

New ERCIM Working Group on the Sensor Web

The system we propose, AdapSys, isbased on a fundamental unit that canperform at a very high level of abstrac-tion - a multi-level controller and sensorhub that is completely software recon-figurable, including basic and ancillaryfunctionality. In this scheme, each unitcan act as a single complex controller aspart of a locally controlled mesh, whichin turn can be part of a wider distributedor hierarchical control network. All ele-ments of this system consist of the samehardware, but have fundamentally fluidbehaviors based on software adaptivityand reconfigurability.

We want to know what our structuresare doing: structures in the big sense,from our bodies up to large industrialprocesses, airframes and buildings. Thishas traditionally been a troublesome andexpensive problem. Recent improve-ments in sensors based on Micro-Elec-tro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) andin wireless technology have allowed the

proliferation of wireless sensor net-works, and these have completelychanged what we can measure. Eachelement of the network is commonlycalled a 'mote' or smart sensor. Motesare combined into large networks thatallow dense and detailed sensing. Thesenetworks move beyond the idea of asensor as a single instrument measuringone thing, to a comprehensive systemconsisting of many small nodes work-ing cooperatively. Engineering and sci-ence, however, remain captive to thetraditional hierarchical embedded sys-tem. This experience has led us todevise a new monitoring and controlappliance, each interacting in anorganic network.

Here is an example of the current stateof practice. During 2006 a mote net-work was designed, implemented,deployed and tested on the Golden GateBridge in San Francisco, in order tomonitor its structural condition. Sixty-

four motes were distributed over themain span and southern tower (see Fig-ure 1), comprising the largest wirelessvibration sensor network ever installedfor structural health monitoring pur-poses. The spatially dense arrayresulted in an increase in effective sig-nal-to-noise ratio compared to single,isolated, sensors, and most importantlyallowed the higher modes, both verticaland torsional, to be analyzed easily andaccurately.

Deep Underground Science andEngineering Laboratory (DUSEL)DUSEL is a large physics and engineer-ing laboratory being constructed in theold Homestake gold mine in Lead, SD,USA. We are developing a deep in situseismic observatory that will move uscloser to the realization of rapid imag-ing of dynamical geo-processes atdepth. More than 12 000 small-diame-ter (~ 65 mm) exploration holes existthroughout the mine, which we intend



Sensor Networks in the Real Worldby Steven D. Glaser and Tommi Parkkila

At the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, University of California,Berkeley, USA, we have been developing and deploying wireless sensor systems for ten years. Wehave focused on solutions to societal needs. As we ask more and more from our 'motes' and theirlow-power networks, we foresee important applications for sensor and control networks that willrequire a more powerful and flexible solution.

Figure 1: Mote antenna forthe accelerometer package atthe top of the South tower ofthe Golden Gate bridge.

to use as multi-point monitoring probes.Any motion in the rock mass is thussurrounded by multiple receivers,which greatly constrains the inversionback to source movements. This solu-tion led us to propose the AdapSysappliance.

AdapSysAdapSys is an elegant, straightforward,flexible and reconfigurable systemcomprised of Field Programmable GateArray (FPGA)-based units. Each Adap-Sys unit is: (i) a real-time multi-channeldata acquisition platform; (ii) a multi-sensor data aggregator; (iii) a remotelyreprogrammable multilevel controller;(iv) highly portable; (v) distributed; and(vi) an embedded sensing and controlnetwork solution. We envision a groupof AdapSys units controlling, say, alarge paper mill, public conveyancesystems, public safety equipment dur-ing a natural or man-made disaster, oreven an array of wind generators withbuilt-in nondestructive evaluation sys-tems.

AdapSys uses a single FPGA to orches-trate and carry out the application

demand through sensing, control andcomputation. AdapSys is a compoundof flexible, reconfigurable, FPGA-based fundamental system units (seeFigure 2). One of these units can exe-cute the functionality of several micro-controllers through its multi-processorcapabilities. New functionalities can beadded to the system as parallel self-con-tained processor units inside the singleFPGA chip. This allows the system tobe incrementally upgraded in the fieldwhile allowing support of modular ver-ification and certification.

Analyses of the DUSEL results alongwith past experience show thatimproved seismic arrays can be con-structed from a string of accelerometerpods installed along a bore hole. We arecurrently prototyping down-hole son-des based on an Altera FPGA. Thedevice has 24 input channels, both ana-log and digital, with a virtual real-timemachine for each. Within the FPGAthere are also real-time machines for thereal-time clock, bus handling, andnumerous control loops. All memoryfunctions are handled seamlessly withinthe FPGA. Because the heart of the

sonde is now software on the FPGA,there is little need for upgrades to entailphysical hardware replacement; a com-pletely new set of machines can beimplemented by installing new softwareover the Web.

The AdapSys prototype is currentlybeing assembled at the VTT Laboratoryin Oulu. We are planning a jointresearch project with companies fromthe machine and automation industry inFinland, in order to test and refine thesystem in actual field situations.

Please contact:

Steven D. Glaser,Center for Information TechnologyResearch in the Interest of Society,University of California, Berkeley,USAE-mail: [email protected]://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~glaser

Tommi ParkkilaVTT - Technical Research Centre of FinlandE-mail: [email protected]


Figure 2: The fundamental system unit of the AdapSys system., which includes options to act as a wireless sensor network.

A wireless sensor network (WSN) mayrun different applications for differenttasks, such as event detection, localiza-tion, tracking, or monitoring. Differenttypes of sensor node are thereforerequired, and to handle heterogeneousWSNs with a large number of these dif-ferent sensor nodes, a comprehensivemanagement architecture is also neces-sary. We present MARWIS, a Manage-ment Architecture for heterogeneousWireless Sensor Networks, which sup-ports common management tasks suchas visualization, monitoring, (re)config-uration, updating and reprogramming. Ittakes into account the specific character-istics of WSNs and the restricted physi-cal resources of the sensor nodes. Theseinclude battery life, computing power,memory, network bandwidth and linkquality.

One of the main features of MARWIS isits hierarchical architecture. We divide alarge heterogeneous WSN into smallersub-networks, each of which containssensor nodes of one specific type. A

wireless mesh network (WMN) oper-ates as the backbone and builds thecommunication gateway between thesesensor sub-networks, the WSN and theInternet. Wireless mesh nodes performthe management tasks, and are con-trolled by a management station locatedin the Internet. A possible scenario isshown in Figure 1.

The use of a hierarchical architecturehas various advantages. Sensor nodes,which are normally unable to communi-cate with each other due to incompatibleradio chips, can be interconnected usingwireless mesh nodes. Furthermore,dividing a huge WSN into smaller sen-sor sub-networks decreases the numberof hops required to reach each sensornode. Specifically, each sensor nodereaches the next wireless mesh node(which is the communication gateway)within three to four hops. This results inbetter communication performance witha lower round-trip time, lower jitter andless packet loss. A further advantage ofusing a WMN is that a new sensor node

platform can be easily integrated intothe heterogeneous WSN.

The architecture used to manage hetero-geneous WSNs efficiently contains thefollowing structural elements: one ormore management stations, severalmesh nodes as management nodes, sen-sor node gateways plugged into a wire-less mesh node, and the heterogeneoussensor nodes. The management func-tionality is placed on the wireless meshnodes, meaning the resource-limitedsensor nodes have fewer managementfunctions to perform, which in turnreduces memory and computationrequirements. A user can perform man-agement tasks using a management sta-tion, and this can be remotely locatedon the Internet.

Using a graphical user interface, thetopology of the heterogeneous WSNwith all the sensor sub-networks is visu-alized. The status information aboutevery sensor node is monitored and dis-played. This includes hardware features



MARWIS: A Management Platform for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networksby Gerald Wagenknecht, Markus Anwander and Torsten Braun

A heterogeneous wireless sensor network (WSN) contains different types of sensor nodes. Tooperate such a WSN, we present MARWIS (Management ARchitecture for WIreless SensorNetworks). It uses a wireless mesh network as a backbone and offers mechanisms for visualization,monitoring, reconfiguration and updating program code.

Figure 1: A possible MARWIS scenario.

(micro-controller, memory, trans-ceiver), software details (operating sys-tem versions, protocols, applications),dynamic properties (battery, free mem-ory) and, if available, geographicalposition information. The applicationsrunning on the sensor nodes or networkproperties can be reconfigured using theuser interface. Furthermore, updatingand reprogramming the sensor nodes isa very important issue. In large WSNsmanual execution of this task is unfea-sible, and a mechanism to handle itautomatically and dynamically over thenetwork is required. Both the operatingsystem and applications must beupdated, either fully or partially.

The WSN manager located on the meshnodes provides the management func-tionality for the different sensor sub-networks. It consists of three databasesand the MARWIS server with threemodules, as shown in Figure 2.

The WSN information database storesall information about the sensor nodesand the WSN, such as the topology(neighbours, addresses) and states ofthe sensor nodes (battery, memory).The program version database stores allversions of all programs for all plat-forms, which can be installed in the sen-sor nodes. Finally, the sensor valuedatabase stores all data measured by thesensors. To get information about thesensor nodes, first the databases on therelevant mesh node are queried. Thismeans a direct connection to the sensornode is unnecessary, which saves time

and energy. If newer information isrequired, the sensor node can bequeried directly.

The MARWIS server contains threemodules for the management tasks. TheWSN monitor module connects to theWSN information database and to thesensor value database in order to handlerequests from the management station.It also stores data coming from the sen-sor nodes into the databases. The WSNconfigurator module is responsible forthe configuration tasks. It queries prop-erties from the sensor nodes and storesthem in the WSN information database.The code update manager modulestores newly received program images(and related information) in the pro-gram version database and notifies themanagement station about availableprograms.

The Sensor Node agent is the comple-ment of the MARWIS server and per-forms the management tasks on the sen-sor nodes after message exchange withthe MARWIS server.

The architecture is currently beingimplemented and tested in a small real-world testbed. A small Linux distribu-tion (kernel 2.6.14.6) is running on themesh nodes; the MARWIS server isbeing implemented in C using sockets;the databases are managed withMySQL; the API for accessing the data-bases is implemented in C; and Contikiis running on the sensor nodes as theoperating system.

Link:

http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~rvs/research/mancom.html

Please contact:

Gerald WagenknechtUniversity of Bern, SwitzerlandTel: +41 31 511 26 36E-mail: [email protected]

Markus AnwanderUniversity of Bern, SwitzerlandTel: +41 31 511 26 34E-mail: [email protected]

Torsten Braun University of Bern, SwitzerlandTel: +41 31 511 26 31E-mail: [email protected]


Figure 2: The WSN manager provides themanagement functionality for the differentsensor sub-networks. It consists of threedatabases and the MARWIS server withthree modules.

http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~rvs/research/mancom.html



One-way, dedicated data-gathering ITnetworks such as those underlying, forexample, a delivery tracking system,have shown the commercial value ofreal-time control of real-world compo-nents. Building on this, more general-ized applications for wireless sensornetworks (WSNs) are becomingincreasingly apparent and significant in

size and real-world relevance. Concep-tually, the broadest application cate-gories for WSNs involve environmentalinformation, and provide a flexible com-munication and intelligence-gatheringinfrastructure that serves, for example,next-generation business applicationsby allowing them to directly tap into theever greater number of digitally-enabledsensors and actuators that provide inputto and control of their operation.

To unlock this potential, however, twofirst-order problems must be addressed.One is cost: WSNs consist of manysmall computing elements that must becost optimized. In this realm, cost takesthe form of up-front investments inhardware and software plus any subse-quent investments (eg for maintenance).

Minimizing up-front investmentrequires minimum hardware cost, andthis necessitates very efficient softwarerunning on the least expensive and mostcost-effective off-the-shelf chips (or'motes'). Minimizing subsequent invest-ments translates into design require-ments for minimum hardware interac-tion after mote deployment (eg for man-

ual battery change or sys-tem reconfiguration).

The second problem istechnological: a WSN run-time environment must notonly be able to cope withthe broad range of techni-cal challenges imposed onWSNs but it must equallybe accessible beyond thelow-level functionality ofindividual WSN nodes.Here, 'accessible' refers tothree things. First, it mustbe possible to dynamicallyconfigure and reconfigurethe WSN in the field todeal with situations suchas interrupted communica-

tion or WSN node failures. Second, it isnecessary to secure the WSN in orderthat it may be considered a trustedsource of information and reliable per-former of actions in response. Third, theWSN must be well integrated into thelarger infrastructure with which it coop-erates. It must be generally programma-ble by domain specialists to solvedomain-specific problems without deepknowledge of WSN technology andcomponents. Only then are real-worldsolutions possible which link – whilebeing easy to program and deploy – thephysical world of sensors and actuatorswith business processes and applica-tions. The result is the desired improve-ment in the responsiveness of transac-tions, enabling end-to-end processsecurity and reducing cost by effec-

tively using WSNs for data collection,pre-processing and autonomic feed-back.

The IBM Mote Runner run-time envi-ronment for wireless sensor networks,currently under development at theIBM Zurich Research Laboratory, tack-les these challenges in a holistic man-ner. At its core, Mote Runner provides ahigh-performance, resource-efficientvirtual machine that is compatible withhigh-level languages and which shieldsportable applications from hardwarespecifics. It is designed to run on verysmall standard embedded controllersincluding low-power 8-bit processors,thereby reducing initial investmentcosts. Furthermore, it allows program-mers to use object-oriented program-ming languages and development envi-ronments such as C# and Java todevelop portable WSN applications thatmay be dynamically distributed, loaded,updated, and deleted even after theWSN hardware has been deployed,thereby reducing post-deployment andmaintenance costs. All operations andcommunications can be cryptographi-cally protected to establish a trustedexecution environment. Figure 1 illus-trates how this all fits together. Finally,Mote Runner WSN applications pro-vide seamless integration with state-of-the-art back-end infrastructures bymeans of an event-driven processengine, which effectively bridges thegap to large-scale business and scien-tific applications without requiring deeptechnology skills.

Link:

http://www.zurich.ibm.com/moterunner

Please contact:

Thorsten KrampIBM Zürich Research Laboratory,SwitzerlandE-mail: [email protected]

The IBM Mote Runnerby Thorsten Kramp, Michael Baentsch, Thomas Eirich, Marcus Oestreicher, Ivan Romanov and Alexandru Caraças

Wireless sensor networks may well be the next big thing. Nevertheless, a fully business-process-integrated infrastructure for deploying large numbers of sensors and actuators requires a well-designedecosystem. This should combine inexpensive devices with simple, bulletproof device programmability foreasy integration and use by application domain specialists. The IBM Mote Runner system addresses thischallenge with a high-performance, low-footprint middleware platform comprising a hardware-agnosticand language-independent virtual machine together with development and integration tooling to easilycreate and manage applications for open sensor and actuator networks.

Figure 1: IBM Moterunner architecture.


The SANY project focuses on interoper-ability of in-situ sensors and sensor net-works. This is done using both the stan-dards and the on-going work of theOGC (in particular the Sensor WebEnablement suite of standards), OASIS(Organization for the Advancement ofStructured Information Standards) andW3C. The SANY sensor service archi-tecture provides a quick and cost-effi-cient way to reuse data from sensor anddata sources that are currently incompat-ible. Data sources can include live sen-sor data, databases of archived data andmodel-based calculations.

The sensor service architecture and theservice specifications have been madepublicly available on the SANY projectserver, while the SANY specificationsand best practice experience have beencontributed to the OGC standardizationwork. The results are being tested inthree innovative risk management appli-cations covering the areas of air quality,marine risks and geo-hazards.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Informationand Data Processing (IITB) has realizeda testbed for sensors and services inorder to trial the architecture and speci-

fications. At the sensor network level,the ad hoc wireless ZigBee network iscomplemented by simulated sensornodes, which measure properties suchas temperature, humidity, illuminanceand acceleration. The testbed isdesigned for experiments in a widerange of scenarios and scales, such asmobile sensors traversing several net-works. The simulation is implementedas an application in LabVIEW(National Instruments), which has theadditional task of configuring the Zig-Bee nodes. New sensor nodes (eitherreal or simulated) are recognized auto-matically and registered in one of threeOGC Sensor Observation Servers(SOS). The sensor values are theninserted into an SOS as they arise bymeasurement or simulation. The avail-able network resources (observed fea-tures, sensors, services) are registeredin a catalogue server along with meta-data to support resource discovery byclient applications. Clients can find, forexample, information sources for agiven region and observable phenome-non of interest.

Fraunhofer has produced in the testbeda special SOS known as a Fusion SOS,

which is able to aggregate or fuse sen-sor data from several SOSs. The FusionSOS queries the catalogue for availableSOSs of the required type and then con-ducts a selected procedure to produce aspatial or spatio-temporal interpolation.The interpolation result is a so-calledcoverage, a function defined on aspace-time grid of sampling points. Theprocedure takes the inaccuracy of theraw sensor data into account. The spa-tio-temporal uncertainty of the fusionresult is specified using uncertML, anXML schema developed by theINTAMAP (Interoperability and Auto-mated Mapping) project to describe thestatistics of uncertain data. As with theunderlying sensors, the fusion proce-dure is described with the OGC sensormodel language SensorML. In this way,the fusion procedure can be treated as asensor, but with the important charac-teristic that its result is a coverage. Thecoverage can be visualized using a Map& Diagram service from the SANYpartner ETH Zürich.

The procedures developed to date arevariants of the Bayesian MaximumEntropy method that is able to considersoft sensor data (eg where the sensor

A Testbed for Sensor Service Networksby Thomas Usländer and Kym Watson

Working towards 'plug and measure' in sensor networks for environmental monitoring with OpenGeospatial Consortium (OGC) standards, the SANY (Sensors Anywhere) project specifies anarchitecture for all kinds of fixed and moving sensors. This will allow both seamless plug-and-measure capability for sensors in the field, and sharing of information between sensor networks.

Figure 1: Testbed for Sensor Service Networks.



value lies in an interval) and additionalphenomenological knowledge on therelationships between observed proper-ties. If additional sensors or SOSs enterthe testbed, the Fusion SOS discoversthese new resources with the aid of thecatalogue and incorporates the new datasources automatically into the fusionprocedure. The self-describing informa-tion plays an essential role in this plug-and-measure capability.

The Fusion SOS is implemented on theplatform WebGenesis, an informationmanagement server from FraunhoferIITB. The information managementserver contains the information cate-gories features of interest (samplinggrids), procedures and results withassociated metadata to support search-

ing. The intermediate files produced bythe fusion procedure are uploadedtogether with the fusion result to theWebGenesis information managementserver. This ensures a reproducible traceof the processing steps.

On-going work in the testbed involvesthe use of RESTful Web services to pro-vide representations of the networkresources and the development ofmodel-based fusion methods. SANY(Sensors Anywhere) is an FP6 Inte-grated Project co-funded by the Euro-pean Commission within the ThematicPriority 'Information Society Technolo-gies' in the area of ICT for environmen-tal risk management. SANY is a three-year project that started in September2006 and has now completed two of

three development cycles. The SANYconsortium is composed of sixteen part-ners from eight countries. It includesthe two research organizations AustrianResearch Centers (coordinator of theconsortium) and Fraunhofer, six com-panies, three universities, four publicauthorities and the Open GeospatialConsortium Europe (OGC).

Links:

http://www.sany-ip.eu/http://www.opengeospatial.org/

Please contact:

Kym WatsonFraunhofer Institute IITB, GermanyTel: +49 721 6091 486E-mail:[email protected]

The Facilities Management (FM) sub-group of the NEMBES (NetworkedEmbedded Systems) project aims toanswer these questions and more bybringing together a multidisciplinaryteam of architects, civil engineers, com-puter scientists and electronic engineers,who are addressing the issue of net-worked embedded sensor systems in aholistic way across the stack from chipdesign, networking, middleware andservice management. This four-yearproject started in October 2007 and isfunded by the Irish Government'sHigher Education Authority under theProgram for Research in Third LevelInstitutions program. The project is ledby the Centre for Adaptive WirelessSystems, and the FM subgroup is led bythe Informatics Research Unit for Sus-tainable Engineering (IRUSE).

Traditionally, facilities management inthe AEC (Architecture Engineering andConstruction) domain is concerned withinfrastructural facilities management(eg security and emergency manage-

ment or space management) and techni-cal facilities management (eg energymanagement, buildings operation andmaintenance). Within NEMBES-FMwe are extending the application of sen-sors in smart buildings with additionalsensing capabilities and sensor-centricapplications for these areas. However,rather than building application-spe-cific sensor networks and ending upwith isolated silos of non-interoperableand inflexible sensor networks, theproject has adopted a semantic SensorWeb design to give a Web-based, opendistributed system of sensor resourceswithin the building. This enablesresource sharing, resource reallocation,sensor network interoperability, sensordiscovery and intelligent applicationsthat discover and reason over associa-tions, for example between events inspace and time or within a particularcontext.

This is accomplished through the appli-cation of semantic Sensor Web technol-ogy such as SensorML (to describe sen-

sor deployments and capabilities)developed by the OpenGS consortium,and standard W3C Semantic Web tech-nology such as metadata definitionsencoded as RDF (resource descriptionframework) documents. This meansadding formal semantic annotations toexisting standard Sensor Web lan-guages in order to provide semanticdescriptions and enhanced access tosensor data. This is accomplished withmodel references to ontology conceptsthat provide more expressive descrip-tions of and relationships between con-cepts. The use of formal metadata todescribe the sensors' outputs, platforms,locations and control parameters willenable a new generation of flexiblefacilities management applications tobe built.

Efficient and flexible management ofdisparate, decentralized informationsources such as sensor data, buildingoccupancy graphs, facilities manage-ment process models and buildinginformation models will enable smart

Bringing the Semantic Sensor Web to Smart Buildingsby Rob Brennan

Deploying sensor networks in the built environment is not enough to produce smart buildings. Howcan we avoid creating silos of application-specific sensor networks? How can we publish the sensordata in secure, reusable and flexible ways? Can we support end-to-end provisioning of these sensornetworks as an integral part of the building from requirements collection through design,procurement, construction, commissioning and facilities management operations?


FM applications for buildings with mul-tiple occupying organizations and a dis-tribution of facilities managementauthority across different managementroles. The long-term vision of the groupis to enable ambient intelligence withinthe smart building. In this scenario,building information models combinedwith location-sensing technology willallow the distribution of context-spe-cific data to facilitate the monitoring ofmaintenance activity progress, ie the'ambient interaction' of inspection andmaintenance personnel with the fabricof the building itself. Examples of thebenefits of this technology will includeassisting facilities management staffwith automatic monitoring and supportof health and safety routine procedures;avoiding illegal occupation density inpublic spaces by triggering security per-sonnel actions; and more effective facil-ity space and relocation managementvia automatic inventory item tracking.Smart infrastructural FM applicationsthat easily integrate new personnel,inventory items, sensors and use-caseswithout the intervention of dedicated ITpersonnel, will instead have these tasksperformed by FM personnel and theirdelegates within the organizationsoccupying the building. They will addi-tionally support seamless process inte-gration between local FM activities andexternal third parties such as contractmaintenance engineers, visitors, short-term occupants (eg conference organiz-ers) and security or emergency responseteams.

This project also goes beyond tradi-tional ICT standardization to embracethe major AEC domain IT standardssuch as the IFC (Industry FoundationClasses), used for describing models ofbuildings in CAD tools and AEC con-struction requirements and project man-agement tools. Integrating our workwith the IFC standards will enable adialogue with the ACE domain experts,thereby encouraging rapid integrationof semantic Sensor Web technology inACE tools and business practices. Theproject consortium is fortunate toinclude the Environmental ResearchInstitute at UCC, a live smart building,in which sensor networks and buildinginformation models are combined withSemantic Web technology to provide aunique testbed.

Links:

The NEMBES project website:http://www.nembes.org

The Knowledge and Data EngineeringGroup, Trinity College Dublin:http://kdeg.cs.tcd.ie/

The Centre for Adaptive WirelessSystems, Cork Institute of Technology:http://www.aws.cit.ie/

Informatics Research Unit forSustainable Engineering (IRUSE)http://zuse.ucc.ie/iruse/

Please contact:

Rob BrennanKnowledge and Data EngineeringGroup, Trinity College Dublin, IrelandTel: +353 1 896 8426E-mail: [email protected]

Figure 1: The NEMBES project.



At the heart of these new standards is aconceptual model for Observations andMeasurements (O&M, [OGC 07-022r1,OGC 07-002r3]). It says simply that anObservation is an action whose Result isan estimate of the value of some Prop-erty of a Feature-of-interest, obtainedusing a specified Procedure (Figure 1:The 'Observations and Measurements'conceptual model.). Each of these coreO&M information classes may be

extended to specific sensor applications(see box).

The abstract O&M model may beapplied across the spectrum of sensorapplications and deployments, and pro-vides a framework for buildingexchange standards and service inter-faces for accessing sensor data and con-textual information (Figure 2: The Sen-sor Web standards stack.). For example,

the Sensor Observation Service (SOS,[OGC 06-009r6]) provides a Web serv-ice interface for retrieving filteredobservations or related information(feature-of-interest, sensor parameters,observation results). Individual sensorobservations may be aggregated withinone service into combined 'observationofferings' and multiple services may befederated into single access points. TheSensor Model Language (SensorML,[OGC 07-000]) is an XML language fordescribing observation procedures andsensor types. Other related standardsinclude the Transducer Markup Lan-guage (TML, [OGC 06-010r6]) fortransducers and transducer systems, theSensor Planning Service (SPS, [OGC07-014r3]) for tasking and schedulingobservation requests with sensor sys-tems (eg by satellite remote-sensinginstruments), and the Sensor Alert Ser-vice (SAS, [OGC 06-028r3]) for settingup notification subscriptions for spe-cific sensor events.

These new standards are being devel-oped by the Open Geospatial Consor-tium (OGC), a non-profit de facto inter-national standards body for geographicinformation. OGC members span gov-ernment, academia and industry. Orga-nizations contributing to the O&Mspecification include CSIRO (AU) aseditor, Geoscience Australia (AU), Uni-versity of Alabama in Huntsville (US),Image Matters LLC (US), WashingtonUniversity (US), Science and Technol-ogy Facilities Council (UK), SeiCorpInc. (US), Galdos Systems Inc. (CA),Geospatial Research & Consulting(DE), PCI Geomatics (CA), and TexasA&M University (US).

Research undertaken through globalcollaborations of experts, often in thecontext of coordinated internationalengineering testbed activities (the OGCWeb Service Initiatives) accelerates thedevelopment of interoperability stan-

Building the Sensor Web – Standard by Standardby Andrew Woolf

An explosion in the instrumentation of our environment using sensors of all descriptions is drivingthe development of infrastructure to manage the wealth of information they collect. The Sensor Webaims to simplify the publication of, and access to, sensor resources, just as the World Wide Web hasdone for documents. And, as with the WWW, the Sensor Web relies on new information andcommunication standards for structuring sensor information and its exchange.

Figure 2: Figure Two: “The Sensor Web standards stack.

Figure 1: The 'Observations and Measurements' conceptual model.

dards and protocols. With sufficientmaturity, these specifications will beproposed for de jure standardizationthrough the International Organizationfor Standardization (ISO).

The O&M conceptual model has beensubstantially developed since 2002through such initiatives (OWS-1.2 andOWS-3). It was finally approved in2008 for Version One publication byOGC, and is being progressed as a newISO standard 19156 (see links below).

A growing awareness of the impor-tance of environmental monitoring forthe health of our planet is leading to thedevelopment of large-scale infrastruc-tures that transcend national bound-aries. Through a ten-year implementa-tion plan, the Group on Earth Observa-tions (a grouping of 76 national gov-ernments and other international organ-izations) aims to integrate existingobservation networks into a GlobalEarth Observation System of Systems(GEOSS) to achieve comprehensive,coordinated and sustained observationof the Earth system.

Within Europe, a recent Directive(2007/2/EC) will establish the 'Infra-structure for Spatial Information inEurope' (INSPIRE) to integrate envi-ronmental data across all memberstates. The 'Kopernikus' partnershipbetween the European Commissionand the European Space Agency willestablish core operational services (egocean forecasting, landcover monitor-ing, emergency response) for the globalenvironment and civil security. Thesethree global-scale initiatives all requirestandard information models and net-work services for integrating sensordata – both in situ and remotely sensed(spaceborne and airborne).

An underlying abstract architecturalapproach is used to develop Sensor Webstandards. The Reference Model forOpen Distributed Processing (RM-ODP, [ISO/IEC 10746]) factors a dis-tributed system like a Sensor Web intofive complementary viewpoints: enter-prise (roles, scope and policies of thesystem), information (semantics ofinformation and information process-ing), computational (service interfaces),engineering (component distributionacross nodes) and technology (imple-mentation choices). Against this model,O&M provides the information view-

point, while service standards like SOSand SPS provide the computationalviewpoint.

Within the broader context of ICT inno-vation, Sensor Web standards build onkey W3C specifications (XML, Webservices). There is a growing movetowards richer semantics, for describingobserved properties and their relation-ships; for instance, ISO 19150 is a newstandard for the use of ontologies withgeographic information. An importantprinciple is the decomposition ofdomains of governance – identifyingresponsible parties with a remit formanaging agreed vocabularies and con-cepts on behalf of a community of inter-est (eg definitions of particular sensorsystems and observables). This isrequired in order to facilitate reuse ofmodels and enhance interoperability.

While much of the Sensor Web stan-dardization work has so far been devel-opmental, there are beginning to

emerge practical demonstrations oftheir effectiveness. Demonstrators likethe US-based OpenIOOS testbed for anIntegrated Ocean Observing Systemand projects like the European 'SensorsAnywhere' (SANY) FP6 IntegratedProject are validating the application ofthese standards in real Sensor Webapplications.

Links:

http://www.opengeospatial.org/http://www.earthobservations.orghttp://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/markets-technologies/swehttp://www.isotc211.org/http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/http://ec.europa.eu/gmes/index_en.htmhttp://www.sany-ip.eu

Please contact:

Andrew Woolfe-Science Centre, STFC RutherfordAppleton Laboratory, UKTel: +44 1235 778027E-mail: [email protected]


A cruise ship measures seawater temperature (O&M observed Property) alonga North Atlantic cruise track (O&M Feature-of-interest) using a thermosalino-graph (O&M Procedure), and produces a series of data values {19.2°C, 18.7°C,...} (O&M Observation result).

The SOS GetObservation operation is used to retrieve the entire observationand its context; DescribeSensor will return thermosalinograph details; GetFea-tureOfInterest provides details of the cruise track; while GetResult returns justnumerical temperature values.

Example: Marine Science Observation

Figure 3: O&M example – marine research cruise.

http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/markets-technologies/swe



The implementation of Web service-enabled sensors and actuators on pro-duction lines will permanently changethe way in which future automation sys-tems are designed and implemented.Current interfaces to automation com-ponents are largely vendor-specific,restricting the reconfiguration of linesand the management of line data acrossenterprises. Outside the automationdomain, enterprise system developmenthas seen real-time data linkage takegreat steps in the office, warehouse andsupply chain. Research into the use ofWeb-service-enabled sensors and actua-tors has the potential to present an openstandards-based method to integrateproduction lines into this enterprisecomputing model, an innovation thatwill revolutionize automation in future

manufacturing plants and remove con-trol from vendors back to users.

ImplementationThe SOCRADES and SODA (Service-Oriented Device and Delivery Architec-ture) projects have conducted researchand trials into automation based onservice-oriented architecture (SOA),and in the past year have delivered ini-tial prototypes. At the recent ITEAexhibition in Rotterdam, a test rigdeveloped with Ford was used todemonstrate SOA-based sensor andactuator data being used to managemonitoring and control applications.The data was fed to project partners inthe Enterprise computing field (SAP)and industrial automation sector (ARCInformatique). The demonstrator illus-

trated how the production data could becombined with other enterprise data toimprove the accuracy of decisions relat-ing to production routing and supplychain management.

During the demonstration, data fromthe sensors and actuators on the produc-tion line was transmitted by equipmentcreated by Schneider Electric. Thisequipment consisted of Web-service-enabled Field Terminal Blocks (FTBs),which support the Device Profile forWeb Services (DPWS) toolkit. TheDPWS toolkit is designed for embed-ded systems and has a small memoryfootprint, but also contains a selectionof Web service standards to suit thedemands of an automation environ-ment. Both projects are working on

Revolutionising Sensor Based Automation in Manufacturingby R Harrison, F Jammes, H Smit and T Kirkham

Increased access to device-level automation components is closing the final gap in the enterprisecomputing model.

Figure 1: Vision of service-enabledautomation.

FTB Services

Element Logic and

I/O

Orchestrator

Human MachineInterface

SAPSCADA

Each Element

Mode Status

Rig Sensors and Actuators

Each Element

Figure 2: ITEA exhibition architecture and rig picture showing FTB location.


these demands, which are focused onexecution timing and reliable/efficientmessage delivery. The FTB is a piece ofhardware that contains an ARM 9 chipdeveloped to support the DPWS toolkit.

The support of DPWS on the FTBallows Web service interfaces to bedeveloped to the device-level I/Owithin the line. For example, calls todirectly command an actuator or moni-tor specific sensors on lines can bemade via Web services located on avariety of applications, as opposed tospecific vendor control devices. Thecontrol of devices by Web services hasbeen achieved using central Web serv-ice orchestration and also on a smaller-scale peer-to-peer choreography.

FutureDevice-level automation componentsthat produce data in standard and openforms will be faster to reconfigure,

reducing costs by improving resourceusage and reducing downtime. Thegreater accuracy and real-time access toproduct-level data will further enhanceenterprises by allowing them to makemore accurate decisions regarding pro-duction and supply chain matters. Theapplication of the results from theseresearch projects in real manufacturingenvironments will be the subject offuture work that should confirm thesefindings. The adoption of the approachwill also be dependent on furtherresearch in the areas of safety, securityand real-time execution of devices.

Direct SOA linkage to sensors and actu-ators moves a traditionally vendor-spe-cific computing area into a new opendomain, ready to link with existinginnovations in enterprise computing.For the manufacturer this will improveperformance and reduce costs. How-ever, this is dependent on the continued

development of devices such as theFTB, pioneered in the SOCRADES andSODA projects to support this newvision.

Links:

SOCRADES: http://www.socrades.eu

SODA: http://www.soda-itea.org

Device Profile for Web Services homepage including link to specification:http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2006/02/devprof/

Please contact:

Tom KirkhamLoughborough University,Leicestershire, UKE-mail: [email protected]

In our work we focus on link key estab-lishment in the memory- and computa-tion-restricted environment of wirelesssensor networks (WSNs). We alsostudy how link security behaves undera selected attack and what methods canbe used to strengthen the resilience ofWSNs against compromise. We baseour work on the assumption that a par-tial compromise in WSNs is inevitableand network architecture should be pre-pared to cope with related securityissues. We work with two basic linkkey establishment concepts based onsymmetric cryptography: memory-effi-cient probabilistic pre-distributions(Eschenauer & Gligor, 2002) and light-weight key exchange without pre-dis-tributed secrets (Anderson et al, 2004).These two key distribution conceptsbehave differently when the network isattacked. Analysis of the resulting com-promised patterns has led to the pro-posal of mechanisms for improving thenetwork resiliency based on supportfrom neighbouring nodes.

While the resiliency of probabilisticpre-distribution schemes generallyincreases when more keys can be putinto a key ring on every single node,such an increase is limited by the nodestorage capacity. Our multiparty proto-col creates a large virtual key ring in anefficient and secure way from the keyrings of separate nodes. This results in asubstantial increase in resilience of theunderlying probabilistic key pre-distri-bution scheme against the threat ofnode capturing. The protocol performssimilarly to the hypercube pre-distribu-tion (Liu & Ning, 2003) but is moresuitable for scenarios with randomdeployment and unknown link compro-mise status. The proposed protocolitself is also resilient against partialcompromise inside a group of support-ing neighbours.

Our former work exploited non-unifor-mity of link compromise patterns inkey infection, and led to a secrecyamplification (SA) protocol with a sig-

nificantly better fraction of securelinks than previously published SAprotocols, especially for denser net-works. We applied SA protocols ofpartially compromised networksresulting from node capture whenprobabilistic key pre-distribution areused, and provided analytical and sim-ulation evidence that SA protocolswork even better here. On average, SAprotocols secure more links for proba-bilistic pre-distribution than for keyinfection, when networks with thesame percentage of initially compro-mised links are assumed. When the SAprotocols are applied, a network withhalf of its links compromised can bemade reasonably secure with less than10% of compromised links.

Some combinations of SA protocolsthat worked for key infection do notincrease the number of secure links inprobabilistic pre-distribution and thusonly impose unnecessary communica-tions overhead. Instead of analysing

Security and Robustness of Wireless Sensor Networks by Václav Matyáš and Petr Švenda

Researchers at Masaryk University, Brno, are working on security issues relating to large-scale,highly distributed and relatively dense wireless sensor networks.

http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2006/0



each separate compromise pattern aris-ing from the combination of a particu-lar key distribution method andattacker strategy, we proposed an auto-mated approach based on the combina-tion of a protocol generator and net-work simulator. We utilize evolution-ary algorithms to facilitate guidedsearches for high-performance SA pro-tocols created as a series of elementaryinstructions. Every candidate protocolis evaluated on our network simulatorfor a particular compromise pattern(see Figure 1).

Using this method, we were able toautomatically re-invent all the human-designed SA protocols of which wewere aware, and to find a new protocolthat outperforms these. Moreover, weproposed an alternative construction ofSA protocols that exhibits only a linear(instead of exponential) increase in nec-essary messages when the number ofneighbours in the communication range(network density) is growing, and weachieved comparable performance toprotocols with original message-expen-sive assumptions providing energy-effi-cient SA protocols. With respect to clas-sical human-made protocols, anincrease in the number of secure linkswas obtained by an efficient combina-tion of the simpler protocols and anunconventional interleaving of elemen-tary instructions. These allow protocolsto be executed even when one of theparticipants is out of radio transmissionrange.

Our current work focuses on the con-cept of automatic search for attack

strategies with demonstrative applica-tions to link key security for probabilis-tic pre-distribution and key infectionapproach. New attacks are generatedeither as a recombination of existingattacks or as completely novel attacksautomatically assembled from elemen-tary attacker actions. They are thenevaluated on a network simulator or ina real system. Attacker strategies thatincrease the number of compromisedlinks with respect to several determinis-tic algorithms or random cases werefound. Initial results for attacks againstselected routing protocols show goodprospects for an automated search forselective jamming, message droppingand neighbour overloading to achieve aspecific attacker goal such as increasingrouting path length, message latency orconcentrating routed messages.

Due to battery power limits and takinginto consideration the high communica-tions overhead exposed by currentreplication detection, the reputationmanagement mechanisms that havebeen proposed so far are often notaffordable. We are currently designingprevention, detection and reaction tech-niques for the network. Rather thanaiming for perfect security, which isparticularly hard to achieve in WSNs,the aim is to force attackers to makedisadvantageous trade-offs in terms ofcomputational time, energy or othercosts. Due to the diversity of usage sce-narios, there is a need to develop aneconomical/mathematical model thatwould help to find a near-optimal solu-tion for a particular combination of net-work usage and available resources.

Link:

A technical report covering some ofthe issues discussed above:http://www.fi.muni.cz/reports/files/2007/FIMU-RS-2007-05.pdf

Please contact:

Václav MatyášMasaryk University, Brno – CRCIM,Czech RepublicTel: +420 549 49 5165E-mail: [email protected]

Figure 1: Automatic generation ofsecrecy amplification protocols.

http://www.fi.muni.cz/reports/files/2007/FIMU-RS-2007-05.pdf


Wireless sensor networks processingsensitive data are facing the risks of datamanipulation, data fraud and sensordestruction or replacement. This con-cerns applications such as the gatheringof data on environmental pollutionaround industrial installations, or sensorsystems replacing traditional videomonitoring. Large-scale deployment inpractice is conditioned by solving thesekinds of security problem and reducingthe risks due to limited physical protec-tion of the devices and openness of thewireless communication channel. Whilemodern cryptography and computersecurity offer many ways of solvingthese problems, they are focused onsolutions for high-performance devices,and not for computationally weak sen-sors with limited communication band-width. New 'lightweight' solutions tai-lored for the special needs of wirelesssensor networks have to be designed.This is one of the focal points of the EUproject FRONTS (Foundations of Adap-tive Networked Societies of Tiny Arte-facts). Fortunately, some recent devel-opments have shown that without heavycryptographic technology it is still pos-sible to achieve a fair level of security ina practical sense. This report indicates afew ideas of this kind.

Due to the energy required for transmis-sion over long distances, it is often agood idea to route data along a sensornetwork by making many hops oversmall distances instead of a direct trans-mission from a sensor to the sink node.However, such a solution has the disad-

vantage that an adversary can attack thenetwork by gaining control over inter-mediate sensor nodes. The cryptographyused by such devices is usually weakand can provide opportunities to revealinformation sent or to manipulate them.

The following idea may be applied inorder to make it much more difficult tocarry out attacks. Instead of a singleinformation path, each message is sentover a double path. This means thatinstead of a single ith node Ni we havetwo nodes: Pi and Ri. The encryption

scheme has the following basic proper-ties when processing a message M: • Pi+1 receives encrypted messages

from Pi and Ri in order to compute itsshare of message M,

• Ri+1 receives different encryptedmessages from Pi and Ri in order tocompute its share of M.

The encryption scheme guarantees thatcorrupting either Pi or Ri reveals noinformation about M. Also, combiningthe shares from different stages of mes-sage processing gives no information

Security Challenges for Wireless Sensor Networks– Dynamic Routing as a Security Paradigmby Marek Klonowski, Michał Koza and Mirosław Kutyłowski

Recent work carried out at Wroclaw University of Technology shows that a fair level of security can beachieved for wireless sensor networks without heavy cryptographic technology.

Figure 1: Snapshot of a single routing path.

Figure 2: Encoding details.



about M as long as the adversary hasonly one share from each level of thepath.

What is the advantage of such a design?The main point is that while it might berelatively easy to find and corrupt oneof the nodes (say Pi ) for this to be use-ful, the adversary must still find andcorrupt the matching node Ri . This canbe difficult for purely practical reasons:if each sensor is hidden in the environ-ment, then while the first might befound by chance, the second must befound by a detailed search in the samearea. This could be hard without arous-ing the interest of observers.

Moreover, we propose a far moresophisticated design in which on eachlevel of routing there are many potentialsensors to play the roles of Pi and Ri. Inthis case the adversary usually has to

collect and corrupt many sensors untilthe matching pair is found.

Another step of the design is to makethe path self-evolving: at any time anode may negotiate with its predeces-sors and successors a change of thetransmission key and redirect its dutiesto another node. Since these changescan be made independently and uni-formly at random, the data path mayevolve so fast as to make unfeasible anyattempt at data analysis based on moni-toring radio traffic. Indeed, a cryptana-lytic attack would face the difficultythat assigning the messages to sensor-to-sensor links (and to the pairwisekeys) would be hard, due to the numberof possibilities growing extremely fastas the number of links increases.

The architecture described here is cur-rently being analysed from the point of

view of hiding the transmission routesin the case of heavy traffic, under theassumption that an adversary can selectthe traffic coming out of each node.This involves studies concerning com-binatorial issues of traffic analysis aswell as stochastic investigations of therapid mixing of Markov chains. Furtherdetails of the scheme will be developedin cooperation with other partners of theproject; in particular, we plan todevelop a prototype of the system.

Link:

FRONTS: http://fronts.cti.gr/

Please contact:

Mirosław Kutyłowski Wrocław University of Technology,PolandTel: +48 71 320 21 09 E-mail:[email protected]

It has been estimated that in 2010, thenumber of communicating devices willbe a thousand times greater than thenumber of mobile phones, which isalready more than one billion. Whenconnecting devices such as variousmachines, actuators and sensors to theInternet, novel types of service areenabled. Previously, such devices com-municated with services using technol-ogy such as SMS. The applications werevendor or domain-specific closed sys-tems, for which achieving interoperabil-ity with other vendor/domain systemswas challenging. The Usenet (Ubiqui-tous M2M Service Networks) projectaims to enable ubiquitous machine-to-machine (M2M) service networks, inwhich the M2M infrastructure is able toconnect and combine services producedin different domains in an interoperableway (see Figure 1).

The Usenet ProjectCurrently, no universally applicableM2M service infrastructure exists thatwould allow interoperation between

devices and their enabled applicationsin wired and wireless systems, regard-less of the supplier. Information tech-nology applications usually operate asseparate M2M solutions that areunaware of each other. As a result, anumber of business opportunitiesremain unexploited as the services pro-vided by the devices cannot be placedon the Internet.

The three-year Usenet project fundedby the Eureka/ITEA2 programme isdeveloping a service concept for solv-ing the above interoperability problems.M2M services refer to the servicesresulting from collection, transmissionand processing of information, andestablish an interactive system with theremote devices that are ultimately inte-grated within a managed M2M softwaresystem. The project has generated newtypes of M2M service scenario, whichare related to ubiquitous building infra-structure, machine tools, consumerdevices, home automation and telemat-ics domains. The primary goal is to

specify a universally applicable M2Mconcept that will enable the interopera-tion of sophisticated M2M applicationsthrough heterogeneous wired and wire-less IP communication networks.

Made up of seventeen partners, theinternational Usenet consortiumfocuses on M2M research enablingubiquitous M2M service networks. Theproject consortium is led by the VTTand includes industrial, SME andresearch partners from Finland, Bel-gium, France and Spain.

M2M ArchitectureThe system components provided bydifferent suppliers have a strong influ-ence on the structure of M2M systems.M2M systems usually require the inte-gration of components coming fromvarious stakeholders in the value chain:M2M service providers, M2M opera-tors, M2M manufacturers, softwarehouses and M2M system integrators.The referred components need to beinteroperable in order to establish sensi-

Ubiquitous Machine-to-Machine Service Networksby Johanna Kallio and Juhani Latvakoski

In the near future, there will be many more embedded devices than there are mobile phones. Whenthese devices are connected to the Internet, many novel kinds of ubiquitous service will be enabled.


ble business operations. Traditionally,M2M solutions have applied verticalarchitecture and closed solutions. Thishas created challenges in the distribu-tion of added value, which has been abarrier to M2M market enlargement. Ithas been estimated that horizontalarchitecture has better possibilities toboost M2M market.

It is expected that horizontal architec-ture will make it easier for differentplayers to be part of the M2M valuenetwork. For example, an M2M assetdevices manufacturer can offer controland administration services for theirproducts. Communication infrastruc-ture can be connected to these devicesby means of various telecommunica-tions' manufacturers and serviceproviders. Service platforms can utilize

several communication infrastructuresfor collecting data and controllingM2M devices. Smart services can bebased on information, which is col-lected from several service platforms.The challenges of horizontal systemsare related; e.g. the overall quality ofend user services and security, whichinevitably requires the existence of ver-tical interfaces.

Home Surveillance – an M2MApplication ExampleA Usenet M2M application scenario hasbeen implemented to demonstrate thePrivate Space M2M system for residen-tial homes. The purpose of the system isto provide smart surveillance servicesof private space. Various sensors meas-ure quantities such as humidity, temper-ature, light levels and consumption of

water or electricity, and the space ismonitored with a video camera. Theuser is able to follow what is happeningin the system via the home user inter-face (Figure 2), and can control thespace with sensors and actuators con-nected to the space. For example, userscan track the outside and inside temper-atures and are provided with alarms andwarnings of water leaks, unexpectedweather or the presence of a house-breaker. They also have control over thelights, heating and so on. Automaticservices related to control operationscan also be included.

Potential of M2M SystemsM2M systems will provide essentialbusiness possibilities and advantagesfor companies, especially when infor-mation systems controlling their coreprocesses are utilizing the real-timeinformation produced by an M2M sys-tem. In consequence, a company canincrease the quality of its services,reduce costs and increase customer sat-isfaction. This fundamental change,which will bring new business opportu-nities for companies, can already beseen in the market. VTT aims to helpcompanies to take advantage of thisrapidly growing M2M market.

Link:

Usenet project: https://usenet.erve.vtt.fi/

Please contact:

Juhani Latvakoski, Johanna KallioVTT, FinlandTel: +358 40 520 0149E-mail: [email protected],[email protected] 2: User interface of Usenet experimental M2M application.

Figure 1: Ubiquitous M2M service networks.



In recent years, a rapidly growing rangeof wireless communication technologyhas become available and is beingapplied to numerous applicationdomains. One of the latest examples ofshort-range communication technologyis a light and simplified version of Blue-tooth known as Bluetooth ULP (Ultra-Low Power), earlier known as Wibree.Other examples of short-range commu-

nication technology include RFID,Bluetooth, IrDA and Zigbee. From thesetechnologies, IrDA and Bluetooth offera huge number of applications.

New technology will also generate a newbusiness for the service sector which isan important growing market. There aremany areas in which wireless technologywill find ubiquitous application, includ-ing entertainment, healthcare, automo-tive and logistics. These are areas whichhave a huge future market potential.

In industrial or other professional appli-cations, the requirements for accuracy,reliability and timing are typically

higher than in consumer applications.Current applications include measure-ment and wireless data transfer fromthe field to a central unit, as well ascontrol and monitoring applications. Inmany cases this works well, but theproblem is often that even if the datacan be transferred, it is still necessaryto have power cables. Energy harvest-ing and power management is one of

the key issues in the more challengingindustrial applications.

In this article, we use two differenttechnologies. The first is NFC (Near-Field Communication), an RFID-basedtechnology that provides short-rangecommunication at 13.56 MHz licence-free band. The second is the Nanonetradio module, which uses the 2.4 GHzlicence-free band and is manufacturedby Nanotron Ltd.

Touch-based Sensor Readout by NFCNFC can be used to read data from asensor to a mobile handset by touchingthe sensor to the mobile handset. In

more data-intensive sensor applica-tions, NFC can easily establish a Blue-tooth connection between two deviceswhen they are brought close together. Itis not necessary for a user to find thecorrect menu items and configurationparameters on the mobile handset,which makes interaction with the NFC-enabled sensor very elegant. On theother hand, the sensor must be withinthe reach of the user.

For easy piloting of NFC applicationswe have developed Smart NFC Inter-face, a building block that provides NFCand Bluetooth communication capabil-ity to various smart objects. Thus it alsomakes these smart objects capable ofcommunicating with mobile handsets asdepicted in Figure 1. Smart NFC Inter-face incorporates components for short-range wireless communication withmobile handsets, a set of wired inter-faces for sensors and other smartobjects, local data processing and stor-age, and a clock for time stamping themeasurement results and other events.

The advantages of NFC over alternativewireless short-range communicationtechnologies in sensor applications,such as Bluetooth, are its lower powerconsumption, shorter communicationset-up latency and better immunity toeavesdropping. NFC can also operate inpassive mode with extremely lowpower consumption, which means wire-less sensors can have multiple-year bat-tery lifetimes. Even batteryless sensorstaking their power from the RF fieldthat is generated by a nearby activeNFC device are feasible.

In addition, NFC enables simple com-munication based on the TouchMe par-adigm that from the user's viewpoint isfast and convenient compared to plug-ging in cables or manually establishinga Bluetooth connection between thesensor and the mobile handset.

Short-Range Communication in UbiquitousProfessional and Consumer Applicationsby Mikko Sallinen, Esko Strömmer and Pirkka Tukeva

Short-range communication technology is proving its worth in many areas of application. Here weillustrate three case studies involving NFC (Near-Field Communication) and Nanonet radiotechnology. These include a consumer application with the TouchMe paradigm, and professionalapplications for force measurements on train wheels and acceleration measurements on the axisof a paper mill machine. We also show the advantages of these short-range communicationtechnologies and discuss other potential applications.

Smart NFC Interface

NFC(+BT)

NFC-Interfacer

L OCALDAT A

PRO CE S SIN G

RE ALT IME

CL OCK

SH ORTRANGE

WI REL E SSIN TE RFA CE S

WI REDIN TE RFA CE SFO R SMART

DE VICE S

DATAME MO RY

RE CHARGE -ABL E

PO WERSU PPL Y

NFC-Interfacer

L OCALDAT A

PRO CE S SIN G

RE ALT IME

CL OCK

SH ORTRANGE

WI RELE SSIN TE RFA CE S

WI REDIN TE RFA CE SFO R SMART

DE VICE S

DATAME MO RY

RE CHARGE-ABL E

PO WERSU PPL Y

Mobile phone with NFC and

optionalBluetooth

NFC(+BT)

Figure 1: Intelligent interfacing module for smart objects.


Force Measurements on Train WheelsA typical challenge in the industry istaking measurements on rotatingmachines. The difficulty of wiring bothdata and power supply makes this anon-trivial problem. Examples of thiskind of object are wheels, turbines,blades and paper rolls. In this field, thegoals are to optimize construction andmaintenance by condition monitoring,and to be able to foresee the need formaintenance. It would be much moreeffective to carry out maintenancebased on the actual wear of parts, ratherthan based on age as tends to be thecase. In the future, this will lead to sig-nificant savings.

To take force measurements on trainwheels, strain gauges are placed on thesurface of the wheel in the form of a star.The measurements are converted usingFPGA platform and then transferredusing the 2.4 GHz ISM band and 2Mb/swireless link. The power consumptionwhile in use is 60 mA, and 1μA while instandby. Maximum transit power is 10mW. The outdoor range of the radio is100m; when indoors it depends on the

presence of surfaces and walls. Commu-nication with sensors is carried out usingan SPI (serial peripheral interface) inter-face with a 16 Mhz line. This wirelesslink is carried out using NanoNETpower modules by Nanotron.

Nanotron uses 'chirp' modulation tech-nology, which provides benefits such asresistance to multipath fading. In thereceiver side of the measurement sys-tem, the System-on-Chip platformreceives the data. In each wheel thereare twenty pairs of strain gauges thatmeasure the deformation of the wheel.These strain gauges are read at a fre-quency of 3 kHz. The measurements arefiltered to a frequency of 500 Hz andthe data is transferred using 48 channelsfor transformation. It is therefore neces-sary to run several radios in parallel andto carry out high-speed synchroniza-tion. The sampling rate is 290 MHz inthe developed system.

Acceleration Measurements from theAxis of a Paper MillIn the third application, we integrated a3D acceleration measurement system

with the axis of a paper roll. The goalwas to measure the acceleration of theaxis and be able to predict cases inwhich the paper will tear in the papermachine. It is known that tear will occurwhen there is vibration in the axis.For this purpose, a specific measure-ment tool was designed (see Figure 3).It includes a triple-axis accelerationsensor and a transmitter to send onlinemeasurement signals. The challenge inthe task was to successfully transmit asignal through a full paper roll. For thedata transmission, we used the sameradio technology as in the train wheelcase; with this we were able to measureand recognize peaks in the vibrations ofthe axis and the data was transmittedsuccessfully even through the thicknessof the roll.

Please contact:

Mikko SallinenVTT Technical Research Centre, FinlandTel: +358 40 7235263E-mail: [email protected]

Figure 2. Force measurementsfrom a train wheel.

Figure 3: Measurement systeminside the paper roll.



The number and variety of applicationsof robots in our daily environment is onthe increase. Examples include roboticpets (eg Sony Aibo), household appli-ances (eg iRobot vacuum cleanerRoomba) and assistive technology (egthe MANUS wheelchair). At the end of2006, figures for service robots for per-sonal or domestic use stood at nearly 3.5million, with this projected to more thandouble before the end of 2010.

At this point, a principal challenge for therobotics community is the integration ofrobots into today's digital society. Inex-pensive Internet access and the diffusionof wireless computing devices havemade ubiquitous/pervasive computing aviable reality that augments the normalphysical environment and supports thedelivery of services anytime, anywhereto human users. Endowing these ubiqui-tous devices with intelligent behaviour,and thus creating intelligent environ-ments, is termed ambient intelligence.

Robots are a compelling instance ofthose artefacts that comprise and deliverthe ambient space. Modern multi-robotapplications have moved away from thehistorical view of monolithic controlsystems: they run on specific computa-tional units and are in charge of theirown 'hardwired' hardware. They arealready perceived to belong to a larger,open distributed network made up ofdifferent sensors and effectors. Ubiqui-tous robotics further extends this viewby explicitly addressing the need forinteroperability between robots andexisting ubiquitous and pervasive infra-structures, such as wireless sensor net-works (WSNs).

CLARITY is particularly interested inemploying the new testbed in threeoverlapping areas of research:

Integration between Robots and WSNsThe new testbed represents an idealarena in which to develop and test pro-

posed advances in mobile networking,routing, data collection and data analy-sis within the WSN community. Robotsare just another class of user of sensordata, potentially harvested both by theiron-board sensors and by the sensorsalready available in their environment.

Robots can also actively help the sensornetwork, not only by acting on the envi-ronment, but also by helping to deploy,program and maintain sensors; collabo-rating with sensors' localization; and byacting as mobile gateways in multi-hopnetworks. They also push the bound-aries of WSN research by requiringinteroperable and efficient solutions todata collection and online analysis.

Adaptive and Self-OrganisingSoftware ArchitecturesThe need for adaptive and self-organiz-ing software architecture for ubiquitousrobotics emerges from the very samerequirements as for autonomous opera-tions. In traditional networked robotsystems, component integration isessentially an offline feature. In con-trast, these systems demand a moreopen and dynamic approach, as thenature and availability of their hardware

and software components are not stablebut may change at run-time. In order toadapt to such environments, theseapplications must exhibit run-time flex-ibility, such as the ability to reorganizethe interaction patterns of their architec-tural elements during execution. In par-

ticular, Component-Based SoftwareEngineering (CBSE) and Agent-Ori-ented Software Engineering (AOSE)paradigms are natural candidates to pro-vide modular architectures to integrateand dynamically organize the differentsystem functionalities.

Ubiquitous Personal and Social Assistant AgentsNot only will these robots have to dealwith a variety of complicated tasks, butthey will also be expected to behave ina socially intelligent and individualizedmanner in order to meet the diverserequirements of each user. However,reconciling the personalization/socialaspect with pervasiveness and ubiquityremains a largely unexplored area ofresearch. On both fronts, user interfaceagents, eg acting as a personal agentassistant (PAA) to their user, havealready been widely adopted as intelli-

The CLARITY Ubiquitous Robotic Testbedby Gregory O'Hare, Mauro Dragone and Jennifer Treanor

The CLARITY Centre for Sensor Web Technology in Ireland is currently constructing a ubiquitousrobotics testbed by integrating a collective of mobile robots with a wireless sensor network and anumber of portable devices. The new, mixed testbed will be hosted at the School of ComputerScience and Informatics at University College Dublin, (UCD), and will also avail itself of thelaboratory facilities hosted in Dublin City University (DCU) and Tyndall, Cork. The testbed will providea service for all researchers interested in developing ubiquitous robot applications.

Figure 1: Robots at the CLARITY Centre for Sensor Web Technology.


gent, adaptive social interfaces to thedigital world, eg in the form of virtualcharacters interacting with the user viaPCs, PDAs and the Internet. As such,the experience accumulated in theseapplicative domains may be used toinform robotics research. Moreover, asboth software agents and robotsincreasingly inhabit the same humansocial space, their mutual interactionand combined operation within humansocieties will also acquire increasingimportance.

The New TestbedThe new testbed integrates and extendssome pre-existing facilities, specifically:• WSN of 70 Berkeley motes measur-

ing humidity, light and temperature• ten mobile robots, equipped with an

array of state-of-the-art sensors,including USB cameras, laser rangefinders, sonar, infrared, odometersand bumpers. Each robot carries amote able to measure ambient vari-ables, which is also equipped withtriple-axis accelerometers, magne-tometer, compass and microphone

• a variable number of Internet gateways• a variable number of PDAs and mobile

phones equipped with Bluetooth.

Ubiquitous robot systems involve manyinteracting hardware and software com-ponents, and malfunctions in both typesof component can encumber them.Such characteristics pose a considerablechallenge to the application of a strongengineering perspective within robot-ics, as it is difficult to correctly gaugethe accomplishment of specific systemobjectives and guide improvements andfurther developments. For these rea-sons, our research has commenced bydefining a number of logging andinspection facilities.

On the robot side, an XML servicedeveloped in collaboration with theInteroperable Systems Group at DCUwill provide a generic logging servicefor the instrumentation of both CBSEand AOSE frameworks. In addition tooffline analysis, the service will alsosupport hardware-in-the-loop simula-tions (HILS), thanks to synchronizationand replay functionalities that willallow focusing online analyses and sim-ulation over isolated groups of softwaremodules.

The Octopus interactive dashboard,developed at UCD, will be employed to

(i) visualize the topology and behaviourof the WSN through a network map; (ii)log collected parameters for networkanalysis; (iii) localize nodes on a pro-vided 2D floor plan; and (iv) formulateand inject composite queries into thenetwork.

Links:

CLARITY Centre for Sensor WebTechnologies:http://www.clarity-centre.com/CLARITY Ubiquitous RoboticTestbed: http://ubirobot.ucd.ieIFR Statistical Department. 2007 worldrobotics survey: http://www.worldrobotics.org/index.phpThe Interoperable Systems Group atDCU:http://www.computing.dcu.ie/~isg/Octopus: http://www.csi.ucd.ie/content/octopus-dashboard-sensor-networks-visual-control

Please contact:

Gregory M. P. O'HareCLARITY Centre for Sensor WebTechnologies, University CollegeDublin, IrelandE-mail: [email protected]

While RFID technology promises manyuseful applications, such as improvedsafety, easier and faster interactions,reduced error in data input and automa-tion of tedious processes, it also raisesserious concerns – in particular the pri-vacy issue. In a world where many per-sonal objects are electronically identi-fied, the activities of individuals couldbe traceable in a similar, though muchmore comprehensive, way to 'googling'someone today on the Internet.

An important cause of this issue is thatRFID systems are usually based on the

concept of global identification, associ-ated directory services or tracking data-bases. However, technically RFID arejust small memory devices that can beaddressed by near-field communica-tion, and although identification hasbeen the main application target, thesedevices provide support for alternativemechanisms.

We will now present such an alterna-tive, through the example of the 'Ubi-Check' service, a solution to a commonproblem when travelling: it is unfortu-nately quite easy to forget something.

For example, security procedures in air-ports require that your personal effectsare checked separately from you by X-rays. Forgetting one of your items, ormistakenly exchanging a similar itemwith someone else occurs frequently.Solutions have been proposed for thisproblem, based on active tags attachedto the items that are monitored by anowner tag. This is impractical for sev-eral reasons: active tags are expensive,they require batteries (and hence regu-lar maintenance), radio emissions maybe restricted by regulations (on planesfor example), and temporarily separat-

Beyond RFID: The Ubiquitous Near-Field Distributed Memoryby Paul Couderc and Michel Banâtre

The upcoming radio frequency indentification (RFID) revolution will undoubtedly contribute to theblending of the information society with the physical world: while common 'communicating objects'are currently restricted to complex electronic devices such as cell phones, cameras etc, RFID is infact able to promote anything as a communicating object. In such a new world, data will notnecessarily always flow into computers and networks, but may be physically retained by objectsmoving in real space.

http://www.csi.ucd.ie/content/octopusdashboard-sensor-networks-visual-control



ing an item from its owner wouldrequire the alarm to be disabled.

Ubi-Check represents another solutionusing RFID tags attached to the items. Itis possible to write in the memory of thetags the data required to check theintegrity of the group of items. One pos-sible implementation is to compute adigital certificate from the identifiers ofall the items. An important aspect is thatthe identifiers associated with each itemcan be regenerated regularly (eg foreach trip): they are only used for alocally computed integrity check, notfor identification. The values could bewritten in the tags at, for example, theairport check-in, the train station, oreven when leaving home. Then, at rele-vant points after the area in which peo-ple are vulnerable to item loss orexchange, we deploy checking gates(such as the exit of the security check inairports, or the exit gate of a plane or atrain). These gates would ensure theintegrity of groups of items crossingthem, warning people in the case of amissing item or the presence of some-one else's item.

This solution is a distributed systemwhere only local properties are checkedin order to ensure a global goal. In fact,it uses a principle similar to the trans-mission of a file in independent frag-ments over a packet network, whereintegrity is verified by checkingsequence number coherency or check-sums, except that here the data are car-ried by 'physical' fragments. Such asolution is interesting because whileproviding a security service, it avoids

the privacy concerns of many otherRFID approaches. Specifically, trackingof individuals is not easy, since the tags'content may change often for the sameperson and same set of objects. Further,the system is not based on identifica-tion, ensuring greater privacy.

Another interesting aspect is that check-points and association points areautonomous and only carry local pro-cessing. The system is therefore not

dependent on a remote information sys-tem. This has important benefits interms of extensibility, reliability anddeployment costs.

This service is an example of a moregeneral usage of near-field communica-tion beyond identification. As men-tioned previously, this technology con-sists of memory devices, a basic andgeneric support for computing, obvi-ously not limited to storing identifiers.

Another application example is to useRFID to build distributed maps forrobotic support. In the Roboswarmproject we consider very simple robotswith limited knowledge and sensors. Inorder for them to navigate, RFID tagsare arranged in the space where therobots are working. Each tag containsrelative spatial references pointing tothe nearest tags, effectively making agraph. These pointers allow a robot toreach one tag from another, assumingthat odometry drift is low enough whilemoving the distance separating twotags. In this distributed map example,the memory is distributed quite thinlyover the physical space. As near-fieldcommunication technology gets betterand cheaper, denser and more ubiqui-tous memories are likely to emerge inthe environment, with computing appli-cations that we are yet to imagine.While the industrial promoters ofRFID/NFC are mostly concentrating onapplications based on identification,almost anything can be done with mem-ory devices, including systems thatrespect privacy. A key question to mak-ing this possible is: will there existcompletely 'blank' or free-format tags,without any pre-existing and non-rewritable identifier?

Link:

http://www.irisa.fr/aces/

Please contact:

Paul CoudercCentre de recherche INRIA Rennes -Bretagne Atlantique, FranceTel: +33 2 99 84 72 92E-mail: [email protected]

Figure 1: Ubi-Check: integrity checkingusing a collection of eletronic tags

Due to the restrictions of industrial sen-sors, the engineering of applications thatexploit sensor network technology isdifficult. Such sensors are usually pro-prietary and inflexible as regards pro-grammability, reusability and applica-

bility to different domains. As a result,testing, extending and porting an appli-cation based on a sensor network isexpensive. Java-based SunSPOT sensortechnology has been developed forrapid prototyping of such applications

and for testing and verifying algorithmson a small scale prior to deploying themin industrial operation. We demonstratethis methodology in the development ofan indoor environment quality (IEQ)assessment application that exploits

Rapid Prototyping of Sensor-Based Applicationswith SunSPOTsby Manfred Bortenschlager, Elisabeth Haid and Andreas Wagner

Sensor technology has the potential to boost productivity just as the Internet did. We demonstratethe opportunities presented by sensors and sensor network technology by deploying a correspondingframework in an indoor environmental quality application. Our framework is based on OGC SensorWeb standards and exploits SunSPOT sensor technology for rapid prototyping.


SunSPOTs. This application is based ona wireless sensor network, adopts OGCSensor Web standards, and provides avisual interface to the sensor values.

SunSPOT Sensor Technology SunSPOTs are embedded hardwaremodules that are equipped with a 180Mhz CPU, 512 KB RAM, 4MB flashmemory, three on-board sensors (tem-perature, light and three-axis accelerom-eter), hardware interfaces for the inte-

gration of arbitrary external sensors, andthe IEEE 802.15.4 wireless transmissiontechnology, which is enabled for meshnetworking. SunSPOTs are entirely pro-grammable in the Java programminglanguage and thus help to abstract fromthe underlying hardware. No directinteraction by machine code with thehardware is necessary, which signifi-cantly eases the development of sensor-based applications.

The SunSPOT sensor technology wasdeveloped primarily to satisfy three tar-get groups: education (introducingpupils and students to related topicssuch as programming, networking,embedded systems, robotics or hard-ware), research and development(allowing for fast implementation ofsystems that integrate sensor technologyand for easy testing of their behaviour),and hobbyists (developing small sensor-based applications for personal needs).

One of the major design goals ofSunSPOTs was to provide a tool forrapidly prototyping sensor-based appli-cations, and for testing and verifyingalgorithms on a small scale prior todeploying them in industrial operation.

This tool can be exploited to reducecosts by evaluating novel algorithms apriori before adapting them to real-world problems.

This form of sensor technology willprove useful in a broad spectrum ofapplications and domains, such as earlydetection and warning systems, envi-ronmental monitoring, automotiveengineering, warehouse/container man-agement, logistics, monitoring of build-

ings, home automation, weather fore-casting, medical monitoring of patientsand diagnosis, and agriculture andfarming.

Application: Indoor EnvironmentalQuality Measurement Based on SunSPOT sensor technologywe developed an indoor environmentalquality application. Factors that influ-ence the climate in a room and con-tribute to human well-being are meas-ured at different positions in a room.The sensor data, then, can be retrievedfrom the sensors and are furtherprocessed in our sensor network.

Each sensor station is composed of twomain components, namely (i) an exter-nal sensor which can measure electro-magnetic pollution, air pressure, humid-ity, air temperature, brightness, noise orcarbon dioxide, and (ii) a SunSPOTmodule which is responsible for pre-processing acquired sensor data andpropagating them through the sensornetwork.

The base station managing this sensornetwork is an OGC-compliant SensorWeb application. It allows for adminis-

tration of the sensors, and reading andprocessing of sensor data; for example,users can visualize and interaction withcurrent sensor values on a graphical,Web-based interface. In particular, theSensor Model Language (SensorML),Observation & Measurements (O&M),and Sensor Observations Service (SOS)specifications are adopted.

Communication between the sensor andthe base station can occur in both pushand pull modes and in a regular or on-demand fashion, where the values arecommunicated over the meshed wire-less sensor network. All configurationscan be defined by the user during run-time. In addition, a user can employ asensor value reader device (essentiallyanother SunSPOT) in order to get datafrom a specific sensor by physicallymoving into the communication rangeof that sensor and querying the accor-dant data.

Future Activities Further research will focus on theenrichment of the visualization compo-nent by correlating it with informationpotentially coming from other, externalsources such as the Internet. Thisshould be achievable with reasonableeffort due to the adoption of open Sen-sor Web standards. In addition, method-ologies will be investigated that willallow algorithms and functionalitiesthat were successfully verified on aSunSPOT platform to be ported to non-Java sensor platforms with minimaleffort.

The work presented here is part of theMobilityLab, a Centre of Excellence onthe Engineering of Location-Based Sys-tems, and involves Sun Microsystems,Vienna University of Technology (Insti-tute for Geoinformation and Cartogra-phy) and Salzburg Research.

Links:

https://www.sunspotworld.com/ http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/groups/sensorwebhttp://mobilitylab.salzburgresearch.at

Please contact:

Manfred BortenschlagerSalzburg ResearchForschungsgesellschaft mbH / AARIT,AustriaE-mail: [email protected]

SunSPOT sensor.

http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/groups/sensorweb



Environmental pollution affects humanhealth and reduces the quality of ourland and water. As a result, there is greatinterest in monitoring water and airquality and ensuring that all areas arecompliant with legislation. Ubiquitousenvironmental monitoring places con-siderable demands upon existing sens-ing technology. The combined chal-lenges of system longevity, autonomousoperation, robustness, large-scale sensornetworks, operationally difficult deploy-ments and unpredictable and lossy envi-ronments collectively represents a tech-nological barrier that has yet to be over-come. The CLARITY Centre for SensorWeb Technologies is working with IBMto confront these challenges. Ubiquitoussensing envisages many aspects of ourenvironment being routinely sensed.This will result in data streams from alarge variety of heterogeneous sources,which will often vary in their volumeand accuracy. The challenge is todevelop a networked sensing infrastruc-ture that can support the effective cap-ture, filtering, aggregation and analysisof such data. This will ultimately enableus to dynamically monitor and track thequality of our environment at multiplelocations. The ability to monitor qualityis a prerequisite to maintaining quality,and ensures that detected pollution inci-dents are dealt with as quickly as possi-ble, dramatically minimizing theirimpact. In effect, the ultimate goal ofenvironmental sensor networks is torealize the concept of an 'adaptive envi-ronment' – one that senses and rapidlyadapts to potential incidents to minimizetheir impact.

In recent years an increasing number ofenvironmental incidents have occurredwhich would have benefited from anadaptive environment approach. Theseinclude the detection of lead in watersupplies, cryptosporidium outbreaksand, as recently reported by the IrishEPA, and high pollution levels in a thirdof Irish rivers and streams. In Irelandand the rest of the world, proper man-agement of environmental resources is

critical for both health reasons and forthe sustainable exploitation of theseresources. Sensor Web technology suchas low-power wireless communica-tions, coupled with the emergence ofnew and reliable sensors such as themicrofluidic analyser platform devel-oped by CLARITY (see Figure 1), nowenable environmental data to be col-lected at much higher temporal and spa-tial resolutions. Other examples of sen-sors being developed by CLARITYresearchers are very low-power andlow-cost colorimetric sensors that canbe fabricated by modifying commercialoptical components with chromo-responsive films. For example, inex-pensive yet sensitive chemo-sensorscan be made by applying such coatingsto light emitting diodes (LEDs), asshown in Figure 2. Detailed experimen-tation with these devices in the field hasdemonstrated their effectiveness atdetecting and tracking the dispersion ofvolatile chemical plumes. Continuedimprovement in the long-term reliabil-ity of chemical sensing platforms, cou-

pled with significant reductions in theircost is the key to enabling scaled-updeployments of sensors at multiplelocations, and this is a key goal for theCLARITY-IBM team.

Sensor networks provide a web of inter-connectivity: multiple sources of infor-mation that will allow decision-makingprocesses to be more accurate and effi-cient. These processes can be complexand demanding however, and are oftenconstrained in a number of possiblyconflicting dimensions such as quality,responsiveness and cost. CLARITYresearchers and IBM are workingtogether to examine in-situ decisionmaking, whereby decisions are effectedbased upon inferences made from bothlocally sensed data and data aggregatedfrom sensor networks. The in-situ sen-sor nodes that comprise a sensor net-work are often computationally chal-lenged with respect to processingpower, as they are developed to be low-cost, low-power devices rather thanhigh-performance computing devices.

Building an Adaptive Environmental MonitoringSystem Using Sensor Web Technologyby Jer Hayes, Greg O'Hare, Harry Kolar and Dermot Diamond

The ultimate goal of environmental sensor networks is to realize the concept of an 'adaptive environment'– one that senses and rapidly adapts to potential incidents in order to minimize their impact.

Figure 1: The phosphate analyser developed by CLARITY (left) and results over an 8-day periodfrom a field trial at a waste water treatment plant (right) showing excellent agreement with areference analytical system (total duration 49 days).

Figure 2: A gas sensor made bycoating a pH indicator dye (left) andthe sensor platform, mica2dot mote(right). In the presence of an acidicvapour/gas, the sensor changescolour from deep blue to yellow.


This computational challenge places amajor constraint upon the reasoningprocess. To overcome this challenge,CLARITY and IBM are developing ahybrid reasoning approach to deliver insitu decision-making that combinesstream-based computing with multi-agent system techniques. The hybridreasoning approach builds on System S,an IBM technology for distributedstream processing, and Agent Factory,developed by CLARITY researchers toprovide a powerful collaborative deci-sion-making system. In partnershipwith the Irish Marine Institute, thishybrid approach is being tested throughan environmental demonstrator projectentitled SmartBay, which seeks todeliver an infrastructure to validate dis-tributed in-situ real-time environmentalmonitoring technolgies.

SmartBay is a next-generation watermanagement system (both marine andfreshwater), aspects of which are cur-rently under development by CLARITYfor the Marine Institute of Ireland. It islocated at Galway Bay on the Atlantic

seaboard of Ireland. Collaboration in thedevelopment of SmartBay will form acore activity of the Global Centre ofExcellence for Water Management,established by IBM in Ireland in 2008.SmartBay-related research will mirrorthe monitoring activities in the HudsonRiver in New York State of the BeaconInstitute for Rivers and Estuaries, andwill in part compliment the River andEstuary Observation Network (REON)established for that purpose.

The application of Sensor Web technol-ogy to environmental sensing will even-tually result in the realisation of the'adaptive environment' concept, thoughnetworks that can rapidly detect andadapt to potential environmental inci-dents, in order to minimize their impact.CLARITY and IBM are demonstratingkey technological building blocks of theadaptive environment through projectssuch as SmartBay, through which newsensing and collaborative decision-making technology is being used to testelements of a networked sensing infra-structure that can support the capture,

filtering, aggregation and analysis ofenvironmental data. While the initialreal-world benefits of such technologywill be in the environmental domain,these benefits will ultimately belong toany application area of the Sensor Web.

Links:

CLARITY: http://www.clarity-centre.com/ IBM Big Green Innovations:http://www-03.ibm.com/technology/greeninnovations/SmartBay:http://www.marine.ie/home/services/operational/SmartBay/SmartBay.htm

Please contact:

Dermot DiamondCLARITY Centre for Sensor WebTechnologies, Dublin City University,IrelandE-mail: [email protected]

Harry KolarIBM, T.J. Watson Research Center,USAE-mail: [email protected]

Carrying out marine research requiresthat studies be undertaken in remoteenvironments such as the Baltic Sea.However, marine environmental moni-toring is expensive: the cost of operationat sea includes at least €10 000-15 000per day for the use of a lar ge researchvessel, plus the cost of laboratory tech-nicians, analytical instrumentation andlogistics. As a result, the marine envi-ronment is poorly monitored. For exam-ple, in the Baltic Sea's Bothnian Bay, thenine fixed stations are visited only eighttimes a year.

Sensor networks mean that marine datacollection can be undertaken in a muchmore cost-efficient fashion. Within themulti-disciplinary project 'Sensor Net-

works to Monitor Marine Environmentwith Particular Focus on ClimateChanges', SICS and partners havedesigned an advanced water monitoringsystem (Figure 1). Our system featuresa diving unit, consisting of a bin con-taining several sensors connected to onesensor node. The diving unit moves upand down an anchor line. In this way weare able to take measurements at anydepth using only one set of sensors. Apressure sensor determines the depth atwhich measurements are beingrecorded. When the diving unit is not inthe water taking measurements, it isparked in a garage that is part of ourbuoy construction. By parking the div-ing unit in the garage, we expect toeliminate fouling, ie the accumulation

of material on hard surfaces in aquaticenvironments. We first intended to usean oil-filled garage, but found that thisaffected the sensor readings. Initialexperiments with an air-filled garagehave shown that this solution also pre-vents fouling.

Our system is driven by rechargeablebatteries. Previous projects have hadproblems with solar power. Our projectpartner Uppsala University thereforedesigned a wave energy generator toobtain electric power from verticalwave movements. As a ring of stackedmagnets floats up and down along a rodwound with metal coils, an alternatingvoltage is induced across the two endsof the coil. This is further rectified and

Remote Water Monitoring With SensorNetworking Technologyby Thiemo Voigt, Nicolas Tsiftes and Zhitao He

Sensor networks enable remote monitoring of natural environments such as glaciers, volcanoes andbodies of water. Within the project 'Sensor Networks to Monitor Marine Environment with ParticularFocus on Climate Changes', SICS and partners are designing and implementing flexible,reprogrammable sensor network solutions suitable for monitoring the marine environment with highresolution in time and space.

http://www-03.ibm.com/technology/greeninnovations/

http://www.marine.ie/home/services/operational/SmartBay.htm



filtered to provide a constant chargingvoltage to the batteries.

Our system is designed to cope withwater depths of around 100m, meaningthe number of measurements taken dur-ing one dive can be significant. Storageis thus required for the large volumes ofmeasurement data: not only those col-lected by the diving unit but also fromlight and acceleration sensors placed onthe top of the buoy. System data alsoneeds to be saved; for example, theenergy produced by the wave energygenerator as well as the available

energy. The sheer amount of dataexceeds the limited RAM available insensor nodes. Moreover, to handle thedifferent data types smoothly, we useContiki's Coffee file system to storedata. The data is transferred onshoreusing GPRS (General Packet Radio Ser-vice), and this is too energy-consuminga task to be performed after every dive.We have therefore ported Coffee tooperate on SD cards that enable cheapmass storage.

Due to the high energy consumption ofthe GPRS unit as well as the per-byte

cost of the transferred data, we com-press the data before sending it. Previ-ous work has shown that compression ismuch cheaper than communication fortypical sensor nodes with low-powerradios. The same is true for the morepower-hungry GPRS communication.To this end, we have designed a newcompression algorithm called SB-ZIPthat is more efficient than state-of-the-art compression algorithms. For exam-ple, SB-ZIP compresses 4.5 MB ofacceleration data measured on the buoyto only 1.5 MB, whereas the well-known S-LZW algorithm is only able toreduce it to slightly over 3 MB.

SICS is running this project in collabo-ration with Umeå Marine Sciences Cen-tre, Uppsala University and SMHI, theSwedish Meteorological and Hydrologi-cal Institute. At the conclusion of theproject in late 2009, we expect to havedeployed around ten buoys at places rel-evant for marine monitoring in theBaltic Sea.

Link:

http://www.sics.se/node/1361

Please contact:

Thiemo Voigt, SICS, SwedenTel: +46 8 633 1598E-mail: [email protected]

Figure 1: Sensor system for remote water monitoring.

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Emerging technology in risk monitoringand management has the potential tospeed up the necessary organizationaland structural changes. Ad hoc wirelesssensor networks and the collective intel-ligence of the Sensor Web; the plug-and-measure paradigm of IEEE 1451 smartsensors; the Semantic Web; and the OGCSensor Web Enablement architecture: allthese address critical factors of the state-of-the-art technology. However, none of

the currently available and emergingtechnologies offers rapid deployment,easy maintenance, quality assurance andautomated data processing along thewhole information processing chainfrom smart sensors and wireless ad hocsensor networks, over automated dataloggers and value-added middlewareservices, to user applications capable ofdynamically integrating all availabledata sources at run time.

Sensors Anywhere (SANY) is an ambi-tious FP6 IST Integrated Project deal-ing with sensor networks for environ-mental and risk management applica-tions (Figure 2). SANY aims to con-tribute to joint efforts of the EuropeanCommission (EC) and the EuropeanSpace Agency (ESA) on 'Global Moni-toring for Environment and Security'(GMES) by improving the interoper-ability of in situ sensors and sensor net-

Sensors Anywhere – Sensor Web Enablementin Risk Management Applicationsby Gerald Schimak and Denis Havlik

The increasing frequency, severity and consequences in Europe of floods, storms, forest fires andother natural hazards sensitive to climate change has clearly shown the shortcomings of existingenvironmental monitoring and information systems. The observed inefficiency is primarily aconsequence of historical and organizational factors. An exorbitant amount of work on data andservice standardization would be required to build more efficient information systems using state-of-the-art technology.


works and taking up the challengesmentioned above. This means specifi-cally that the Sensor Service Architec-ture (SensorSA) developed in SANYshall allow quick and cost-efficientreuse of data and services from cur-rently incompatible sources in futureenvironmental risk management appli-cations across organizational, adminis-trative or regional borders.

In order to assure the sustainability ofthe project results, SANY reuses theopen standards from W3C, OASIS, ISOand Open Geospatial consortium(OGC). One of the most promisingstandardization efforts is currently hap-pening within the Open GeospatialConsortium Sensor Web Enablementinitiative (OGC-SWE). The goal ofOGC-SWE is to enable all types of Weband/or Internet-compatible sensors,instruments, and imaging devices to beaccessible and, where applicable, con-trollable via the Web. The OGC-SWEvision is to define and approve the stan-dards foundation for interoperableWeb-based sensor networks. For thispurpose, OGC-SWE specificationsinclude a standardized model for repre-senting and exchanging observationresults as well as an information modeland encodings that enable the discoveryand tasking of Web-resident sensors.

Of special interest for SANY are the fol-lowing: a service for retrieving sensor

'observation' data and meta-information,the so-called 'Sensor Observation Ser-vice' (SOS); a service for sensor plan-ning and executing tasks, called the 'Sen-sor Planning Service' (SPS); a servicethat allows users to subscribe to specificalert types, known as the 'Sensor AlertService' (SAS); and a service that facili-tates asynchronous message interchangebetween users and services, and betweentwo OGC-SWE services, called the 'WebNotification Service' (WNS).

Three validation subprojects of SANYdemonstrate the feasibility of buildingrisk management applications withSensorSA.

The first validation subproject (Fig-ure 1) illustrates the use of SensorSAservices at data acquisition level, aswell as vendor independence and thefeasibility of building virtual networksacross administrative and technical bor-ders. Furthermore, it is concentrating onassessing air pollution episodes, track-ing pollution back to its source and pre-dicting the air pollution in urban areasor around industrial zones.

The second validation subproject con-centrates on coastal water managementissues, such as assessing, modelling andpredicting bathing water quality withuser-determined 'what-if' scenarios. Ituses advanced data fusion services todemonstrate the feasibility of run-timebinding of heterogeneous data sourcesand the run-time choice of data fusionservice, and to predict microbiologicalcontamination through data fusionusing all available real-time measure-ments and the results of microbiologicalwater sample analyses. The real-timedata sources used by this subprojectinclude meteorological data, sea tem-perature, turbidity, salinity, chlorophylland dissolved oxygen levels.

Finally, the third validation subprojectconcentrates on geohazard monitoringin a complex urban environment, whichmeans assessing the structural instabil-ity of architectural objects caused byhuman activities (eg tunnel excavation).It demonstrates the integration of wire-less ad hoc sensors into SensorSA net-works; rapid deployment, auto-configu-ration and self-management; and datafusion of in situ and Earth Observationdata sources.

The authors wish to thank the Informa-tion Society and Media DirectorateGeneral of the European Commission(DG-INFSO) for co-funding the inte-grated project SANY within the area ofICT for Environmental Risk Manage-ment.

Link:

http://www.sany-ip.eu

Please contacts:

Denis HavlikProject co-ordinator S@NYAustrian Research Centers – ARC(AARIT)Tel: +43 50550 3157E-mail: [email protected]

Figure 2: 'SANY'-trees - sensors anywhere inour environment.

Figure 1: SANY air quality management subproject.



Localization is an important componentof many sensor applications. Forinstance, the ability to accurately locatehumans or objects in enclosed spacescan help in detecting and responding toabnormal situations. Techniques such asthe use of GPS, image processing orstatic ranging mechanisms are either noteffective, cumbersome to use, or incurhigh costs.

Our work focuses on achieving fine-grained localization without excessive orspecialized resources that use wirelesssensor nodes. We rule out the use ofextensive external infrastructure, since itis usually both expensive to acquire andcomplex to install. Moreover, it is impor-tant to achieve localization by using onlytypical resources available in sensornodes, without the use of specializedhardware peripherals. For these reasons,we choose an approach that relies on anacoustic sound-ranging scheme. Eachreference node produces an audiblesound pulse while the rest of the nodes

are sensing the audio frequency spec-trum. All listening nodes attach a time-stamp to the received sound pulse, in aglobal synchronized timescale. These(synchronized clock) timestamps areused to calculate the time of flight foreach sound pulse. Distance is then esti-mated based on the speed of sound. Ourwork is therefore focused on high-accu-racy clock synchronization and sounddetection for range estimation. To achieve precise clock synchroniza-tion we implement a synchronizationprotocol operating at the Media AccessControl (MAC)-Layer that does notintroduce significant communicationcosts and that deals with fixed over-heads introduced by the interrupt mech-anism and RF communication. We alsointroduce an external mechanism fortesting synchronization precision, caus-ing simultaneous interruptions to syn-chronizing motes and then comparingthe synchronized timestamps produced.We implement our synchronization pro-tocol on Mica2dot motes. Our experi-

FLASH: Fine-Grained Localization in WirelessSensor Networks using Acoustic Sound and High-Precision Clock Synchronizationby Evangelos Mangas and Angelos Bilas

Sensor localization is an important component and enabler of many applications using intelligentsensors. FLASH is a system that achieves fine-grained localization using acoustic sounds and high-precision clock synchronization via radio frequency (RF) communication. Sensors can dynamicallylocalize themselves in space by maintaining synchronized clocks and measuring time of arrival foracoustic sound pulses. Our techniques focus on achieving highly accurate synchronization andconsistent sound detection. Furthermore, FLASH does not require external infrastructure such asfixed equipment, specialized hardware support, or great resource consumption. Experimentalresults show that FLASH localization is accurate to within 11cm in a variety of indoor environments.

Figure 1: Performing experiments with soundin our lab.

Figure 2: Left: Error in estimated distance with respect to absolute distance; Right: Localization in two dimensions, the sounders are node0 and node1.


mental results show that synchroniza-tion precision has an error of less than5μs (median) for a 30s resynchroniza-tion period.

Our acoustic sound technique focuseson consistently detecting the start of thearriving sound pulse. Attaching a time-stamp at the beeper node is simple:right before applying voltage to theembedded buzzer we use the local (syn-chronized) clock to broadcast an RFmessage. At each listening node weidentify a sound pulse produced by thebeeper node by using the periodicity ofthe sound pulse and requiring the aver-age peak-to-peak amplitude to surpass acertain predefined dynamic threshold,which is less susceptible to reflections.Then we attach a timestamp to the firstpeak-to-peak measurement that was ofgreater value than our dynamic thresh-old. The difference between the two

timestamps at the beeper node and thelistening node results in the time offlight for the sound pulse.

Overall, FLASH demonstrates thatlocalization can be achieved with inex-pensive off-the-shelf devices and yet bequite precise. Figure 1 shows part of ourexperimental setup, whereas Figure 2shows our results for 1D and 2D local-ization. Using the Berkeley Mica2dotmotes, the default microphone thatalready exists on the sensor platform andcheap simple buzzers, we were able tolocate nodes at distances of up to 10m,depending on surrounding noise. Theaverage error in localization precision is11cm for distances up to 7m. However,our approach does not require either cal-ibration or any special infrastructure.Furthermore, our method requires a sin-gle sounder and microphone per node,resulting in better energy efficiency

compared to methods that use multiplesensor devices per node.

Future work in the area includes local-ization in outdoor and more demandingenvironments, such as in the presenceof obstacles between nodes, intensenoise in a room, temperature andhumidity variations and outdoor envi-ronments. We believe that FLASH andsimilar techniques will play an impor-tant role in cyber-physical systems andin our efforts to better interact with andcontrol our environment.

Link:

http://www.ics.forth.gr/carv/scalable/

Please contact:

Angelos BilasICS-FORTH, Greece E-mail: [email protected] http://www.ics.forth.gr/~bilas

Strong fluctuations in crude oil pricesare pushing oil companies invest morein seismic exploration of new oil reser-voirs and in new technology to improvethe quality of depth imaging. Seismicprospecting requires a large number ofsensors (up to 30 000), such as geo-phones or MEMS-based (Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems) accelerometers.These are deployed over large areas (upto 30km2) to measure the back-scatteredwavefield generated by an active excita-tion source. A storage/processing unit(sink node) collects measurements fromall the geophones in real time to obtainan image of the sub-surface. Currenttelemetry is cable-based and usuallyrequires hundreds of kilometers ofcabling, which results in delays, highlogistic costs and low imaging quality.

Wireless technology is thus expected tosignificantly improve the efficiency of

oil exploration. Technical limitations inthe data-rate efficiency, interference andbattery use of current short-range wire-less network architectures (eg WiFi,Bluetooth) forced previous proposalsfor wireless geophone system architec-tures to choose a combination of wire-less and wired configuration. However,recent advances in WSN technologyconveniently address the issues relatedto the strong constraints imposed byseismic acquisition systems. A WirelessGeophone Network (WGN) must sup-port multiple acquisition settings andapplications. Basic network require-ments are: i) network throughput of150kbps down to 50kbps for singlecomponent sensors; ii) real-time (ornear real-time) acquisitions with strongdelay constraints; iii) remote control bysink node and synchronous acquisitionwith a maximum timing skew of 10μs;and iv) accurate positioning of each sen-

sor/geophone with an error of less than1m to avoid degradation of the depthimaging quality.

Network ArchitectureAs shown in Figure 1, the proposedWGN architecture exploits differentradio transmission technologies to effi-ciently handle both short-range trans-missions (ie for short-distance low-power communication among geo-phones/sensors), and long-range trans-missions (ie for seismic data delivery tostorage units and geophone remotemonitoring) that must cover distancesof several kilometers. The hierarchicalnetwork design requires the deploymentof a number of Wireless GeophoneGateways (WGGs) to collect data read-ings from a large number of wirelessgeophones (WGs) and forward the datato the storage unit (SU). These WGnodes are self-organized into independ-

High-Density Wireless Geophone Networks for Oil and Gas Monitoring and Explorationby Stefano Savazzi, Vittorio Rampa and Umberto Spagnolini

Strong fluctuations in crude oil prices and the expected production peak of current reservoirs arepushing oil companies to increase their investment in seismic exploration. Replacing cabling withwireless technology should radically improve the quality of depth imaging and simplify acquisitionlogistics. Recent advances in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) now allow the wireless communityto satisfy the rigid constraints imposed by seismic acquisition systems, which have a largenumber of sensors (> 10 000) over the monitoring area (> 5km2).

mission is organized in superframeswith the beacon period (BP) carryingthe essential information of eachdevice. Logical device/sensor groupsare dynamically formed according toWiMedia protocol to facilitate the shar-ing of resources, while wirelessmedium reuse can be exploited overdifferent spatial regions.

WGG supports specific extended func-tions compared to a standard WiMediadevice. These functions allow: i) theGateway to behave as an intermediatesink, forwarding data to the storage/processing node SU and controllingeach sub-network; ii) contention-freeresource negotiations to guarantee real-time constraints (eg quality of serviceand maximum delay); and iii) coexis-tence of long/short range transmissions.Figure 2 illustrates the MAC layer fram-ing structure adopted for each sub-net-work, while the probability of full net-work coverage versus the BP length isshown at the bottom of the same figure.Sensors/geophones are assumed to bedeployed according to the requirementsof a conventional seismic survey. Geo-phone deployment has a major impact



ent sub-networks; ideally the number ofdevices per sub-network should be ashigh as 300 nodes to minimize the num-ber of WGGs. This results in an aggre-gated (per sub-network) throughput ofabout 45Mbps (up to 60Mbps). Datadelivery within one sub-network isobtained by multi-hop transmissionstowards the WGGs; WG sensors arewithin 5-100m of inter-node distance toreduce both energy consumption andincrease battery life.

Physical and MAC Layer RequirementsThe requirements of self-localizationand frame synchronization make UltraWideBand (UWB) technology the natu-ral choice for short-range transmissionswithin each sub-network. To achievepositional accuracy with errors less than1m, the travel-time estimation error forToA-based (Time of Arrival) position-ing must be in the order of 3ns with aminimum required signal bandwidth of500MHz. UWB technology providesdata acquisition, synchronization andlocalization without the use of fullyGPS-based (Global Positioning Sys-tem) WGN nodes. Moreover, recentadvances in radio design (ie MB-

WGG: Wireless Geophone GatewayWG: Wireless GeophoneSU: Storage unit

SU

WGG

Short range communicationLong range communication

WGG

WGG WGG

WGG

Shot line

WGG

Figure 1: Wireless Geophone Network architec-ture.

OFDM or MultiBand Orthogonal Fre-quency Division Multiplexing) providewireless devices with high data ratesover short ranges of up to 480Mbps,and low power consumption (ie below100mW in active transmission modebut down to 20μW in power-savemode). The MB-OFDM processing canalso guarantee network scalabilitythrough time and frequency division byallowing the use of multiple sub-bandsto separate the co-located sub-net-works, and coexistence with other 2.4GHz-based radio devices without sig-nificant cross-interference.

The high number of devices per sub-network and the large network size sug-gest the adoption of a number of distrib-uted MAC (Medium Access Control)functionalities. Network topologyshould define a hierarchical structurewhere the WGG acts as an intermediatesink towards the storage unit. TheWiMedia standard (ECMA-368 fromECMA International, the EuropeanAssociation for Standardizing Informa-tion and Communication Systems) hasbeen chosen as the reference for thedevelopment of the WGN MAC. Trans-

WG #1 Beacon Slot1)Device Address

and spatial position2) Neighbor Information3) WGG device address

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%12=α %4=α%8=α

Figure 2: MAC layer framing structure (top) used by each sub-network, and itsimpact on full network coverage (bottom).

on the framing structure design: a lowerdensity with a sensor spacing of 20m(still reasonable for seismic acquisi-tions) can make WiMedia feasible forWGN applications with minimal modi-fications. On the other hand, higher geo-phone densities, with a sensor spacingof less than 11m, require further MACmodifications. More details are given atthe WisyGeo Web site.

Links:

Land seismic exploration:http://www.oilfieldreview.com/

Wireless Geophone Network:http://www.wisygeo.comhttp://scitation.aip.org/tle

WiMedia:http://www.wimedia.org


Please contact:

Stefano Savazzi, Umberto Spagnolini, DEI, Politecnico di Milano, ItalyE-mail: [email protected],[email protected]

Vittorio RampaIEIIT-CNR, ItalyE-mail: [email protected]

Camera networks are increasinglyemployed in a wide range of ComputerVision applications, from modelling andinterpretation of individual humanbehaviour to the surveillance of wideareas. In most cases, the evidence gath-ered by individual cameras is fusedtogether, making the synchronization ofacquired images a crucial task. Camerasare typically hosted on multiple comput-ers in order to accommodate the largenumber of acquired images and providethe computational resources required fortheir processing. In the applicationlayer, vision processing is thus sup-ported by multiple processing nodes(CPUs, GPUs or DSPs). The proposedplatform is able to handle the consider-able technical complexity involved inthe synchronous acquisition of imagesand the allocation of processes to nodes.Figure 1 illustrates an overview of theproposed and implemented architecture.

The platform integrates the hardware anddevice-dependent components employedin synchronous multi-camera image andvideo acquisition. Pertinent functionali-ties become available to the applicationsprogrammer through conventionallibrary calls. These include online controlof sensor-configuration parameters,online delivery of synchronized data tomultiple distributed processing nodes,and support for the integration and sched-uling of third-party vision algorithms.

System modules can communicate intwo modes. Communication throughmessage-passing addresses controlmessages to targeted or multicast recip-ients. The diversity of communicatedinformation types is accommodated bydata-structure serialization. Communi-cation through shared-memory spacesprovides visual data or intermediatecomputation results to the nodes of thehost or of multiple computers. The large

bandwidth requirements imposed byimage transmission are accommodatedby a Direct Memory Access channel toa local shared-memory space. Forcross-computer availability of images,memory spaces are unified over a net-work link. The latency introduced bythis link is compensated for by notifica-tion of nodes, regarding the partial ortotal availability of a synchronizedimage set. In this way, per-frame syn-

A Software Platform for the Acquisition andOnline Processing of Images in a Camera Networkby Thomas Sarmis, Xenophon Zabulis and Antonis A. Argyros

Applications related to vision-based monitoring of spaces and to the visual understanding of humanbehaviour, require the synchronous imaging of a scene from multiple views. We present the design andimplementation of a software platform that enables synchronous acquisition of images from a cameranetwork and supports their distribution across computers. Seamless and online delivery of acquired datato multiple distributed processes facilitates the development of parallel applications. As a case study, wedescribe the use of the platform in a vision system targeted at unobtrusive human-computer interaction.

Acquisition module

Cameras

Acquisition module

Cameras

Synchronization

Application Layer

Con

trol m

essa

g es Local shared-memory Local shared-memory

Processing modules

Host computer

Processing modules

Host computer

Cross-computer shared-memory

Figure 1: Platform architecture for camera network supported by multiple computers. Centralsensor control is provided by a message-passing communication infrastructure. Acquisitionmodules place the images on a synchronized shared-memory space, making them available tomultiple processing nodes across computers. Processing modules read these data and performparallel execution of computer vision algorithms. The same modules also have access to thisspace, allowing them to synchronously view intermediate computation results.



chronization of modules is achieved,but at the same time, processing of par-tially available input is also supported.Shared-memory spaces across process-ing nodes are essential, as large datacapacity and frequent input rate demandthe parallelization and pipelining ofoperations.

Acquisition modules encapsulate thecomplexity of sensor-specific, syn-chronization, and shared-memory con-figurations. Online sensor configura-tion and command is implementedthrough message-passing, while imagetransmission utilizes shared-memorycommunication. A range of off-the-shelf sensor types is supported throughan extensible repository of device-spe-cific wrappers. To facilitate testing ofapplications, input may be prere-corded.

Processing modules run vision algo-rithms that are transparent to the com-puter and provide access to images andintermediate computation results. Dur-ing the applications development stage,an Application Programming Interfaceenables synchronization and messagecoordination. Articulated application

development is facilitated by supportfor 'chaining' of processes.

Being in the format of a binary library,this platform can be invoked, independ-ent of the programming language used.As an additional utility, the developedplatform provides a GUI for the controlof generic camera networks and therecording of image sequences. Forth-coming extensions involve additionalcapabilities for cooperation with mid-dleware infrastructures in systemswhere vision is integrated with othersensory modalities (aural, tactile etc).

The platform is currently employed inthe development of a vision system(illustrated in Figure 2), targeting unob-trusive and natural user interaction. Thedevelopment of this system is part of abroader project funded internally atFORTH-ICS on Ambient Intelligence(AmI) environments. The systememploys multiple cameras that jointlyimage a wide room. Two computershost eight cameras and a dedicated busfor their cross-computer synchroniza-tion, and utilize a LAN connection forcommunication. Upon image acquisi-tion, a sequence of image processing

and analysis operations is performed inparallel on each image, to detect thepresence of humans through back-ground subtraction in the acquiredimages. Using the shared memoryacross computers, segmentation resultsare fused into a 3D volumetric repre-sentation of the person and registered toa map of the room. Two other processesrun in parallel and access the same datato recognize the configuration of theperson's body and estimate the pose ofthe person's head. The utilization of theproposed platform facilitates the modu-lar development of such applications,improves the reusability of algorithmsand components and reduces substan-tially the required development time.

This work has been partially supported bythe FORTH-ICS RTD programme 'AmI:Ambient Intelligence Environments'.

Link:

http://www.ics.forth.gr/cvrl/miap/doku.php?id=intro

Please contact:

Xenophon ZabulisFORTH-ICS, GreeceE-mail: [email protected]

Cross-computer shared-memory

Processing modules Processing modules

Acquisition module Acquisition module

Imag

e ac

quis

ition

Bac

kgro

und

subt

ract

ion

3D representation map registration

Processing moduleProcessing module Processing module

Head pose estimation

Body configuration analysis

Figure 2: Person silhouettes in synchronous imagesare segmented in parallel. Individual processes fusethem into a registered 3D representation of the per-son, recognize coarse gestures as expressed by bodyconfiguration, and estimate the spatial direction inwhich the person's head is facing.

http://www.ics.forth.gr/cvrl/miap/doku.php?id=intro


Wireless sensors are deployed in a grow-ing number of applications where theyperform a wide variety of tasks. Althoughthis has considerable economic and socialadvantages, it seems likely that evengreater benefits can be gained once het-erogeneous sets of individual sensors areable to communicate and link up intolarger multimodal sensor (inter)networks.We expect that the network's performancewill become more robust when informa-tion from multiple sources is integrated.

In addition, networks could becomesmarter for at least two reasons: sensorsthat produce highly reliable output can beused to provide on-the-fly 'ground truth'for the training of other sensors within thenetwork, and correlations among sensedevents could bootstrap the automaticpropagation of semantic informationacross sensors or modalities.

The implementation of our visionrequires two conditions to be met.Firstly, sensors should come equippedwith an open interface through whichtheir output data and all relevant meta-data can be made available for thirdparty applications. Secondly, sensor net-works need to be endowed with a learn-ing mechanism that shifts the burden ofsupervision from humans to machines.

Indeed, an additional layer of intelli-gence on top of the communication pro-tocols will enable sensors to advertisetheir own capabilities, discover comple-mentary services available on the net-work and orchestrate them into morepowerful applications that meet high-level specifications set by human super-visors. This can be achieved more effi-ciently if the capabilities of the differentcomponents can be described in bothhuman- and machine-readable form. It

will then be possible for individual sen-sors to relate their own objectives andcapabilities to human-defined goals (egminimize energy consumption withoutsacrificing comfort) or available knowl-edge, both of which are usuallyexpressed in terms of high-level seman-tics.

Granted, the linking of low-level sen-sor data to high-level semantic con-cepts remains a formidable problem,but we contend that the complementar-ity inherent in the different sensingspectra supported by such a networkmight actually alleviate the problem.The basic idea is simple: if particularsensor data can be linked to specificsemantic notions, then it can behypothesized that strongly correlated

data picked up by complementary sen-sors (or modalities) are linked tosemantically related concepts. A sim-ple example will clarify the issues athand: imagine a camera network on afactory floor that has been programmedto identify persons using face recogni-tion, and to determine whether or notthey are walking, say for safety rea-sons. If the same factory is alsoequipped with open microphones thatmonitor ambient noise, then an intelli-gent supervision system might pick upthe strong correlation between walkingpeople as observed by the camera net-work and rhythmic background soundsas detected by the microphones.

By mining general knowledge data-bases, the system might then be able toconclude that the observed rhythmicaudio output corresponds to the soundof footsteps and add this snippet ofsemantic information to its knowledgedatabase. In essence, the system suc-ceeded in using available high-levelinformation (the visual recognition ofwalking people) to bridge the semanticgap for an unrelated sensor (audio). Byaccumulating the information gleanedfrom such incremental advances, wecontend that it will be possible to grad-ually - but largely automatically -extend the system's knowledge data-base linking low-level observed sensordata to high-level semantic notions.

To explore the viability of this idea wehave conducted a number of simpleexperiments in which we used the Inter-net as a general knowledge database.For instance, referring to the above sce-nario we submitted the paired searchterms walking (as the camera has beenprogrammed to detect this behaviour)and sound (through the use of standardssuch as SensorML, each sensor cancommunicate the modality of its output)into a search engine and analysed theresponse. By restricting attention to

Tackling the Semantic Gap in Multimodal Sensor Networksby Eric Pauwels, Albert Salah and Paul de Zeeuw

Sensor networks are increasingly finding their way into our living environments, where they performa variety of tasks like surveillance, safety or resource monitoring. Progress in standardization andcommunication protocols has made it possible to communicate and exchange data in an ad hocfashion, thus creating extended and heterogeneous multimodal sensor networks. CWI is looking atways to automatically propagate semantic information across sensor modalities.

Figure 1: In multimodal sensornetworks, reliable informationfrom one sensor can be used tosupervise the extraction ofsemantic information fromanother sensor.



meaningful words that occur frequently(both in terms of number per page andnumber of unique pages), we end upwith a sorted list that suggests a linkbetween the audio data and a list ofsemantic concepts including music,video, gait, work and footsteps. In afinal step this list is further whittleddown by checking each of these sugges-tions against an ontology to determine

their semantic distance to the originalconcept (walking). By restricting atten-tion to the most similar concepts, ittranspires that it is highly likely therecorder audio is related to either foot-steps, gait or music, all of which makesense. These results hint at the possibil-ity of automatically extending semanticnotions across modalities, thus leadingto more robust and intelligent networks.

Link:

http://www.cwi.nl/pna4

Please contact:

Eric Pauwels CWI, The Netherlands Tel:+31 20 592 4225E-mail: [email protected]

Sensors and sensing technology areeverywhere, and this issue of ERCIMNews contains many examples of sen-sors networked together for some greaterpurpose. Mostly, people deploy sensorsand then gather the readings together andaddress issues like networking, calibra-tion, sensor fusion and sensor eventdetection. The general trend is towardsnetworking sensors into the Sensor Web,but this isn't the only way of using them.Sensors can be used in small groupingson standalone devices that gather andprocess information and report back notsensor readings, but major semanticevents. In this article we describe onesuch sensor technology which is simpleand cheap to manufacture, but canempower an individual to reflect on theirpast behaviour and memories.

Lifelogging is the term used todescribe the recording of differentaspects of your daily life, in digitalform, for your own exclusive personaluse. It can take many forms, such as anapplication running on your mobilephone that 'logs' all your phone calls.One particularly interesting device isthe SenseCam, a camera that is wornaround the neck and automaticallycaptures thousands of images of thewearer's life every day. It has a rangeof in-built sensors for monitoring thewearer's environment, detecting move-ment, ambient temperature, passiveinfrared information (ie body heat) andlight intensity.

Preliminary studies indicate that infor-mation gathered by the SenseCam is

potentially useful as a memory aid torecall autobiographical memories.Research in the field of cognitive neu-ropsychology has established that 'cuedrecall' is better than 'free recall'. Thecloser a cue is to how an actual memorywas encoded, the better memoryretrieval is. Other studies indicate thatautobiographical memories tend to bestrongly encoded in a visual manner inthe brain. The SenseCam records pic-tures from the viewpoint of the user,making it able to provide visual cues ofour past that are very close to how theoriginal memories/experiences wereencoded in the brain.

Even though SenseCam images providestrong memory cues, there exists a sub-stantial problem in effectively manag-ing the overwhelming volume ofimages generated by this device –approximately 650 000 images per yearare captured. Within the CLARITYcentre at Dublin City University, wehave developed a suite of functionsapplied to SenseCam data that automat-ically provide effective digital memoryretrieval cues. We structure our process-ing into a number of logical steps thatexploit various characteristics of thehuman memory system.

1. Firstly, we intelligently segmentsequences of images into distinctevents such as having breakfast,

Utilising Wearable Sensor Technology to Provide Effective Memory Cuesby Aiden R. Doherty and Alan F. Smeaton

We describe a wearable sensor technology that passively records 'lifelog' images and sensor readingsof a wearer's daily life. The focus of our work is not on aggregating, collecting or networking data as inthe usual application of sensors in the Sensor Web, but rather on detecting events of interest to thewearer from a multi-sensor standalone device. These events of interest provide effective cues to allowpeople to more easily access their autobiographical memories. Early research indicates thistechnology may be potentially helpful for sufferers of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.

Figure 1: Sample lifelog images from a typical IT worker's day.


working on a computer etc. This isachieved very quickly using on-boardenvironmental sensor values.

2. Given that human memory storesinformation associatively, we provideusers with automated search func-tions to find events similar to a givenevent, eg "show me other times whenI was at the park". By intelligentlyrepresenting events through thefusion of image descriptions and thein-built sensor values, we found thatusers can find events related to anygiven 'query event'.

3. Given that the human memory morestrongly encodes distinctive memo-ries, we automatically identify eventsthat are more visually unique amongthose recorded by a wearer. We havefound that it is effective to combinethe automated detection of faces (toindicate social engagement) with

detecting how visually novel eachevent is.

4. As human memory is known to storeitems associatively, it is useful to aug-ment individuals' SenseCam eventswith images (or videos) from externalsources, eg to better remember a tripto the Eiffel Tower by viewing pic-tures of the tower uploaded by othersto the Internet. Using GPS informa-tion, and after some intelligent auto-mated processing, we can automati-cally find relevant supplementaryimages and videos from Internet sitessuch as Flickr and YouTube.

Our technology for autobiographicalmemory capture and management hasbeen deployed not only within ourresearch centre in Dublin, but also innumerous cognitive psychologyresearch groups in Europe and NorthAmerica, and uses sensors and a camera

to gather information as part of a lifelog.These include Universities of Toronto,Tampere, Illinois, Utrecht and CWI inAmsterdam. Our approach does notconform to the common model of a sen-sor network composed of inter-con-nected sensors with live, real-timestreaming data. This is because thedemands of lifelogging are for post-event reflective retrieval rather than realtime, meaning live inter-connectivitywith other sensor nodes is not as vital asin other Sensor Web technologies.

Link:

http://www.cdvp.dcu.ie/SenseCam/

Please contact:

Aiden R. Doherty, Alan F. SmeatonCLARITY Centre for Sensor WebTechnologies, Dublin City University,IrelandE-mail: [email protected],[email protected]

SENSE is an EC-funded project of the6th Framework Programme, EmbeddedSystems (objective 2.5.3, contract no.33279). It aims at developing a platformfor smart adaptive wireless networks ofsmart sensors. These sensors cooperateto establish and maintain a coherentglobal view from local information.Newly added nodes automatically cali-brate themselves to the environment,and share knowledge with their neigh-bours. The network is scalable due to thelocal processing and sharing of informa-tion, and self-organizes based on thephysical placement of nodes.

As test platform for a civil security mon-itoring system, a test application com-posed of video cameras and micro-phones, was chosen. The test platformwill be installed at the Krakow Baliceairport, to yield real data and perform-ance goals from a realistic test environ-ment. Each sensor is a stand-alone sys-

tem consisting of multiple embeddedcomponents: video system, audio sys-tem, central processor, power sourceand wireless networking. The securityapplication implements object/scenariorecognition (eg unattended luggage orpeople 'lurking' in an area). Nodes rec-ognize local objects, using a combina-tion of video and audio information, andneighbouring nodes exchange informa-tion about objects in a self-organizingnetwork. The result is a global overviewof current objects and events observedby the network (see Figure 1).

The five main objectives are:• to build networked systems of

embedded components that candynamically and automaticallyreconfigure themselves

• to convert low-level local informa-tion to semantic knowledge

• to use semantic-level knowledge fornetwork-centric computation

• to understand how a shared semanticvocabulary influences dynamic nodediscovery and configuration

• to understand how perception andinformation processing can be com-bined using low-level and high-levelfeature fusion.

The expected results of SENSE are tocombine the aspects of:• embedded intelligent middleware in

smart devices, • adaptive configuration, • flexible cooperation (among devices), • high-level perception and adaptation • dynamic networking in a common

framework of semantic knowledgediscovery and sharing.

The SENSE system encompassesaspects including:• construction of a modality-neutral

embedded test platform • raw sensory processing

SENSE – Smart Embedded Network of Sensing Entities by Wolfgang Herzner

The SENSE project (Smart Embedded Network of Sensing Entities) is developing methods, tools and atest platform for the design, implementation and operation of smart adaptive wireless networks ofstationary embedded sensing components. The network is an ambient intelligent system, whichadapts to its environment and delivers reliable information to its component sensors and the user.



• transformation of sensory data intosemantic knowledge

• communication between nodes toproduce a consistent world view

• sharing of knowledge between intel-ligent nodes

• automatic recognition of unusual andalarm situations

• communication between the intelli-gent network and an operator, and

• automatic discovery and configura-tion of new intelligent nodes.

Embedded systems in SENSE developtheir own semantic symbols based onan analysis of their environment.SENSE incorporates research frommachine learning to discover statisticalregularities in its environment, andcompresses these regularities intoinformative semantic symbols. At thelocal level, SENSE uses algorithmssuch as 'expectation-maximization' tooptimize each node's set of semanticsymbols. Sharing of knowledgebetween nodes is also a topic ofresearch, both in distributed systemsand artificial intelligence. The SENSEsystem uses a mature algorithm called'belief propagation'. This algorithmspecifies how to share probability dis-tributions over semantic conceptsbetween nodes, such that a self-consis-tent world view results. Figure 2 illus-trates the architecture of SENSE.

The unique feature of SENSE is that itcombines technology from embeddedsystems, robotics, networking andmachine learning research in a newway. The result is a framework for thedevelopment of smart networks ofembedded components that are flexible,

adaptive and device-independent. Net-works that cover those challenges arecalled ad hoc networks or self-organiz-ing networks. Their development isdriven by the wireless community, butsome of their principles are also ofinterest for wired networks. Less effortis required for their installation, initial-ization and maintenance, and they dis-play inherent fault tolerance and thepossibility to save energy within thenetwork. This is true for both wired andwireless types but is typically only rele-vant for the latter. In contrast to self-organizing networks, traditional net-works have a very time-demandingcommissioning phase that also involvesexpert knowledge.

Dynamic addition or removal of nodesis a further challenge. In ad hoc net-

works, connections are constantly cre-ated and destroyed. This is called 'plugand participate'.

Vision and audio sensors were selectedto fit the application domain and alsobecause they are complex enough toallow for significant advancement insensor processing technology. How-ever, the framework designed will begeneric enough to accommodate a widerange of sensors. The middleware andsoftware framework is designed to eas-ily incorporate additional sensor types,which mean the project results are moreeasily extended and the technology iseasier to adopt for third parties.

With respect to requirements, the air-port application is very similar to otherapplications in public buildings andpublic areas, such as shopping centres,railway and bus stations, office build-ings, football stadiums and so on. TheSENSE technology is modular and isappropriate for integration with existingsecurity systems (existing video sys-tems, for example). This provides anupgrade path from current systems to afull distributed SENSE system, improv-ing the chances for technology uptake.

Link:

http://www.sense-ist.org

Please contact:

Wolfgang HerznerAustrian Research Centers – ARC(AARIT)E-mail: [email protected]

Node

Objectsand

Events

User Interface

Co-activatedSemantic Symbols

lead to sharedrepresentations

Semanticinformation iscommunicated

around thenetwork

Nodes build up an understanding

of their environmentby fusing sensor

input to form semantic symbols

Nodes perceiveobjects and

events in theirenvironment

(video and audio)

Semanticinformation

is communicatedto the user

Node

Node Node

Node

Figure 2: SENSE architecture.

Figure 1: Civil Security demonstrator (Airport Krakow); frame-by-frame detection of objects.


The MaD-WiSe system considers aWireless Sensor Network (WSN) as ahighly distributed and dynamic data-base. Sensor data can be acquired,manipulated and filtered using simpleSQL-like statements. Various WSNapplications can be developed using itsfunctionality. For example, the MaD-WiSe system has been used to imple-ment a prototype application providingremote monitoring of firefightersequipped with totally encapsulatedchemical suits (see Figure 1). Thisapplication enables real-time monitor-ing of various physiological parametersduring operational activity. The infor-mation acquired can be used to raise thealarm in situations of risk, provideadvice to the team leader with respect tothe necessary actions, and also toanalyse offline the health of thoseinvolved in an operation. The applica-tion employs five sensors that aredeployed on the arms, legs and chest ofthe operator.

The MaD-WiSe architecture comprisesa set of modules running on WSN nodes(network side), and a set of modules thatoffer WSN services to the externalapplications (context informationprovider). The network side consists ofa set of modules that implement a dis-tributed data stream management sys-tem on a WSN. It is organized into threelayers, as shown in Figure 2. The layersinteract through well-defined interfacesand are autonomous with respect to eachother.

The Network Layer supports connec-tion-oriented multi-hop communicationbetween arbitrary pairs of nodes. TheStream System Layer offers abstractionmechanisms for data access by meansof data streams. It can be thought of asthe equivalent of a file system on a sen-sor network. The main difference is thatin the Stream System, data is continu-ously acquired from transducers, com-

munications between nodes and dataprocessing.

The Stream System defines three typesof streams: sensor, remote and localstreams. A sensor stream is connectedto a transducer and carries data originat-ing from the transducer. A remotestream is a data channel between twodistinct sensors: writing to a remotestream occurs on one sensor while read-ing from the stream occurs on the other.Thus remote communication betweendifferent sensors is encapsulated withinthe stream system, which in this respectoffers the transport layer functionali-ties. A local stream is local to a sensor,as writing to and reading from thestream can only be requested by coderunning on the same sensor. The Stream System allows streams tobe created or removed, and records tobe read from and written to existingstreams. Data rates can be associated

with both sensor and remote streams.For the former, data rates determine theactivation frequency of transducersassociated with sensor streams. In thelatter case, data rates are used by thenetwork layer to optimize radio sched-uling: the radio is switched on onlywhen a piece of data must be sentthrough a remote stream. Sensorstreams can also be 'on demand'. In thiscase the transducers are activated onlyin response to an explicit read requeston the stream.

The last of the three layers is the QueryProcessor Layer, which implements thequery processor of a full-in-network dis-tributed data stream management sys-tem. It can be programmed by the client-side subsystem in order to take part inthe execution of a distributed query. Thequery language used in MaD-WiSe iscalled MW-SQL and shares its basicconstructs with SQL. However, sensor

Towards Data Management in the Sensor Web:the MaD-WiSe Systemby Giuseppe Amato, Stefano Chessa, Francesco Furfari, Stefano Lenzi, Claudio Vairo

The convergence of sensor networks with the Web (Sensor Web) poses new problems. These relateboth to the management of the enormous amounts of data continuously produced by sensors, andto the reaction to events inferred from such data. The MaD-WiSe system (MAnagement of Data inWIreless SEnsor networks), developed at ISTI-CNR, exploits the well-known database paradigm toaddress this issue.

Figure 1: Firefighters being monitored with MaD-WiSe.



This research arose through involve-ment in a joint European Union-fundedFP6 project called Proetex (www.proe-tex.org). The aim of the project is todevelop textile- and fibre-based inte-grated wearable sensor systems. Suchsystems will improve the safety andefficiency of emergency personnel bymonitoring the health status of the oper-ator and the surrounding environment

for potential risk sources. Some of theissues covered are monitoring of vitalsigns, posture and activity, externalhazard monitoring, and low-powerwireless communications. The projectis closely connected with other largeEuropean projects on smart textiles,wearable sensing and associated appli-cations – it brings together and extendsthe technology developed by previous

projects (see for example www.biotex-eu.com).

The project brings together 23 partnersfrom a range of backgrounds – univer-sities, research institutions, industrialpartners and end users – drawn fromlaboratories in France, United King-dom, Poland, Italy, Belgium, Switzer-land, Germany and Ireland.

Detecting Hazardous Gases in EmergencyDisaster Scenarios using Wearable Sensorsby Tanja Radu, Cormac Fay, King Tong Lau and Dermot Diamond

The aim of this project is the development of integrated smart wearable sensors for emergencydisaster intervention personnel. The CLARITY (The Centre for Sensor Web Technologies at Dublin CityUniversity) team is involved in the integration of gas sensors into wearables for detection ofhazardous gases like CO and CO2.

network peculiarities and the distributivenature of the database implementationintroduce some differences. MW-SQLallows users to express queries to manip-ulate, filter and organize sequences oftuples generated by the sensors. MW-SQL relies on the concept of source topresent the user with an abstraction of asequence of tuples arriving from a pre-cise origin. The MaD-WiSe query inter-face is shown in Figure 3.

The MaD-WiSe context informationprovider fits within the raw dataretrieval layer of a context-awarearchitecture. It comprises a low-level

module (composed of a query parser,an execution plan optimizer and aquery manager) and a higher-levelmodule, the JDBC driver, which inter-acts with the low-level module bymeans of the MW-SQL language. Atthe current stage of the project, theJDBC driver is being encapsulatedwithin an OSGi bundle in order toimplement a gateway between theWSN and the Sensor Web, and toenable queries involving differentWSNs in the Sensor Web.

MaD-WiSe was developed using nesCand is available for both TinyOs 1.x and

2.x. It runs on WSN platforms based onMICAz and IRIS motes and is distrib-uted with an open-source licence. Fur-ther information and downloads can befound on the project Web site.

Link:

http://mad-wise.isti.cnr.it

Please contact:

Giuseppe Amato ISTI-CNR, ItalyTel: +39 050 3152906E-mail: [email protected]

Figure 2: The software in a network-side node. Figure 3: The MadWise query interface.

MaD-WiSe Network-side node

1 3

2 4 5

6 7 8

Query Manager/Executor

Stream System

Network

TinyOS

Wireless Sensor Network


Researchers from CLARITY based inthe National Centre for Sensor Researchat Dublin City University are involvedin the integration of sensing platformsinto wearables for the detection of envi-ronmentally harmful gases surroundingemergency personnel. Special attentionis being paid to carbon monoxide (CO)and carbon dioxide (CO2). These gasesare associated with fires and miningoperations, and it is of the highestimportance to warn and protect opera-tors from potential harm caused byover-exposure to high concentrations ofthese gases. The objective is rapiddetection of the status of an environ-ment (low, medium or high hazard) andreal-time communication of this infor-mation to the garment wearer. Criticalin this identification of potential toxifi-cation is a reliable method of measuringCO/CO2 exposure. Commerciallyavailable sensors have been carefullyselected and are being integrated intothe outer garments of firefighters. Thesensors provide sufficient sensitivity toreliably alert users to the presence ofthese harmful gases. Another importantaim is to achieve wireless transmissionof sensor signals to a wearable wirelessbase station that gathers, processes andfurther transmits the data.

When selecting the appropriate com-mercially available sensors for the gassensing application, special attentionwas paid to sensor size, robustness, sen-sitivity and power requirement. Electro-chemical sensors satisfy most of theserequirements, especially in terms ofsize and power requirements. CO isdetected using an amperometric sensor

in which the current between the elec-trodes is proportional to the concentra-tion of the gas. On the other hand, theCO2 sensor is potentiometric. In thiscase, the reference and working elec-trodes are placed in an electrolyte thatprovides a reference CO2 concentration.The measured potential is based on thedifference in concentration between thereference electrode and the outside air.Both types of sensors are very sensitiveand give an accurate reading (in partsper million). This means that both lowconcentrations of these gases (whichcan be hazardous over long periods ofexposure) and high concentrations(which pose an immediate danger) canbe accurately detected. The signalobtained from these sensors is transmit-

ted wirelessly to the wearable base sta-tion using Zigbee. Power is supplied tothe sensors using a nickel metal hydriderechargeable battery. The CO2 sensor isplaced in a specially designed pocketlocated on the firefighter's boot. Thepocket is designed not to obstruct thefirefighter's activities. The prototypecurrently used for testing is shown inFigure 1; note the side pocket contain-ing the CO2 sensor along with the wire-less sensing module and a battery. Thepocket has a waterproof membrane thatprotects the sensor from moisture, butallows gas to pass through. The CO sen-sor will be integrated in the firefighter'souter garment (ie jacket). All sensedinformation will be fed to a wearablelocal base station that shares the datawith a remote centralized base station.The ultimate goal is to achieve localcommunication between firefighters andcivil workers in the operations area, aswell as longer-range communicationsbetween these personnel and the supportteam outside the operations area.

The project commenced in 2006 andwill end in early 2010. The project isenvisioned to produce three sets of pro-totypes during the four years of its exis-tence; so far two generations of proto-types have been successfully developed.At this stage, accurate wireless trans-mission of the sensor signal has beensuccessfully achieved (see Figure 2).Future activities will include evaluationof prototypes in laboratory and fieldconditions. Their performance will becompared to that of existing technology,and will be improved upon by customiz-ing the products according to the spe-cific user needs. Finally, the productswill be tested in real-life situations as anultimate proof of their full functionality.

The authors gratefully acknowledge thefinancial support of the EuropeanUnion (Proetex FP6-2004-IST-4) andthe Science Foundation Ireland(07/CE/I1147).

Links:

http://www.proetex.orghttp://www.dcu.ie/chemistry/asg/raduthttp://www.clarity-centre.com

Please contact:

Tanja RaduCLARITY Centre for Sensor WebTechnologies, Dublin City University Tel: +353 1 700 7602E-mail: [email protected]

Figure 1: Firefighter's boot with built-inpocket used for enclosing the CO2 sensor andwireless communications platform.

Figure 2: Wirelessly transmitted signal from CO2 sensor calibration (range atmospheric to42000 ppm CO2). Sensor was enclosed in an airtight chamber and CO2 was injected.



Sensor technology is rapidly changingthe professional sporting landscape.Modern motor racing has been virtuallytransformed by the introduction ofsophisticated drive-by-wire sensor tech-nology, for example. Similarly, the abil-ity to accurately monitor the perform-ance of an athlete during training ishaving a major influence on a widerange of track and field events. In thisproject we introduce state-of-the artsensing technology onto the tenniscourt with a view to facilitating coachesas they train the next generation of ten-nis superstars. These sensors make it

possible for coaches to obtain a second-by-second record of player performancethat goes far beyond what can be cap-tured by more traditional techniques;simply eyeballing the player as theymove, serve, volley and return, does notreveal what might be going on underthe surface in terms of the player's ever-changing performance profile, his/herbreathing patterns, and the stresses and

strains that they are feeling in theirjoints and muscles.

The project is a collaboration betweenCLARITY (The Centre for Sensor Webtechnologies) and Tennis Ireland, thenational governing body for tennis,based in Dublin City University. Wehave instrumented an all-weather tenniscourt with nine Internet-enabled cam-eras with built-in microphones. This islinked to a localization system thatidentifies the player's position to within15cm by triangulating the radio signalemitted by small tags carried by the

players in their pockets. The coach usesa simple wireless device to signal animportant event during play via a sim-ple button press. After training, thesebutton presses are synchronized to thevideo streams. Content analysis mecha-nisms are then used to define the pre-cise start and end of tennis play aroundthese locations. We do this by trackingthe ball in each camera, measuring

player speed using the location infor-mation and detecting the sound of a ballhitting a racquet. These detected eventsare used in a variety of Web-basedcoaching tools. These include (a) beingable to view individual tennis strokesfrom multiple view points, (b) supportfor online coaching feedback (eg “Thisshot was the wrong choice given thelocation of your opponent when youplayed it”), and (c) an easy way forcoaches and athletes to produce person-alized annotated video summaries forplayers to download and review formotivational purposes.

Integrating Smart Materials and BodySensor NetworksBy its very nature, this project requiresconvergence between multiple disci-plines in order to be successful. Itrequires input from engineers for signalprocessing and content analysis aspectsand from computer scientists foraddressing indexing, archival, personal-ization and user interface issues. Sportsscientists play the crucial role of medi-ating between the technologists and theend-user coaches and athletes. Theirinput is invaluable in helping translate acomplicated set of domain-specific andexpert-driven requirements into a set ofconcrete technical functionalities. Thishelps ensure the practical relevance andusefulness of any technology devel-oped. They also help ensure thatcoaches and athletes understand thepotential benefits of the technology,thereby stimulating take-up by the keystakeholders.

However, the potential for convergenceextends even beyond this initial con-stituency. More generally, the sensedenvironment can be considered as anexperimental platform for triallingwearable sensing. The wireless inertialsensing platforms being developed byCLARITY engineers will be integratedinto the system with a view to providingbiomechanical feedback to athletes.

TennisSense: A Multi-Modal Sensing Platform for Sportby Noel E. O'Connor, Philip Kelly, Ciarán Ó'Conaire, Damien Connaghan, Alan F. Smeaton, Brian Caulfield, Dermot Diamond and Niall Moynahan

The evolution of the World-Wide Web to the Sensor Web is providing an unprecedented opportunityto develop novel applications in a variety of domains. In this article we describe our work on multi-modal sensing for sport.

Figure 1: Coaching tool developed for Tennis Ireland.


When dealing with sensor data for ateam sport, it is often useful to be able toquery across multiple sensors and thusto be able to compare data from severalplayers for any given moment in time.In order to do this, the data from all sen-sors must be synchronized so that thestart time of the game or activity can beidentified in the data from each individ-ual sensor.

This is necessary because sensor devicesmay be activated asynchronously, sincethe device begins recording when it firstcomes into contact with the player'sskin. While many sensor devices willrecord a start time, this information isnot necessarily reliable as there is oftenno correlation between the system timeand the time kept by the match officials,or indeed between the times on any twosensors. In addition, the devices may beunreliable and may malfunction, or thedevice may become detached during thecourse of the game.

From an abstract perspective, sensorscan be regarded as generating values

that correspond to various states, egfirst half, second half etc. A 'profile' is acombination of various states. Eachstate occurs once and in the order spec-ified. The goal is to semantically enrichsensor data with an additional field thatidentifies the state associated withevery sensor reading. Our method is toconvert the sensor stream to XML,which facilitates the subsequent seman-tic enrichment process. In simple terms,the synchronization process involvesidentifying one or more specificmoments in time, such as the beginningor end of the game. Once the readingcorresponding to that time is identified,the data can be synchronized with thedata from all the other devices involvedin the experiment.

The sensors used in our experimentsrecord a heart rate value every 5 sec-onds, and approximately 1200 valuesare generated while the device is worn.The six states corresponding to a Gaelicfootball match can be seen in Figure 1.This example graph is for a midfieldplayer who has a profile of gradually

increasing activity through Pre-Gameand Warm-Up, and remaining con-stantly active throughout each half. Thisprofile can be easily split into statesbecause of the period of rest locatedbetween the two periods of high activ-ity. However, this profile is atypicalamong the thirty players involved in agiven game. A more typical graph isshown in Figure 2, corresponding to adefensive player. This graph is charac-terized by short bursts of activity inter-spersed with periods of rest, making itmuch more difficult to correctly iden-tify the state boundaries. This providesa significant challenge to creating ageneric process for normalizing andsynchronizing sensor streams.

In order to perform our synchroniza-tion, we define a 'model' profile of theideal shape of the data graph. This com-prises two periods of consistently highactivity on either side of a period of rel-atively low activity. This model profileis compared to the data from each sen-sor device until the closest match isfound, in terms of intensity and dura-

Synchronizing Sensed Data in Team Sportsby Dónall McCann, Mark Roantree, Niall Moyna and Michael Whelan

In this article we will be discussing the synchronization of sensor data in team sports.Synchronization allows us to use more expressive queries, to query across all participants in agiven activity and to potentially discover new knowledge from the semantically enriched data.A collaborative research effort between groups working on data management and on healthand human performance (both at Dublin City University) involved a series of experiments usingwearable sensors during team games and the capture and querying of sensed data.

The smart materials being developed bychemists in the CLARITY work pro-gramme will be integrated into bodysensor networks and will allow a varietyof important physiological and biomet-ric indicators to be detected.

To date, most data gathering and experi-mentation with this technology happenswithin a laboratory. The Tennis Irelandinstallation provides infrastructure fordata gathering, analysis and feedbackthat will allow this technology to betested in the field, during real exercise.For example, the work on conductingpolymers will result in textiles for meas-uring stretching, bending and pressuremovements. This 'smart foam' will be

built into the wearable platform of one ofour industry partners and trialled withtennis players to monitor specific musclemovement and strain. Data collectionand feedback can be piggy-backed onthe existing system, with the added ben-efit of a synchronized multi-view videoto augment expert analysis of data fromthe wearable sensors.

A longer-term example is the 'sweatpatch' being developed to measure thepH of sweat. A change in sweat pH maysignal an increased reliance on anaero-bic metabolism, but there is a lack ofreliable methods for assessing pH dur-ing exercise. CLARITY is working on anew fluid-handling platform based on

polyamide lycra. The device consists ofa super-absorbent material that providesa passive pumping mechanism to con-trol fluid flow. The optical detection ofpH-induced colour changes in the dye isachieved via a paired emitter-detectorLED system. The Tennis Ireland instal-lation provides an ideal framework fortesting this innovative technology in areal application scenario with real users.

Please contact:

Noel E O'ConnorCLARITY Centre for Sensor WebTechnologies, Dublin City University,IrelandTel: +353 1 700 5078E-mail: [email protected]



Wireless Inertial Measurement Unit The Tyndall Wireless Inertial Measure-ment Unit (WIMU) is a 6 Degrees ofFreedom (6DOF) inertial sensingdevice, comprising triple-axis accelero-meters, gyroscopes (angular velocity)and magnetometers. The triple-axisacceleration and angular velocity sen-sor output values can be combined in anonlinear matrix equation to give bothposition and orientation information.The system can be visualized by using

a fixed frame of reference for positionmeasurement (x, y, z), the Earth-FixedFrame, and utilizing a moving non-inertial frame (u, v, w), the IMU-FixedFrame, which has its axes parallel tothose of the IMU sensors.

The 25mm WIMU was developedbased upon Tyndall's 25mm modularwireless sensor node technology. It isone of a large family of layers cur-rently available for the Tyndall25. The

25mm wireless node has been used todevelop a platform for low-volumeprototyping and research in the wire-less sensor network domain. A numberof research projects currently under-way at the institute are using it as aplatform for sensing and actuating inscalable, reconfigurable distributedautonomous sensing networks, and itis supported by Science FoundationIreland (SFI) through Tyndall'sNational Access Program (NAP).

Inertial Sensing: A Little Bit of CLARITYby John Barton, Brian Caulfield & Niall Moyna

The increasing availability of cheap, robust and deployable sensor technology will usher in a newwave of ubiquitous information sources. A particular implementation of ambient sensors is in thearea of wearable electronics in body area networks incorporating inertial sensing devices. As part ofthe CLARITY Centre for Sensor Web Technologies, the Tyndall Wireless Inertial Measurement Unit(WIMU) is being used in a number of projects focussing on two key themes: Health and Fitness, andHelping the Aged.

tion of the activity. Identifying stateboundaries for the resulting profile isreasonably simple, involving identify-ing the point at which the data changesin intensity and applying some rulesfrom the domain experts to find the pre-cise location on the curve at which thestate changes. The durations of eachstate are then recorded based on theseboundaries.

For the data from the other sensordevices, a single point is identified. Inour experiments, we discovered thatwhile in many cases it proved impossi-ble to find precise state boundaries forall states, in every case it was possible

to identify at least one, namely thebeginning of the half-time period,when every player ceased intenseactivity and so their heart ratesdropped significantly. Once this pointis identified, the state durationsextracted from the model profile,which should correspond to the dura-tions of the game periods, are appliedand each sensor reading is marked upwith state information.

When all readings are assigned a state,it is possible to query the data accordingto state and across multiple sensors,resulting in richer knowledge and thepotential for new knowledge discovery.

Figure 2: Defensive player data with blurred state boundaries.Figure 1: Midfielder data with distinct state boundaries.

Link:

http://www.computing.dcu.ie/~isg

Please contact:

Dónall McCann, Mark Roantree, Niall Moyna, Michael WhelanDublin City University, IrelandE-mail:[email protected],[email protected], [email protected],[email protected]

for individuals across their lifespan. Inaddition, the technology has the poten-tial to allow sports coaches and trainersto monitor individual athletes in a train-ing or competitive environment. Cur-rently, coaches/trainers are very limitedin what they can measure in real time ina training or competitive environment.The information from the proposed sen-sor platform could be used to designtraining programs that replicate themovement patterns and/or physiologi-cal responses for a given sport or for aspecific position (eg fullback vs. centreforward) in a team sport.

For biomechanical analysis, the abilityto monitor athletes' movement in theirnatural environment is a huge leap for-ward compared to the current method ofmeasuring them in a laboratory setting.As part of CLARITY, critical markerssuch as the speed and agility of top-level rugby players will be determinedin the lab. They will then be outfittedwith WIMUs for assessment in the

field, to examine for example the 'cut-ting' movement of players when theymake a rapid change in direction andthe stresses and strains that theseintense motions put on their joints andmuscles.

As part of a collaboration with TennisIreland, tennis players will be fittedwith WIMUs to augment the alreadyrich sensory environment available atthe tennis facilities at Dublin City Uni-versity. An all-weather tennis court hasbeen instrumented with nine Internet-enabled cameras with built-in micro-phones. Adding WIMUs to the tennisplayers' bodies will enable us to deter-mine the actions they are performingand even the stroke they are playing.

Links:

http://www.clarity-centre.com/http://www.tyndall.ie/mai/25mm.htmhttp://www.tyndall.ie/nap/http://www.dcu.ie/shhp/index.shtmlhttp://www.ucd.ie/physioperformsci/http://www.foster-miller.com/http://www.cdvp.dcu.ie/tennisireland/

Please contact:

John BartonTyndall National Institute, Cork,IrelandTel: +353 21 4904088E-mail: [email protected]

Brian Caulfield,University College Dublin, IrelandTel: +353 1 7166502E-mail: [email protected]

Niall Moyna,Dublin City University, IrelandTel: +353 1 7008802E-mail: [email protected]


Inertial Sensing for Health and FitnessThe development of unobtrusive sens-ing elements embedded in the fabric ofgarments has opened countless possibil-ities for the innocuous monitoring ofathletes over extended periods of time ina variety of sport settings. Foster Miller(an independent company but part of theQinetiQ Inc. group) has recently devel-oped a T-shirt-based Ambulatory Physi-ological Monitoring System, whichmonitors the vital signs of a person dur-ing activity and transmits the data wire-lessly to a remote station.

The combination of textile sensors withWIMUs will greatly assist in the ambu-latory monitoring of healthy individualsand of those with chronic diseases suchas obesity, diabetes, heart failure, andarthritis. The information will allowpatients and allied health professionalsto monitor physiological response dur-ing various forms of activity, and todesign individually tailored programs

The CLARITY Cenre for Sensor Web Technology focuseson the intersection between two important research areas –adaptive sensing and information discovery – to developinnovative technologies of critical importance to Ireland'sfuture and to improving quality of life in areas such as per-sonal health, digital media and environmental manage-ment. The theme of CLARITY's research programme –bringing information to life – refers to the harvesting andharnessing of large volumes of sensed information, both

from the physical world in which we live and the digitalworld of modern communications and computing. CLAR-ITY commenced in June 2008 and represents a large-scaleacademia-industry collaboration, accommodating morethan 100 full-time researchers from University CollegeDublin, Dublin City University and the Tyndall NationalInstitute, in partnership with more than ten industrial part-ners, including major multinationals and emerging Irishcompanies.

CLARITY - Centre for Sensor Web Technologies

Figure 1: Tyndall Wireless Iner-tial Measurement Unit showingyaw, pitch and roll.


The majority of Web applicationsrequire the user's consent to varioustypes of contract before access to theirservices can be granted. A typical exam-ple of such a contract is a 'terms of use'document. Online commercial transac-tions also result in contractual relation-ships (eg sales contracts in the case ofWeb shops).

The current practice of online contractmanagement has many shortcomings,the most significant of which are the fol-lowing: (i) agreements appear in theform of long and complex text docu-ments that cannot be processed withmachines; (ii) overwhelmingly generalcontractual terms and conditions areused; and (iii) the transaction-specificcontractual information is stored sepa-rately in databases.

One of the reasons for this situation isthe lack of a generic standard for therepresentation of legally binding agree-ments that is simple and flexible enoughto store the text of the agreement, thedocument structure and the relatedsemantic data in the same document.The CCF intends to be just such a for-mat. Instead of producing a rich seman-tic expression set or a data dictionary fora specific field, we have been focusingon the structure of the document. Hav-ing examined the everyday practice oflegal procedures and the requirements oflawyers, we found that there is a strongneed for electronic legal documentswhich are usable as documentary evi-dence in legal procedures. For this to bepossible, all the relevant informationshould be stored in the same place (ienot distributed in different databases,transaction logs and legal texts about thegeneral conditions of use), should be ina format readable by lay users (so thatexperts are not needed to interpret it),and the document should be provablyauthentic (ie it should be signed). Ide-ally, documentary evidence should be

very easy to present to the court. Ouraim is to develop a format specificallyto meet these criteria. To the best of ourknowledge, this is a completely newapproach to developing a legal format.

In order to help to overcome the above-mentioned shortcomings of present

practice, we have defined the followingdesign goals:• the format must be as simple as pos-

sible• the format should capture only the

structure of a contract document,allowing the user to choose thesemantic vocabulary (ie ODRL Datadictionary elements or XACMLexpressions) of the annotation, thusallowing a wide range of existinglegal semantic markup formats to beused

• the documents in this format must bereadable with a common Web browser

• it should be possible to embed thedocuments using the format intoexisting Web pages in order to allow

the development of interoperableWeb solutions.

In order to meet the above require-ments, a relatively simple XML schemawas defined that describes the entirecontract as a hierarchy of conditionsand sub-conditions, references and

annexes. The result is a CCF documentthat is capable of structuring the text ofthe contract into a simple, hierarchicalform. It allows further annotation of thetext with existing, sophisticated, appli-cation-specific formats such as OpenDigital Rights Language (ODRL) oreXtensible Access Control MarkupLanguage (XACML).

The next step is to embed the wholedocument into another XML file, whichcontains an Extensible Stylesheet Lan-guage Transformation (XSLT) docu-ment. The result is a document that,when opened by a Web browser, is acompound structure ofXHTML+CSS+Javascript elements.

R&D and Technology Transfer

Semantically Enhanced Representation of Legal Contracts for Web Applicationsby Mihály Héder and Balázs Rátai

Carneades Contract Format (CCF) is a flexible and extensible representation framework for legalcontracts. This new format makes it possible to represent equally the text, document structure andsemantics of legally binding agreements. The concept was developed by Carneades Consulting andthe Internet Technology Department of SZTAKI, which also played an important role in the selectionof the optimal technical solution and developed the first demo implementation.

Figure 1: The interplay of different namespaces in a contract.


This kind of bundling of data and repre-sentation is a novel solution for legalcontracts. The flexible structure of thedocument also allows an envelopedXML Digital Signature to be added.

A document created this way unifies theadvantages of accessible Web docu-ments and the expression power of theapplication-specific legal formats,which are capable of representinglegally relevant and easily processedsemantic information about the text.

As mentioned above, it is possible toembed, anywhere in the document,valid XML from any namespace (egODRL or XACML) in so-called exten-sion elements.

By default, the semantic annotations inthe document become simple visualannotations in the browser. If there areparts of the XSLT prepared to handlethe particular namespace used in anextension element, the visual represen-tation becomes even more informative.

A special kind of annotation is the con-tract modification, which we haveplaced in a different namespace. Usingthe elements of this namespace, we canproduce contracts which modify othercontracts. Using the original contractand the modifications we can always

derive the current, consolidated view ofthe original and the modifying contract.On a technical level, however, the mod-ification schema is just like an externalschema to the contract, such asXACML, ODRL or others.

There are many possible applications ofthe format. Just to mention a few, it ispossible to (i) derive access controldecisions directly from XACML-anno-tated usage agreements; (ii) provide asummary of an annotated document;

(iii) implement smart searching in doc-uments based on semantics; and (iv)provide an overview of many contractsor generate statistics based on largenumber of annotated documents.

We are currently testing and evaluatingour solution in the framework of aresearch project called AAI-BasedAuthorization Broker, an e-commercesolution based on strong identity and pol-icy management. This is a sub-project ofthe Mobile Innovation Centre, a researchand development program sponsored bythe Hungarian government, in the area ofmobile telecommunication.

Links:

AAI project:http://www.sztaki.hu/search/projects/project_information/?uid=00210 CCF schema:http://www.carneades.hu/xml/ carneadescontract

Please contact:

Mihály HéderSZTAKI, HungaryTel: +36 1 279 6027E-mail: [email protected]

Balázs RátaiCarneades Consulting, HungaryTel: +36 1 394 2114E-mail: [email protected]

Figure 2: An ODRL-annotated usage agree-ment document about some pictures bought ina Web shop. When opened in a browser, mov-ing the cursor over the annotated (light red)text causes a pop-up containing the details.

Contiki is an open-source, memory-efficient operating system for sensornetwork nodes that was the first operat-ing system to provide IP connectivityfor sensor networks. Contiki incorpo-rates many recent research results inwireless sensor networks, such aspower profiling, cross-layer simulation,and low-power radio networking. TheContiki project was started in 2002 andhas subsequently grown to includeresearch institutions and major industryplayers. At SICS, we use Contiki forseveral sensor network research proj-ects.

The Contiki operating system is imple-mented in C and consists of an event-driven kernel, on top of which applica-tion programs can be dynamicallyloaded and unloaded at run time. Con-tiki processes use lightweight pro-tothreads that provide a linear, thread-like programming style on top of theevent-driven kernel. In addition to pro-tothreads, Contiki also supports per-process optional preemptive multi-threading and interprocess communica-tion using message passing. Contikiruns comfortably in a few kilobytes ofRAM.

Several of Contiki's mechanisms havebeen released as separate open-sourcepackages and have seen significantindustrial uptake. The uIP embedded IPstack, originally released in 2001, istoday used by hundreds of companies insystems such as freighter ships, satel-lites and oil drilling equipment. Con-tiki's protothread programming library,first released in 2005, has been used indigital TV decoders and wireless vibra-tion sensors.

For sensor network communication,Contiki provides a low-power radio net-

Contiki: Bringing IP to Sensor Networks by Adam Dunkels

The open-source Contiki operating system brings IP, the Internet Protocol, to sensornetworks through the uIP (micro Internet Protocol), uIPv6 protocol stacks and theSICSlowpan IPv6-over-802.15.4 adaptation layer.

http://www.sztaki.hu/search/projects/project_information/?uid=00210

http://www.carneades.hu/xml/carneadescontract



working stack called Rime. The Rimestack implements sensor network proto-cols ranging from reliable data collec-tion and best-effort network flooding tomulti-hop bulk data transfer and datadissemination. IP packets are tunnelledover multi-hop routing via the Rimestack.

Interaction with a network of Contikisensors can be achieved with a Webbrowser, a text-based shell interface, ordedicated software that stores and dis-plays collected sensor data. The text-based shell interface is inspired by theUnix command shell but provides spe-cial commands for sensor network inter-action and sensing.

To provide a long sensor network life-time, it is crucial to control and reducethe power consumption of each sensornode. Contiki provides a software-basedpower profiling mechanism that keepstrack of the energy expenditure of eachsensor node. Being software-based, themechanism allows power profiling at

the network scale without any additionalhardware. Contiki's power profilingmechanism is used both as a researchtool for experimental evaluation of sen-sor network protocols, and as a way toestimate the lifetime of a network ofsensors.

Contiki provides a flash-based file sys-tem, called Coffee, for storing datainside the sensor network. The file sys-tem allows multiple files to coexist onthe same physical on-board flash mem-ory and has a performance that is closeto the raw data throughput of the flashchip.

To ease software development anddebugging, Contiki provides three simu-lation environments: the MSPsim emu-lator, the Cooja cross-layer networksimulator, and the Netsim process-levelsimulator. The development process forsoftware for Contiki typically goesthrough all three simulation stagesbefore the software runs on the targethardware.

In October 2008, major industry playersCisco and Atmel joined Contiki. Cisco,Atmel and SICS jointly announceduIPv6, the world's smallest fully compli-ant IPv6 stack. uIPv6 builds on the uIPstack and is integrated in Contiki.

The Contiki team currently consists ofsixteen developers from SICS, SAP AG,Cisco, Atmel, NewAE and TU Munich.

Adam Dunkels from SICS, Sweden, isthe winner of the 2008 Cor BaayenAward for a promising young researcherin computer science and applied mathe-matics. http://www.ercim.org/activity/cor-baayen

Link:http://www.sics.se/contiki/

Please contact:

Adam DunkelsSICS, SwedenTel: +46 70 773 1614E-mail: [email protected]

In many contexts in which textual doc-uments are labelled with thematicclasses, a distinction is made betweenthe primary and secondary classes towhich a given document belongs. Theprimary classes of a document representthe topic(s) that are central to the docu-ment, or that the document is mainlyabout. The secondary classes insteadrepresent topics that are somehowtouched upon, albeit peripherally, anddo not represent the main thrust of thedocument.

This distinction has been neglected intext classification (TC) research. Wecontend that it is important anddeserves to be explicitly tackled since,in most contexts in which the distinc-tion is made, the degree of importanceof a misclassification can depend onwhether it involves a primary or a sec-

ondary class. For instance, when apatent application is submitted to theEuropean Patent Office (EPO), a pri-mary class from the International PatentClassification (IPC) scheme is attachedto the application, and that class deter-mines the expert examiner who will bein charge of evaluating the application.Secondary classes are attached only forthe purpose of identifying related priorart, since the appointed examiner willneed to determine the novelty of theproposed invention against existingpatents classified under either the pri-mary or any of the secondary classes.Thus, for the purposes of the EPO, fail-ing to recognize the true primary classof a document is a more serious mistakethan failing to recognize a true second-ary class. Similar considerations applyto other scenarios in which the distinc-tion is made.

In a concerted attempt to address thisdistinction, we define preferential textclassification, a task which we define asthe attribution to a textual document d ofa partial ordering among the set ofclasses C. This partial ordering specifieswhether or not a given class 'appliesmore than' (or 'is preferred to') anotherclass in the document. In particular, wefocus on a special case of preferentialTC; namely, the case in which each doc-ument is associated to a 'three-layered'partial order. This consists of a top layerof one or more primary classes, each ofwhich is preferred to those in a middlelayer of secondary classes, which are inturn each preferred to those in a bottomlayer of 'non-classes' (ie classes that donot apply at all to the document).

The original contribution of our work istwofold. First, we propose an evalua-

Preferential Text Classification: Learning Algorithms and Evaluation Measuresby Fabio Aiolli, Riccardo Cardin, Fabrizio Sebastiani and Alessandro Sperduti

Researchers from ISTI-CNR, Pisa and from the Department of Pure and Applied Mathematics at theUniversity of Padova, are explicitly attacking the document classification problem of distinguishingprimary from secondary classes by using 'preferential learning' technology.


tion measure for preferential TC, inwhich different kinds of misclassifica-tions involving either primary or second-ary classes have a different impact oneffectiveness. Second, we attack prefer-ential TC by using a learning model,dubbed the Generalized PreferenceLearning Model, that was explicitlydevised for learning from training dataexpressed in preferential form, ie in theform "class c' is preferred to class c'' fordocument d". This model allows us to

draw a fine distinction between primaryand secondary classes in both the testingand learning phases, thus making use ofthe different importance of primary andsecondary classes to which a trainingdocument belongs. Experiments run onWIPO-alpha, a well-known benchmarkdataset consisting of manually classifiedpatents, show that the Generalized Pref-erence Learning Model outperformsstandard (ie non-preferential) state-of-the-art learning approaches.

Link:

http://www.isti.cnr.it/People/F.Sebastiani/Publications/IRJ08b.pdf

Please contact:

Fabrizio SebastianiISTI-CNR, ItalyTel: +39 050 3152 892 E-mail: [email protected]

Rather than simply transmitting the rawmeasured data, current state-of-the-artsensors are capable of a limited amountof processing. This feature has manypositive effects, such as keeping the net-work usage and costs as low as possible.However, this is not enough to replacethe role of well-equipped nodes thatgather streaming sensor data from mul-tiple sources and which account for thebiggest share of the processing cost.These nodes should be able to performcomplex query processing on large

amounts of incoming data, meetingstrict real-time deadlines even in periodswhen the frequency of incoming dataexplodes.

Our work focuses on this part of the sen-sor research. We are designing anddeveloping a system called the Data-Cell, which is capable of efficiently col-lecting and processing high volumes ofstream data. We are currently studyingthe DataCell over the stream applicationscenario of an ambient home setting.

The DataCell is positioned as a datarefinery cell that acts as an easily pro-grammable data hub in a multi-networkenvironment. Its task is to collect, filterand aggregate information from differ-ent sources to enable complex decisionmaking, such as control of the lightingbased on audio/video presentations. Thechallenge in an ambient environment isto hide the computer from the casualuser, even while it is actively steeringthe environment. An example query inthe ambient scenario could be, “tune the

DataCell: Exploiting the Power of RelationalDatabases for Efficient Stream Processingby Erietta Liarou and Martin Kersten

Designed for complex event processing, DataCell is a research prototype database system inthe area of sensor stream systems. Under development at CWI, it belongs to the MonetDBdatabase system family. CWI researchers innovatively built a stream engine directly on top of adatabase kernel, thus exploiting and merging technologies from the stream world and the richarea of database literature. The results are very promising.

Figure 1: The DataCell in theambient scenario.

http://www.isti.cnr.it/People/F.Sebastiani/Publications/IRJ08b.pdf



television to my favourite show when Isit on the couch”; ie depending on theweight measured by a sensor in the seat,and the time of day, different TV showswill appear on the screen.

In stream applications, we need mecha-nisms to support long-standing queriesover data that is continuously updatedfrom the environment. This requirementis significantly different from what hap-pens in a traditional database system,where data are stored in static tables andusers fire one-time queries to be evalu-ated over the existing data. Given thiscritical difference, the pioneering archi-tects of the data stream managementsystem naturally considered existingdatabase architectures inadequate toachieve the desired performance:instead they designed new architecturesfrom scratch.

However, working from scratch makesit difficult to exploit the existing knowl-edge and techniques of relational data-bases. This disadvantage became morepronounced as the stream applicationsdemanded more functionality. In Data-Cell therefore, we started at the otherend of the spectrum, building an effi-cient data stream management systemon top of an extensible database kernel.With careful design, this allows us toreuse the sophisticated algorithms andtechniques of traditional databases. Wecan provide support for any kind ofcomplex functionality without having toreinvent solutions and algorithms forproblems and cases for which a rich

database literature already exists. Fur-thermore, it allows for more flexible andefficient query processing by allowingbatch processing of stream tuples, aswell as non-consecutive processing byselectively picking the tuples to process.

The idea is that when stream tuplesarrive in the system, they are immedi-ately stored in (appended to) a new kindof table called a basket. By collectingtuples into baskets, we can evaluate thecontinuous queries (which are alreadysubmitted to the system and are waitingfor future incoming data) over relatedbaskets as if they were normal one-timequeries. This allows us to reuse any kindof algorithm and optimization designedfor a modern database system. Eachquery has at least one input and one out-put basket. It continuously reads datafrom the input baskets, processes thisdata and creates a result which it thenplaces in its output baskets. Once a tuplehas been seen by all relevant queries, itis dropped from its basket.

This description of the process is some-what simplified, since this process allowsthe exploration of quite flexible strate-gies. For example, the same tuple may bethrown into multiple baskets where mul-tiple queries are waiting, query plans maybe split into parts, and baskets may beshared between similar operators (orgroups of operators) of different queries,allowing results to be reused.

The periphery of a sensor stream engineis formed by adapters, eg software com-

ponents to interact with devices, RSSfeeds and SOAP Web services. Thecommunication protocols range fromsimple messages to complex XML doc-uments transported using either UDP orTCP/IP. The adapters for the DataCellconsist of receptors and emitters. Areceptor is a separate thread that contin-uously picks up incoming events from acommunication channel and forwardsthem to the DataCell kernel for process-ing. Likewise, an emitter is a separatethread that picks up events prepared bythe DataCell kernel and delivers them tointerested clients, ie those that have sub-scribed to a query result.

We designed and developed the Data-Cell at CWI in Amsterdam, funded bythe BRICKS project. It is implementedon top of the MonetDB, an open-sourcecolumn-oriented database system. Cur-rently it is a research prototype and thegoal is to be able to disseminate the Dat-aCell soon as part of MonetDB.

Link:

http://monetdb.cwi.nl/

Please contact:

Erietta Liarou CWI, The NetherlandsTel: +31 20 59 24 127E-mail: [email protected]

Martin KerstenCWI, The NetherlandsTel: +31 20 59 24 066E-mail: [email protected]

On looking FORWARDby Sotiris Ioannidis, Evangelos Markatos and Christopher Kruegel

Computer systems, networks and Internet users are under constant threatfrom cyber attacks. FORWARD is an initiative by the European Commission topromote collaboration and partnership between academia and industry intheir common goal of protecting Information and Communication Technologyinfrastructures.

The past few years have been marked byan ever-increasing number of cyberattacks. Motivated by fun, fame andpeer recognition, early attackers, morewidely known as 'hackers', pioneeredthe methods used to penetrate comput-ers, compromise accounts and invadeour personal lives. Even though theseearly hackers usually meant no harm,their methods and techniques perfected

the necessary technology required tocompromise remote computers. In turn,this paved the way for professionalcriminals motivated by profit to startusing compromised computers for awide variety of illegal activities, such astrading of credit card numbers, onlinerenting of compromised computers,online ordering and delivering of denial-of-service attacks, and sending spam

email messages. To reduce the effects ofthese cyber attacks, security researchersare engaged in an arms race against theever-increasing sophistication of cyberattackers, by creating systems thatdetect, and whenever possible mitigate,the effects of these attacks.

To stay ahead in this arms race, FOR-WARD brings together European


Our NFC-based authentication mecha-nism relies on dual-interface smart cards,that is, cards with both contact and con-tactless interfaces. These cards mightalso be used for other financially relatedpurposes, eg as debit or credit cards. Infact, this situation is desirable in order toavoid burdening the customer with anadditional card for eBanking purposes.

The customer authentication mecha-nism works by having the customerproduce an appropriate response to anunpredictable challenge generated bythe bank. In order to do so, she mustuse her card and its PIN, which is usedto authenticate the customer to the card.More precisely, when the customerwishes to engage in eBanking, she vis-

Enhancing Authentication in eBanking with NFC-Enabled Mobile Phonesby Diego A. Ortiz-Yepes

In the past few months, a mobile phone-based authentication mechanism for eBanking has been devel-oped at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory. At the core of this mechanism, we have used NFC and CAP.The latter, Chip Authentication Program (CAP), is a specification developed by MasterCard that providesmechanisms for customer authentication based on smart cards compliant with EMV (Europay - Master-Card - Visa). The former, Near-Field Communication (NFC), is an emerging technology related to RFIDthat is already being incorporated into commercially available mobile phones, allowing them to commu-nicate over very short distances (in the order of a few centimetres) with other NFC-enabled devices. Thisability, when employed in tandem with CAP — as we have done in our authentication mechanism —greatly enhances the overall usability of the authentication system.

its the Internet site of her bank, whichrequests her customer ID, eg heraccount or contract number. Once suchan ID has been received by the bank, itreplies with a challenge, which consistsof an unpredictable number of between6 and 8 digits. Having received thischallenge, the customer starts the phoneapplication by touching her bank cardto the back of the phone (see Figure 1).She then selects the log-in mode andtypes in the server-issued challenge.Prior to generating the correspondingresponse, the phone requests that thecustomer provide her PIN in order toauthenticate herself to the card. Oncethe customer has been authenticated bythe card, the phone sends the challengeto the card obtaining a cryptogram in

return. Using this cryptogram – a bit-string cryptographically bound to thechallenge and the internal card state –the phone generates a numeric code, iethe response, which is displayed to thecustomer. Subsequently, she sends theresponse to the bank server by typing itinto the PC. When the response isreceived by the bank, the latter checkswhether it corresponds to the previouslyissued challenge. If this is the case, thebank presents the customer with heraccount(s) summary, as well as someappropriate transaction options.

The mechanism outlined above replacesthe Personal Card Reader (PCR)required by some authenticationschemes currently in use, yielding a

researchers in network and informationsystems security to identify (i) the mostprobable security threats in the nearfuture, and (ii) those research areas thatmust be pursued to address and mitigatethese emerging threats. By mobilizing acritical mass of researchers in Europeand by complementing them with aselect team of researchers from Asiaand America, FORWARD is workingtowards establishing a research agendafor cyber security in Europe and identi-fying possible new areas and threatsthat must be addressed. FORWARDresearchers have focused their activitieson three critical domains: • Malware and Fraud: malware is per-

haps the one arena in which attackershave clearly demonstrated anincreased sophistication. In its race toevade antivirus signatures and systemsand stay below the detection 'radar',malware has evolved to be agile,stealthy and highly sophisticated.

• Smart Environments: the increasingminiaturization of computing sys-tems is driving the penetration ofintelligent appliances in every humanactivity. As computing and communi-cating devices become increasinglywidespread, so does the potential ofattackers to disrupt our daily lives ina wide variety of ways.

• Critical Systems: Our daily functions,if not our lives, depend on a widevariety of traditional and emerginginfrastructures, such as the powergrid and communications networks.As it becomes more common to con-nect critical infrastructures to theInternet using off-the-shelf technolo-gies, the vulnerability of these utili-ties increases to breaches and attacksfrom the outside world.

By mobilizing cyber security researchersin Europe and by consolidating theirefforts along those major research axes,

FORWARD will identify those researchdirections that will help lead to a saferand more secure cyberspace for all Euro-pean citizens.

For more information about the activitiesof FORWARD or if you are interested inparticipating, please contact ChristopherKruegel or visit our Web site.

Link:

http://www.ict-forward.eu

Please contact:

Christopher Kruegel Vienna University of Technology, AustriaE-mail: [email protected]

Sotiris IoannidisFORTH-ICS, GreeceTel: +30 2810391945E-mail: [email protected]



more convenient authentication mecha-nism. This follows from the fact thatthe user needs only her phone and hercard in order to authenticate herself tothe bank. On the one hand, phones aretruly ubiquitous devices that can hardlybe considered a burden; on the other,most people carry their bank cards withthem in their wallets or purses, makingthe requirements of our authenticationmechanism quite low.

Note that both the challenge and theresponse could be sent directly from thebank server to the phone and back viaSMS, or some other suitable mecha-nism using the mobile phone network.This would not only simplify the mech-anism, but would also increase the level

of security as a consequence of using thephone and a secondary channel, whosecompromise is much less likely than thePC alone.

In conclusion, we have developed aneBanking authentication mechanismwhose security properties are compara-ble to PCR-based CAP. NFC-enabledmobile phones are a key component ofthis mechanism, providing an enhancedlevel of usability, not only by replacingthe PCR altogether, but also being ableto offer a more pleasant user experience.Additionally, we have implemented thismechanism in such a way that it inte-grates seamlessly with an existing CAPinfrastructure, allowing it to be used in areal-life pilot by the end of 2008.

Please contact:

Michael Baentsch, Michael Osborne,Diego A. Ortiz-Yepes IBM Zurich Research Lab, SwitzerlandE-mail: [email protected],[email protected],[email protected]

OK

carddetected

CAP tokengenerated

Select

OK

Figure 1: Using NFC-enabled phones for eBanking authentication.


Last October, the organization ofLIAMA was revisited in order tostrengthen its impact on cooperationbetween Europe and China. A consor-tium was created to encourage interac-tion between institutions sharing thesame vision in ICT, a field which is atop research priority for both Europeand China.

On the Chinese side, Tsinghua Univer-sity together with the three institutes ofthe Chinese Academy of Sciences spe-cializing in IT in Beijing, the Institute ofAutomation, the Institute of Software,and the Institute of Computing Technol-ogy, joined the consortium. All theseinstitutions host research teams withEuropean partners working on jointresearch projects. LIAMA also openedits consortium to companies active inR&D, to develop links with the industryof both regions. France Telecom was thefirst company to join the consortium,and discussions are taking place withcorporations and SMEs with whichLIAMA has cooperative projects.

LIAMA is also a hub for European stu-dents to study in China or undertakeinternships in the framework of theirEuropean curriculum. Several dozenforeign students work every year inLIAMA in close partnership with theirChinese counterparts, giving them aunique opportunity to understand betterthe culture and start learning the lan-guage. A reasonable proportion of theEuropean students who work inLIAMA choose to stay or return later toChina to work.

Of course, the historical partners ofLIAMA play a fundamental role in theconsortium, the first steering committeeof which met last October. LIAMA wascreated by Professor Ma Songde, whostudied and worked in France in the1980s and became director of the Insti-tute of Automation after he returned toChina. The Institute of Automation has

been a major partner in LIAMA's proj-ects, and is hosting the LIAMA officefor the consortium.

In June 2008, LIAMA also became aNational Centre for InternationalResearch, a newly created structuresupported by the Ministry of Scienceand Technology, to foster internationalcooperation. Since its creation. LIAMAhas enjoyed sustained support from theChina's authorities and research institu-tions.

The strength of LIAMA is a result ofthe presence of a large group ofresearchers and students from Francestaying for long periods. Currently,seven French researchers from INRIAand CNRS are working in LIAMA proj-ects for terms of several years. Amongthese, four are working in the Schoolfor Information Science and Technol-ogy of Tsinghua University. These sus-tained relations with our Chinese part-ners have allowed the development ofan atmosphere of confidence and trust,in which the geographic distance andthe cultural differences between the two

regions vanish. The Institute ofAutomation was the first in the ChineseAcademy of Sciences to hire a perma-nent foreign researcher, and to awardthe habilitation to a foreigner, whichdemonstrates its strong trust andinvolvement in this partnership.

Since LIAMA started as a spin-off fromthe National Laboratory for PatternRecognition of the Institute of Automa-tion, image analysis has been one of theimportant directions of research. Overthe years, our spectrum of activity hasbroadened. Currently, LIAMA'sresearch is structured around the fol-lowing disciplines: • computational medicine, with a spe-

cial focus on brain imaging • environmental modelling, from the

modelling of plant growth to thestudy of the turbulence of sand winds

• secure software, formal methods forembedded software, network and gridprogramming, as well as open-sourcesoftware promotion

• graphics, computer-aided design andinteractive technology

• pattern recognition and image under-standing and processing.

LIAMA has contributed to establishinga privileged partnership between Franceand China for research in ICT. TheLIAMA consortium will deepen ourcooperation with the best partners inEurope and China.

European students can check for intern-ship offers online, or directly contact theresearchers in their field of interest tofind out more about available positions.Institutions or labs can contact the direc-tors of LIAMA for further information.

Link: http://liama.ia.ac.cn/

Please contact:

Stéphane GrumbachINRIA, France, Director of LIAMAE-mail: [email protected]

Sino-French IT Lab in Beijing Opens to European Institutionsby Stéphane Grumbach

After twelve years, the Sino-French IT Lab in Beijing has opened its doors to European partners. Createdin 1997 by INRIA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences to promote cooperation between France andChina in IT, LIAMA ('Laboratoire d'Informatique, d'Automatique et de Mathématiques Appliquées') hasconducted more than 100 research projects associating laboratories in the two countries.

Tomato profile from calibrated GreenLabmodel. GreenLab is a stochastic, functionaland interactive model for plant growth, one ofLIAMA's research topics.



% success Tag identified Reads Time in sec

Inventory 85 34/40 710 60

% success Tag identified Num tests Time in sec

Single Search 100 1/50 50 5-10

Table 1: Reading results in inventory mode.

Table 2: Reading results for the tag retrieval operation.

DocSearch: UHF RFID Technology for Document Localizationby Marina Buzzi, Marco Conti and Daniele Vannozzi

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) and sensor technologies are now enabling the Internet ofThings. Ultra High Frequence (UHF) RFID readers and passive tags can be valuable tools foremerging pervasive services since they allow tags to be read at distances ranging from one-half tofew meters, depending on antenna power, size and polarization. However, UHF has limits due to RFreflection, shadowing and absorption. Our experimental study investigates the feasibility of UHFRFID for reliable and efficient retrieval of archived documents.

Radio-frequency identification (RFID)uses radio waves to permit the automaticidentification of objects, people and ani-mals. It consists of two components,readers and tags; the tags store informa-tion that can be retrieved by readers.Tags may be passive, active (battery-powered) or semi-active. Passive tagsare especially convenient since they aresmall, cheap and potentially can lastinfinitely.

The DocSearch project is underway inPisa, Italy, at the Istituto di Informaticae Telematica of the Italian NationalResearch Council. It aims to develop atool for improving the efficiency of theccTLD ".it" Registry which assigns andmanages domain names under the coun-try code Top Level Domain "it". Specif-ically, the goal of the project is to aidRegistry staff to answer customer ques-tions regarding paper documents sub-mitted as part of a registration request.The operator needs an efficient methodto retrieve the original document(s)referred to by the customer from amongthousands of documents. The Doc-Search project is thus developing a toolthat exploits RFID technology. Eachdocument is archived with an RFID tagand the document data and tag id arestored in a database. Using RFID tech-nology the operator can easily find thecorrect document even if the documentwas stored in the wrong place.

When applying RFID technology, thereliability of the reading is crucial. RawRFID data are large-volume streamscharacterized by duplicate, missed andghost reads. Therefore, data filtering andaggregation are necessary in order toextract reliable data.

UHF tag reading can be challengingdepending on object composition, pack-aging, and tag size and placement. It isfacilitated by motion. Three issues affect

UHF reading: reflection, shadowing andabsorption:• metal reflects RF (however an appro-

priate insulation between tag andobject can improve reading)

• shadowing is present when severaltags are placed very close to oneanother and their antennas mask eachother, and this decreases the read rate

• liquids (such as water) absorb RF andhinder tag reading.

The DocSearch project began in 2008with a feasibility study aimed at measur-ing the reliability of UHF tag readingapplied to document search. In the feasi-bility study we tested both multiplereads and single search. Multiple simul-taneous reads (usually called inventorymode/command) make it possible todiscover multiple tags in the antennafield at the same time, by using an anti-collision search algorithm. In order toverify the amplitude of the shadowingproblem, we tested the worst case wheneach document consists of a single papersheet and all sheets are piled in a folder.We carried out experiments in severalconfigurations with different spatialpositioning of tags. The best result wasachieved by applying a thin dielectricsubstrate, which separates the tag fromthe page (increasing distance betweentags). In this configuration the meanread percentage was 85% (see Table 1).

Looking for a specific tag is less critical.The success percentage is almost 100%when searching a 50-document folder(see Table 2).

Since single document retrieval is themain operation in our scenario, the feasi-bility study indicates that UHF RFID is asuitable technology for efficient docu-ment localization; thus we have devel-oped a procedure for the storage andretrieval of documents using RFID tech-nology. Currently a preliminary proto-type (developed in C# language) is avail-able for testing on a WorkAbout Pro 2palm (Psion Teklogix) integrating anRFID reader (CAEN/Intel technology),with Win Mobile 6 OS. Documents weretagged with ALN 9540 "Squiggle"(Alien Technology). The developmentenvironment is .NET, Visual Studio 2005and SQL server 2005.

Link:

IT NIC http://www.nic.it/

Please contact:

Marina Buzzi, Marco Conti, DanieleVannozzi, IIT-CNR, ItalyE-mail: [email protected],[email protected], [email protected]


The ISSeG Web site provides a riskassessment tool, security recommenda-tions and training material to help sitesimprove their computer security. Whilethe project's focus has been on the secu-rity of Grid sites, the material is applica-ble to a wide range of computer centres,particularly those in academic or techni-cal environments.

Integrated Site SecurityThe project's vision has been that Gridsecurity, which focuses on middleware,authentication, authorisation and opera-tion across multiple administrativedomains, needs to be complemented by

comprehensive site security at all partic-ipating Grid sites. To this end, theISSeG project has created and dissemi-nated practical expertise on the deploy-ment of Integrated Site Security (ISS).

ISS is a practical approach to site securitythat integrates technical, administrativeand educational security solutions, anddevelops them in a consistent and coordi-nated way. This integration ensures thatpolicies, rules, awareness and training allevolve in step with technological oradministrative developments.

Creating Practical ExpertiseThe project began in February 2006 andhas been co-funded by the EU FP6 Pro-gramme. The consortium comprised theEuropean Organization for ParticlePhysics (CERN) in Switzerland,Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (FZK) inGermany, and the Science and Technol-ogy Facilities Council (STFC) formerlyknown as the Council for the CentralLaboratory of the Research Councils(CCLRC) in the UK.

ISSeG created and captured raw expert-ise through full-scale ISS deployment atCERN and FZK including, for example,

flexible and improved security for cen-trally managed computers, strengthenedpolicies for controls networks andincreased firewall protections. Experi-ence gained from the two site deploy-ments, as well as site security assess-ments carried out by a subcontractedcompany, were used to develop trainingmaterials and recommendations as tohow security risks can be mitigated.

Coordinated by STFC, results were dis-seminated via presentations and theISSeG Web site to help scientific com-

munities use this integrated approach toimprove their site security measures. Inaddition, there has been close collabo-ration with the security groups of theEnabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE)project – the Operational SecurityCoordination Team (OSCT) and theJoint Security Policy Group (JSPG) –resulting in their continuous involve-ment and input to help shape ISSeGdevelopment.

The ISSeG Web Site Visitors to the Web site can downloadand complete a risk assessment ques-tionnaire. They will then, via a priori-tized list of threats specific to their site,receive tailored site security recommen-dations. A generic set of the top threatsand top recommendations for Grid sitescan also be viewed directly.

Training materials for general users,system administrators, software devel-opers and managers are also availablefrom the site, including introductorymaterial, training presentations, secu-rity checklists and downloadable print-able materials.

Acknowledging the usefulness of thecontent, the OSCT will take over themaintenance of the ISSeG Web site toensure its continued availability beyondthe lifetime of the ISSeG project. Thisagreement was formalized in a Memo-randum of Understanding betweenISSeG and phase three of the EGEE(Enabling Grids for E-science) project(EGEE-III), which began in May 2008.

This article is based on one published inthe CERN Computer Newsletter.

Link:

http://www.isseg.eu

Please contact:

David JacksonSTFC, UKE-mail: [email protected]

Integrated Site Security for Grids by Kate Bradshaw

Between 90 and 98% of the emails received each day by most organizations are spam. While someare nothing but a harmless nuisance, others are malicious and capable of causing substantialdamage. This is just one of the ways in which Grid and other computing sites can be attacked. Toincrease awareness and provide security guidance, CERN has led a European Commission co-fundedproject entitled Integrated Site Security for Grids (ISSeG), which was completed at the end of March2008. The final results of this 26-month project are available from the project Web site.

The ISSeG projectcomplements Gridsecurity by providingrecommendationsand training for eachGrid site.

Book Review:

"From computers to ubiquitous computing, by 2020"ERCIM was requested by the Royal Society to review thePhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: 366,1881 pp 3663-3838: "From computers to ubiquitous com-puting, by 2020"; 28 October 2008; edited by MartaKwiatkowska, Tom Rodden and Vladimiro Sassone.

The publication collects papers from a discussion meetingheld at the Royal Society in March 2008. The 18 individualpapers each tackle an aspect of Ubiquitous Computing (Ubi-Comp) ranging from RFID identifiers and global sensing,software and architecture to support UbiComp and embeddedsystems through to properties of systems including self-*properties, security and trust with additional short papers onhealthcare, ethics, engineering, modelling and living withUbiComp. Each paper is of high quality but no real linkingthemes emerged; the publication exhibits very good work byresearchers in a disconnected way. The introduction is moreof a catalogue of what follows although in the early and lateparagraphs the topic is introduced with application examplesand some challenges are presented, respectively. The shortpapers on engineering (Crowcroft), modelling (Milner) andliving in a ubiquitous world (Rodden) provide real broadercontext and insight but are too short to allow the ideas to bedeveloped.

The publication provides much useful material forresearchers in individual aspects of UbiComp and for certainaspects may well provide the base reference. For someaspects the work appears disconnected from parallel workwhere there are research results and a body of well-respectedpublications. Anyone wishing to obtain a high-level view ofthe significance of UbiComp, its importance in the futureknowledge society, the challenges in its achievement withtheir relative importance and difficulty or the potential util-ity of the technology in various application areas is likely tobe disappointed.

by Keith Jeffery

More information:

http://publishing.royalsociety.org/index.cfm?page=1851

Philosophical Transactions A is particularly interested inreceiving unsolicited theme proposal For further informa-tion, please visithttp://publishing.royalsociety.org/philtransa/guest-editor/


Events

FMICS 2009 - 14th International ERCIMWorkshop on FormalMethods for IndustrialCritical Systems Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 2-3 November 2009

The aim of the ERCIM FMICS workshop series is to providea forum for researchers who are interested in the develop-ment and application of formal methods in industry. In par-ticular, these workshops bring together scientists and engi-neers that are active in the area of formal methods and inter-ested in exchanging their experiences in the industrial usageof these methods. These workshops also strive to promoteresearch and development for the improvement of formalmethods and tools for industrial applications.

Topics include, but are not restricted to:• Design, specification, code generation and testing based

on formal methods.• Methods, techniques and tools to support automated

analysis, certification, debugging, learning, optimizationand transformation of complex, distributed, real-time sys-tems and embedded systems.

• Verification and validation methods that address short-comings of existing methods with respect to their industri-al applicability (eg, scalability and usability issues).

• Tools for the development of formal design descriptions.• Case studies and experience reports on industrial applica-

tions of formal methods, focusing on lessons learned oridentification of new research directions.

• Impact of the adoption of formal methods on the develop-ment process and associated costs.

• Application of formal methods in standardization andindustrial forums.

Publication of the workshop proceedings in the Springerseries Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) isplanned.

FMICS 2009 is part of the first Formal Methods Week(FMweek), which will bring together a selection of events inthe area, including FM 2009 (16th symposium on FormalMethods), TESTCOM/FATES (conference on Testing ofCommunicating Systems and workshop on FormalApproaches to Testing of Software), PDMC (Parallel andDistributed Methods of verifiCation),FACS (Formal Aspectsof Component Software), CPA (Communicating ProcessArchitectures), FAST (Formal Aspects in Security andTrust), FMCO (Formal Methods for Components andObjects) and the REFINE Workshop.

More information:

http://2009.ecoop.org/http://www.win.tue.nl/fmweekhttp://www.inrialpes.fr/vasy/fmics/


Sponsored by ERCIM

ETAPS 2009 - EuropeanJoint Conferences on Theory and Practice of SoftwareYork, UK, 22-29 March 2009

ETAPS is the primary European forum for academic andindustrial researchers working on topics relating to SoftwareScience. ETAPS is composed of five main conferences:• CC 2009, International Conference on Compiler Construction• ESOP 2009, European Symposium on Programming• FASE 2009, Fundamental Approaches to Software Engi-

neering• FOSSACS 2009, Foundations of Software Science and

Computation Structures• TACAS 2009, Tools and Algorithms for the Construction

and Analysis of Systems.

More information:

http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/etaps09/

69

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ECDL 2009 - 13th European Conferenceon Digital LibrariesCorfu, Greece, 27 September - 2 October 2009

The 13th European Conference on Digital Libraries (ECDL2009) is organized by the Laboratory on Digital Libraries andElectronic Publishing, Department of Archives and LibrarySciences, Ionian University and will be held from 27 Septem-ber to 2 October 2009, on the island of Corfu, Greece.

ECDL is the major European forum focusing on digitallibraries and associated technical, practical, and socialissues. In an intense environment of transformations in digi-tal libraries, ECDL 2009, under the general title “DigitalSocieties”, invites submissions in the following categories:Full and Short Papers, Posters and Demonstrations, Work-shops and Tutorials, Panels and Doctoral Consortium. Theproceedings will be published by Springer, in the LectureNotes in Computer Science Series. Papers of the Doctoralconsortium will be published in the Bulletin of the IEEE-TCDL.

TopicsConference topics include, but are not limited to:• Infrastructures (Digital Library Architectures; Technology

for Digital Libraries Infrastructures (Grids, etc.); Interop-erability; Generic Strategic Infrastructures; DomainFocused Infrastructures)

• Content Management (Metadata Schemas; Semi Struc-tured Data; Data Interoperability and Integration; DigitalCuration, Archiving and Preservation; Collection Devel-opment, Management, Policies and Legal Issues; Seman-tic Web Issues in Digital Libraries)

• Services (Information Retrieval; Multilingual and Multi-media information retrieval; Personalization in DigitalLibraries; Ontologies and Knowledge Organization Sys-tems; Social Networking & Web 2.0 Technologies; LogData in Digital Libraries; User Interfaces)

• Foundations (Formal Issues in Digital Libraries; Concep-tual Views of Digital Libraries; Legal Issues in DigitalLibraries; User Studies & Digital Library Evaluation).

Important DatesPapers, Posters and DemonstrationsSubmission deadline: 21March 21, 2009Acceptance notifications: 11 May 2009Camera ready versions: 31 May 2009

Doctoral ConsortiumSubmission deadline: 1 June 2009Acceptance notifications: 30 June 2009

Workshops, Tutorials and PanelsSubmission deadline: 27 February 2009Acceptance notification: 15 April 2009

More information:

http://www.ecdl2009.eu/

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Events


Sponsored by ERCIM

23rd EuropeanConference onObject-OrientedProgrammingGenova, Italy, 6-10 July 2009

The European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming will be held inJuly of 2009 at Palazzo Ducale in Gen-ova. ECOOP 2009 is the 23rd edition ofthe ECOOP Conference Series, whichaims at bringing together people, indus-trial and academic, interested in a widespectrum of technologies related toobject-oriented areas. The ECOOP con-ference lasts for a week. Plenary ses-sions take place the last three days of theconference, whereas monday and tues-day are dedicated to workshops.

ECOOP 2009 wishes to embrace abroad range of topics, including:• analysis, design methods and design

patterns• concurrent, real-time or parallel systems• databases, persistence and transactions• distributed and mobile systems• frameworks, product lines and soft-

ware architectures• language design and implementation• testing and metrics• programming environments and tools• theoretical foundations, type systems,

formal methods• versioning, compatibility, software

evolution• aspects, Components, Modularity,

Reflection• collaboration, Workflow.

ECOOP 2009 will also host a SummerSchool consisting of prestigious tutori-als on current topics in software, sys-tems, and languages research. The scopeof the ECOOP Summer School is thesame as the conference itself: all areasrelevant to object technology, includingwork that takes inspiration from orbuilds connections to areas not com-monly considered object-oriented. Tuto-rials should introduce researchers to cur-rent research in an area, and/or to showimportant new tools that can be used inresearch.

More information:

http://2009.ecoop.org/

Open Positions at INRIA for Tenured and Tenure-track Research Scientists

INRIA is a French public research institute in information and communication science and technology. It is

an outstanding and highly visible scientific organization, a major player in the European Research Area hea-

vily involved in most of the research and development programs. INRIA has eight research centers in Paris,

Bordeaux, Grenoble, Nancy, Nice, and Rennes that host 160 project-teams in partnership with universities

and other research organizations. INRIA focuses the activity of over 1100 researchers and faculty members,

1200 PhD students and about 1000 post-docs and engineers, on fundamental research at the best interna-

tional level, as well as on development and transfer activities in the following computer science and applied

mathematics areas:

� Modeling, simulation and optimization of complex dynamic systems

� Formal methods in programming secure and reliable computing systems

� Networks and ubiquitous information, computation and communication systems

� Vision and human-computer interaction modalities, virtual worlds and robotics

� Computational Engineering, Computational Sciences and Computational Medicine

In 2009, INRIA is opening over 40 new positions within its 8 research centers:� Junior and senior level positions,

� Tenured and tenure-track positions,

� Research and joint faculty positions with universities

These positions cover all the above areas of research.

INRIA centers provide outstanding scientific environments and excellent working conditions. The institute

offers competitive salaries and social benefit programs. It welcomes applications from all nationalities; it will

arrange if needed visa and working permits (also for the spouse). French schooling and social programs for

families are highly regarded.

Calendar and detailed application information at:http:www.inria.fr/travailler/index.en.html

email : [email protected]

Follow your calling

Innovation

ScienceTrainingResearch

2nd Edition of the ERCIM-ETSI Infinity Initiative

Bio ICT - The Heart in the ComputerSophia Antipolis, France, 2-3 April 2009

Systems Biology, the new science of complexity of living systems, will herald a fun-damental change in paradigm with the appearance of life models and simulation sys-tems making possible computer assisted experiments for biological, medical andpharmaceutical research. As such, the modelling and simulation of life is one of themost promising research areas with great hopes for humanity.

Building on the success of last year's seminar on Ambient Computing, ERCIM andETSI will welcome recognized experts who will share their vision of modelling andsimulation of life while demonstrating how research and standards, supported by theEuropean Commission, can benefit society and business. Delegates will include sci-entists, industry leaders, key EC decision-makers and major players in the field.

More information:

http://www.etsi.org/WebSite/NewsandEvents/2008_InfinityInitiativeTeaser.aspx

70

Advertisement


ERCIM elects President and Vice-PresidentsDuring the Board of Directors meeting of ERCIM in Portoon 20 and 21 November, the current President of ERCIM,Keith G. Jeffery (STFC, UK) was re-elected as President fora further two-year term starting 1st January 2009.

Three new Vice-Presidents (previously there were two) werealso elected for the same two-year term. We are pleased toannounce the following appointments:• Matthias Jarke (FhG, D), responsible for the External

Relations Task Group, takes over from Arne Sølvberg(NTNU, Norway), who will retire mid-2009 and thereforedid not stand for another term

• Simon Dobson (UCD, Ireland), responsible for the Struc-tural Task Group, takes over from Jan Karel Lenstra (CWI,NL). Jan Karel did not wish to stand for re-election butwill remain a member of this TG

• Staffan Truvé (SICS, Sweden), responsible for the newlyfounded Innovation Task Group, was elected as the thirdVice-President.

ERCIM meets Günter VerheugenERCIM, together with INRIA Transfert, a subsidiary ofINRIA to create and develop IT companies, had a privatemeeting in Sophia Antipolis with Günter Verheugen, Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner

for Enterprise and Industry, during the conference 'TowardsWorld Class Clusters' organised by the French Presidency ofthe European Union on 13 November. Commissioner Verheugen was very interested in ERCIM's positioning as a'European network of research' becoming also a 'Europeannetwork of innovation'. He invited ERCIM to participate ina working session on innovation to be organised by hisDirectorate General in Brussels for a small number ofinvited participants.

In Brief

From left: Keith Jeffery (ERCIM President), Laurent Kott (INRIATransfert), Günter Verheugen and Jérôme Chailloux (ERCIMManager).

STFC Staff celebrateAchievements of the Atlas CentreIn December 2008, the IT staff at STFC - who had been cen-tred in the historic Atlas Building - held a small event to cel-ebrate the achievements since the installation of UK's firstsupercomputer in 1964. In January the staff move to a newbuilding labelled R89. The Atlas Centre and its staff(although components of the central IT team were located atvarious times in other buildings on site) achieved much: fromsuperb 24/7 operations of a major computer centre over manyyears and with many different kinds of equipment (now 1100servers and 360000 users); provision of services in adminis-tration and management for the organisation (and others)front-ended by office systems, directories etc; provision ofsystems for other scientific departments, the library and oth-ers; development of websites and behind it all a powerfulR&D capability from graphics, visualisation and virtual real-ity through databases, information retrieval and office sys-tems to formal software engineering, knowledge engineering,trust/privacy/security and onwards via advanced user inter-faces and management to applied mathematics and computa-tional optimisation. From this team came the original UK e-Science concept. Along the way companies were spun outand contibutions made to standards notably OSI networking,GKS, SVG and SMIL.

Albert Benveniste wins the "France Telecom"2008 AwardAlbert Benveniste, a world-renowned expert in the fields ofautomatic control, computer science and telecommunica-tions, has been granted the "France Telecom" 2008 award bythe French Academy of Sciences for the exceptional qualityof his research work. Director of Research at INRIA Rennes- Bretagne Atlantique, Albert Benveniste is responsible forthe embedded systems sector at the institute's scientificdepartment. He is also scientific director of the INRIA -Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs joint research laboratory.

The originality of Albert Benveniste's profile lies in theextraordinary breadth of his expertise and the foresighted-ness and depth of his contributions. In the 1980s, for exam-ple, he was the first person to recognise the importance ofjointly managing algorithmic and software aspects for thedesign of telecommunication systems and embedded sys-tems. His ongoing, innovative activities at both the nationaland international levels have contributed significantly tocross-fertilisation between the automatic control, signal pro-cessing and computer science communities. This unique pro-file puts him in a perfect position to tackle the fields oftelecommunication networks and services management aswell as Web services, subjects in which difficult softwareand algorithmic aspects are closely linked and which are atthe heart of today's challenges.

71

In Brief

ERCIM is the European Host of the World Wide Web Consortium.

Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en AutomatiqueB.P. 105, F-78153 Le Chesnay, Francehttp://www.inria.fr/

Technical Research Centre of FinlandPO Box 1000FIN-02044 VTT, Finlandhttp://www.vtt.fi/

Irish Universities Associationc/o School of Computing, Dublin City UniversityGlasnevin, Dublin 9, Irelandhttp://ercim.computing.dcu.ie/

Austrian Association for Research in ITc/o Österreichische Computer GesellschaftWollzeile 1-3, A-1010 Wien, Austriahttp://www.aarit.at/

Norwegian University of Science and Technology Faculty of Information Technology, Mathematics andElectrical Engineering, N 7491 Trondheim, Norwayhttp://www.ntnu.no/

Polish Research Consortium for Informatics and MathematicsWydział Matematyki, Informatyki i Mechaniki, Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, ul. Banacha 2, 02-097 Warszawa, Poland http://www.plercim.pl/

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Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, ISTI-CNRArea della Ricerca CNR di Pisa, Via G. Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italyhttp://www.isti.cnr.it/

Centrum Wiskunde & InformaticaScience Park 123, NL-1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlandshttp://www.cwi.nl/

Foundation for Research and Technology – HellasInstitute of Computer ScienceP.O. Box 1385, GR-71110 Heraklion, Crete, Greecehttp://www.ics.forth.gr/

FORTH

Fonds National de la Recherche6, rue Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, B.P. 1777L-1017 Luxembourg-Kirchberghttp://www.fnr.lu/

FWOEgmontstraat 5B-1000 Brussels, Belgiumhttp://www.fwo.be/

FNRSrue d'Egmont 5B-1000 Brussels, Belgiumhttp://www.fnrs.be/

Fraunhofer ICT GroupFriedrichstr. 6010117 Berlin, Germanyhttp://www.iuk.fraunhofer.de/

Swedish Institute of Computer ScienceBox 1263, SE-164 29 Kista, Swedenhttp://www.sics.se/

Swiss Association for Research in Information Technologyc/o Professor Daniel Thalmann, EPFL-VRlab, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerlandhttp://www.sarit.ch/

Magyar Tudományos AkadémiaSzámítástechnikai és Automatizálási Kutató IntézetP.O. Box 63, H-1518 Budapest, Hungaryhttp://www.sztaki.hu/

Spanish Research Consortium for Informaticsand Mathematics c/o Esperanza Marcos, Rey Juan Carlos University,C/ Tulipan s/n, 28933-Móstoles, Madrid, Spain, http://kybele.escet.urjc.es/SpaRCIM/

Science and Technology Facilities Council, Rutherford Appleton LaboratoryHarwell Science and Innovation CampusChilton, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0QX, United Kingdomhttp://www.scitech.ac.uk/

Czech Research Consortium for Informatics and MathematicsFI MU, Botanicka 68a, CZ-602 00 Brno, Czech Republichttp://www.utia.cas.cz/CRCIM/home.html

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Danish Research Association for Informatics and Mathematicsc/o Aalborg University,Selma Lagerlöfs Vej 300, 9220 Aalborg East, Denmarkhttp://www.danaim.dk/

ERCIM – the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics is an organisation

dedicated to the advancement of European research and development, in information technology

and applied mathematics. Its national member institutions aim to foster collaborative work within

the European research community and to increase co-operation with European industry.

Portuguese ERCIM Groupingc/o INESC Porto, Campus da FEUP, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, nº 378,4200-465 Porto, Portugal