annual report 2011 - Högskolan i Halmstad

Transcription

Centre for Research on Embedded Systems
CERES Research Profile
ANNUAL REPORT 2011
halmstad university
For the Development of Organisations, Products and Quality of Life.
Cover photos
Part of the CERES team, December 2011
PhD
Zain-Ul-Abdin
and daughter
PhD
Yan Wang
PhD
Edison Pignation
de Freitas
Veronica Gaspes
was awarded the
Pedagogic
Prize 2011
Spencer Mak, Fredrik Bergh, Johan Andersson and Mattias Bjäde, winners of the
national competition Swedish Embedded Award 2011 (student category)
Photos in the Annual Report: Roland Thörner and others
CERES Annual Report 2011
CERES
Research Profile
Annual Report 2011
3
Table of Contents
Introduction�� 5
CERES Research Focus�� 5
Main scientific areas�� 5
Main application areas�� 5
CERES Research Focus in a Broader Context�� 6
Entering the “CERES+” Phase�� 6
Phases of Development�� 7
Cooperation with Industry�� 7
Facts�� 8
CERES Management during 2011�� 8
CERES Reference Group�� 8
CERES Partners and Industrial Advisory Board�� 8
Funding�� 9
CERES Funding 2011�� 9
Personnel��10
Highlights 2011�� 12
The Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge�� 12
ETSI�� 12
Research Funding from the Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF)�� 12
CERES Open Day�� 12
IEEE Workshop on Vehicular Communications �� 13
Halmstad University appointed Foundation Research Centre�� 13
Teacher of the Year�� 13
Graduate School on Information Technology�� 13
Extended Abstracts�� 18
High-Performance Embedded Computing�� 18
ARIES - Applied Research In Industrial�� 20
COACT GCDC - Competing in the grand Cooperative Driving challenge�� 21
SMART - Smart multicore embedded systems�� 22
WiSCoN - Wireless sensor concept node�� 24
VAS-NETWORKING - Timely and reliable inter-vehicle comm. to avoid surprise on sparsely trafficked, rural roads�� 26
WIMEMO - Wireless medium monitoring�� 28
REALISM - Reliable real-time communication for industrial and embedded systems�� 29
IPC- Implementation of protocol stacks - second phase�� 30
EPC - Embedded parallel computing�� 32
Coordination support for wireless sensor networks�� 34
R2D2 - Reliable real-time communications for dependable distributed systems�� 37
SELIES - Supporting elderly thru intelligent and embedded systems�� 38
GEIS- Gender perspective on embedded intelligent systems - Application in healthcare technology�� 40
Acumen+: Core Enabling Technology for Acumen�� 42
Publications 2009-2011�� 43
International full-paper reviewed journal papers�� 43
Books and book chapters�� 44
Doctoral and Licentiate theses�� 44
International full-paper reviewed conference papers�� 44
Internal reports�� 48
Other (incl. national conferences and international conferences without full-paper review)�� 48
PERSONAL FINAL STATEMENTS FROM REFERENCE GROUP MEMBERS �� 50
4
CERES
Annual Report 2011
Introduction
CERES Research Focus
The Centre for Research on Embedded Systems (CERES) is
a research centre within the School of Information Science,
Computer and Electrical Engineering (School of IDE) at
Halmstad University. The centre has been built up during the
last eight years with support from The Knowledge Foundation
and in close cooperation with industry.
Cooperating Embedded Systems is the “three-word focus” of
CERES. The cooperation opportunities among and within
embedded systems are enabled by new, emerging technologies;
however, it is not these emerging technologies per se that are
in focus for CERES researchers. Rather, it is the solutions for
cooperation on a higher level (in terms of architectures, protocols, networks, programming tools and methods, etc.) that are
developed, analyzed and applied.
The scientific focus of CERES is on Cooperating Embedded
Systems, more specifically on enabling solutions for cooperating and high-performance embedded systems and their applications. The research projects provide knowledge (solutions,
theories, methods and tools) to bridge the gap from basic enabling technologies to application domains in which cooperating embedded systems play a role. By this, CERES is intended
to increase the competitiveness of Swedish industry.
CERES is an arena for industrially motivated, long-term research. In this, CERES serves as a partner for industry’s own
research and development, as a recruitment base for those who
seek staff with cutting-edge knowledge, and as a competence
resource for industry and society. CERES hosts research education and profiled master and bachelor studies.
CERES plays an important role in the profile and strategic
development of Halmstad University, for example by hosting
a major part of the PhD education in Information Technology. Also, with its strong record of spin-off companies from
the embedded systems area, CERES is considered vitally important for the University’s further development as a strongly
innovation-oriented university.
Main scientific areas
Computer architectures and languages is one main scientific
area. It includes the new opportunities and challenges related
to parallel and reconfigurable systems, particularly their programming, as well as the development and use of languages for
specific domains, for example for modeling and simulation of
cyber-physical systems. The other main area is real-time and
wireless communication, which includes methods for guaranteed real-time services and dependable information transfer
in wired as well as wireless networks, and also hardware and
software technologies to enable low-power wireless applications. Finally, in distributed systems, research is concentrated
on technologies for coordination of such systems, for example
wireless sensor networks.
Main application areas
Solutions for embedded systems cooperation are widely applicable. CERES has chosen to put particular effort into a few.
The first is health and elderly care, in which “ambient assisted
living” is used as a term for technologies and services to support
elderly people to continue to live an independent and active
life. The second is intelligent traffic and transport systems, in
which cooperative systems can be used for collision avoidance,
intelligent cruise control, more efficient public transportation,
safer and more secure transport of goods, and many other benefits. Finally, in sensing and communication systems, massively parallel, cooperating embedded processors are needed for
efficient signal processing in array-antenna based radar systems,
radio base stations and advanced multimedia terminals.
Bertil Svensson
Director of CERES
5
CERES Research Focus in a Broader Context
Within the School of IDE, CERES is part of a larger, coordinated research arena within information technology, covering the entire spectrum from basic, enabling technologies to
end usage and business models, see Figure 1. The right-going
arrows can be understood as “enables” and the left-going as
“demands”. The core expertise of CERES is mainly used in
the two circles meeting in “systems solutions”. In projects performed in cooperation with industry it is a great asset to CERES to have access to this wide-ranging expertise.
Enabling
technologies
Systems
solutions
Applications
End usage and
business models
Figure 1. Embedded and intelligent systems research, ranging from
enabling technologies, via systems solutions and applications, to
business models.
CERES position as a leading actor in embedded systems has
attracted national cooperation in the ELLIIT consortium, consisting of the universities in Linköping and Lund, the Blekinge
Institute of Technology, and Halmstad University. ELLIIT was
selected by the Swedish government for long-term funding of
research that is considered to be of particular strategic importance.
CERES is also active in international collaborations, the largest
and most important one being the EU Artemis project SMECY
(Smart Multicore Embedded Systems) which has 29 partners
from nine European countries. CERES is national coordinator
for the Swedish part of the consortium. Another positioning on
the international arena is in relation to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). Researchers of CERES
have become well-known for their expertise in understanding
the characteristics of different communication standards when
applied to inter-vehicle communication for increased road traffic safety. These researchers are now deeply involved in the work
towards future European standards.
Entering the “CERES+” Phase
Following up on its six-year support of CERES in the form of
“profile funding”, The Knowledge Foundation in 2011 offered
CERES to qualify for two-year “profile+ funding”. The goal of
the new two-year period must be to further develop the centre’s
international research edge and its international research network, while at the same time maintaining its focus on industrially relevant research and industrial collaborations.
terized by a cross-layer approach. Thus it does not address the
various "layers" of communication solutions in isolation, but
together ("cross-layer design," or so-called multi-layer synthesis), including also the application level. This results in smarter,
more tailored cooperating embedded systems that take into
consideration the conditions, application requirements and
limited resources.
For smart programming and execution, research on integrated
parallel computers ("manycores") focuses on the effectiveness
of the programming and execution of the embedded systems.
Programming techniques appropriate for the application area
are developed, meaning that they should both be effective for
the application programmer and allow for adaptivity and smart
energy saving during execution. The latter requires cooperation
between language and architecture researchers on the one hand
and real-time researchers on the other.
Through this focusing, the different CERES skills are taken
advantage of in a more targeted way. It is also an approach
that has its origins in the needs of the applications, which is
pleasing to the industrial partners of CERES, enabling them to
significantly continue to contribute to research. Practical conditions, requirements and restrictions create interesting strategic research questions that lead to industry relevant research.
The two-year CERES+ funding was decided in May 2011 and
starts in January 2012. During 2011, CERES researchers designed new collaborative projects together with the most important industrial partners and saw to that each project also
includes cooperation with foreign, leading international players
from both academia and industry. To further sharpen the profile CERES has also developed specific cooperative projects and
exchanges with selected academic research centres in the U.S.,
Europe and South America. To increase the visibility of CERES
and spread the word about our special expertise and interest to
both academia and industry, recurring seminars on intelligent
cooperating embedded systems will be held with invited speakers of very high quality.
Overall, this should lead to Halmstad University not only consolidating its position as belonging to the country's leaders in
embedded systems, but is also becoming known and sought
after as a partner at global level in the chosen research edge.
CERES has already achieved strong national recognition and is
also attractive as an international partner, for example in European research projects. In that light, CERES ambition now
is to further establish itself as an internationally renowned research centre for cooperating intelligent embedded systems,
with a special tip of smart cooperation and communication,
and smart programming and execution.
For smart cooperation and communication, research in realtime communication will focus on the efficiency of interaction
and communication in distributed systems in that it is charac6
Elisabeth Uhlemann and Katrin Sjöberg, researchers influencing future communication standards
Phases of Development
Cooperation with Industry
The development of CERES over a 10 – 15 years period towards its vision of international excellence and positive effects
on industry and society can be described in terms of four phases:
A group of eight Swedish companies were contracted partners when
CERES was started as a profile. Over the years, these partners have
all participated in research projects, often with several companies in
each project. With some of the companies a long-term, stabile strategic relationship has developed, resulting in joint strategic recruitments, joint efforts in European research initiatives, etc. Others have
a somewhat less active role, while yet other companies have joined
CERES as partners in specific projects. The number of partners of
different kinds is shown in Figure 2. It shows a steady increase of both
industrial and academic collaboration over the years. From 2010 there
is a significant increase in industrial partnership, due to involvement
in a large EU project.
The build-up phase was when the orientation was defined, the
first partnerships were established, the necessary first recruitments were done and the co-production projects with industry
all got started. This phase started when CERES was first initiated in 2001, it continued through the platform years 2003 −
2004 and the first couple of years (2005 – 2007) of the profile
period.
The phase of national recognition, when the centre became
well-known nationally and attracted increasing industry cooperation, can be seen as the period 2007 – 2010. The phase of
effects on society is when direct and indirect effects of CERES
research and innovation activities can be seen in industry and
society. These effects are mainly achieved through the innovation support activities of CERES. Results in terms of, e.g., new
companies and innovation centres can be seen from 2009 and
onwards.
The phase of international excellence, finally, is when the
centre is attractive in national and international excellence networks and joint projects. Initial signs of this phase have appeared during 2011, and major efforts to strengthen this position are planned for 2012 and beyond. Financial support for
this during two years (2012-2013) has been granted by The
Knowledge Foundation.
Figure 2: Number of partners of different kinds in CERES research
projects 2003 – 2011.
The Servo assisted wheelchair. A new product and a new company as a result from
CERES innovation support activities. Daniel
Petersson, former master student in Embedded Systems has made a far-reaching work
with both hard- and software
7
Facts
CERES Partners and Industrial Advisory Board
CERES Management during 2011
The long-term industrial partners of CERES during the sixyear profile funding each has had one representative (with substitute) in the Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) of CERES:
Management group:
CERES Director: Bertil Svensson
CERES Vice Director: Magnus Jonsson
CERES Coordinator: Roland Thörner
CERES Leadership Group: The above, plus: Verónica Gaspes, Tony Larsson, Tomas Nordström, Walid Taha, Elisabeth Uhlemann, and Nicholas Wickström
CERES Reference Group
During the six-year profile funding (April 2005 – March 2011),
the development of CERES has been monitored by a Reference
Group whose members were appointed by the Vice Chancellor
of Halmstad University after consulting the CERES industrial
partners and the Knowledge Foundation.
CERES Reference Group Members:
Christer Fernström (chair), Independent consultant,
Grenoble, France
Lucia Lo Bello, University of Catania, Italy
Hans Hansson, Mälardalen University, Sweden
Åsa Lindholm-Dahlstrand, Halmstad University, Sweden
Misha Pavel, Oregon Health & Science University, USA
Rolf Rising, Invest Sweden Agency, Sweden
Thorsteinn Rögnvaldsson, Halmstad University, Sweden
Tommy Skoog, Independent consultant, Sweden
Industrial partners
Representatives
Combitech AB
Anders Åström, Peter Gelin
Free2move AB
Per-Arne Wiberg
Innovation Team AB
Christian Kaestner, Martin
Lindvall
Lansen Technology AB
Johan Sedelius Hörberg
Saab AB
Per Ericsson, Anders Åhlander
SP Technical Research Insti- Jan Jacobson, Lars Strandén
tute of Sweden
Volvo Technology AB
Mats Rosenquist,
Nygren
Niclas
XCube Communication AB
Mikael Taveniku, Christian
Wigren
Johan Sedelius Hörberg,
CERES IAB Chairman
Christer Fernström
Lucia Lo Bello Hans Hansson Misha Pavel Rolf Rising Åsa Lindholm
Dahlstrand
CERES Open Day 2011, researchers, students, reference group, IAB
and visitors from industry and academia gathered for a seminar
Thorsteinn
Rögnvaldsson
8
Tommy Skoog CERES Annual Report 2011
Funding
The Knowledge Foundation was the dominating funding source in the first years of CERES. Over the years, this situation has
changed − due to increased funding from other sources − so that during the last full year of the profile (2010), the funding from The
Knowledge Foundation was only about one third of the total research funding, see Figure 3. The most important other financing
sources are VINNOVA, the European Union, and the government’s strategic research initiative within ICT.
Figure 3: Research funding from The Knowledge Foundation (KK), other external funding, and
internal funding, 2003 – 2011.
CERES Funding 2011
The external financing of CERES during 2011 amounted to 12 070 KSEK, which is 68% of the total financing (17 820 KSEK). Profile funding from The Knowledge Foundation
2 000 KSEK
Other funding from The Knowledge Foundation
3 500 KSEK
Other external funding
6 570 KSEK
Internal funding, Halmstad University
5 750 KSEK
TOTAL funding
17 820 KSEK
Figure 4: Financing of CERES research during 2011. Only cash financing is shown. The additional in-kind financing from industrial partners during 2011 amounts to approximately
5 000 KSEK.
9
Personnel
Jonsson, Magnus
Prof., Ph.D.
Ph.D. C.E.
Wickström, Nicholas
Prof., Real-time Computer Systems
Vice Director of CERES
Associate Prof, Computer Systems
[email protected]
[email protected]
Larsson, Tony
Prof., Ph.D.
PhD. C.E.
Bengtsson, Jerker
Assistant Prof., Computer Architechture
Prof., Embedded Systems
[email protected]
Bertil Svensson
Prof., Ph.D.
Ph.D. C.E.
Hoang Bengtsson, Hoai
Prof., Computer Systems Engineering
Director of CERES
Assistant Prof., Computer Systems Engineering
[email protected]
[email protected]
Walid Taha
Prof., Ph.D.
Ph.D. C.E.
Ul-Abdin, Zain
Prof., Computer Science
Post Doc, Computer Science & Engineering
[email protected]
[email protected]
Hammerstrom, Dan
Prof., Ph.D.
Ph.D. C.E.
Kunert, Kristina
Post doc, Comp.Eng./Data Comm.
Guest Prof., Computer Architecture
[email protected]
Ström, Erik G.
Prof., Ph.D.
Lecturer, Computer Engineering
(part time)
Guest Prof., Communication Systems
Gaspes, Verónica
Ph.D. C.E.
Nilsson, Björn
Ph.D. C.S.
Wiberg, Per-Arne
Lic.Tech. C.E.
Lecturer & Project Leader, Real-time Systems
(part time)
Assoc. Prof., Computer Science
[email protected]
Nordström, Tomas
Ph.D. C.E.
Bilstrup, Urban
Ph.D. C.E.
Assoc. Prof., Energy Efficient Embedded Systems
Lecturer, Computer Engineering/Wireless
Communication
[email protected]
[email protected]
Uhlemann, Elisabeth
Ph.D. E.E.
Associate Prof., Communication Systems
Dellstrand, Börje
[email protected]
10
M.Sc. E.E.
B.Sc. Innov. Eng.
Erlandsson, Stella
Böhm, Annette
Lic. Tech. C.E.
Project manager, Liaison officer
Ph.D. stud., Information Technology
[email protected]
[email protected]
Månsson, Nicolina
Börjesson, Emma
M.Sc.
Lecturer, Computer Science
Project assistant
[email protected]
[email protected]
Lic.Tech.,C.S.
Weckstén, Mattias
Lidström, Kristoffer
B.Sc Political Sc.
Lic.Tech, C.E.
[email protected]
M.Sc. E.E.
Eldemark, Hans-Erik
de Morais, Wagner
M.Sc., C.S.
Lecturer, Computer Engineering and Innovation Engineering
[email protected]
[email protected]
Nilsson, Emil
Lic.Tech.,E.E.
Gebrewahid, Essayas
M. Sc. C.E
Research Engineer
[email protected]
[email protected]
Thörner, Roland
M.Sc. Informatics
Saeed, Uzma
M.Sc. C.S
Coordinator of CERES
[email protected]
Wang, Yan
Ph.D. C.E.
Graduated June 2011
De Freitas, Edison
Ph.D. C.E.
Ph.D. Student, Information Technology
Graduated Nov 2011
Sjöberg, Katrin
Lic. Tech. C.E.
Ph.D. stud., Communication Systems
[email protected]
11
Highlights 2011
ETSI
The Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge
In April 2011, Katrin Sjöberg received funding from ETSI for
establishing a specialist task force (STF) with the purpose of
investigating time-slotted medium access control protocols in
vehicular ad hoc networks. The STF group consisted of four
experts: Riccardo Scopigno (ISMB), Dieter Smely (Kapsch
TrafficCom), Katrin Sjöberg (HH), and Elisabeth Uhlemann
(HH), and the work was led by Katrin Sjöberg . The STF group
delivered two technical reports to ETSI in December 2011 and
the overall budget for the work was 72.000 EUR of which HH
received 45.000 EUR.
In May 2011 CERES researchers and students were highly
successful in a prestigious international contest when the team
from Halmstad came second in The Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge contest in Holland. The team, led by CERES
PhD student Kristoffer Lidström, collaborated with Volvo Cars
Cooperation and Volvo Technology Corporation. Nine teams
from all over Europe competed and the Halmstad team was the
best out of the three Swedish teams from Halmstad University,
Chalmers and KTH.
Research Funding from the Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF)
Together with colleagues from Lund and Linköping Universities, CERES researchers from the Computer Architectures and
Languages group managed to get funding for a major research
project within SSF’s framework programme in Electronic and
Photonic Systems. The project, entitled High Performance
Embedded Computing (HiPEC) provides full-time financing
of at least six PhD students, two of which will be employed at
CERES. The two new students, Essayas Gebrewahid and Uzma
Saeed, started during the autumn of 2011. Senior CERES
researchers in the project are Verónica Gaspes, Tomas Nordström, Jerker Bengtsson and Zain-ul-Abdin.
CERES Open Day
Kristoffer Lidström leader for the Halmstad GCDC team
The CERES Open Day was, as usual, held in September. The
day attracted many visitors from industry and academic partners, who could listen to an invited talk by Professor Kalle
Johansson from KTH as well as to presentations of ongoing
research at CERES.
The team which came second in international competition and
won the Swedish Embedded Award
Karl H. Johansson, Professor KTH
A winning team also needs a winning car, this Volvo followed the
team to Holland
12
IEEE Workshop on Vehicular Communications
On behalf of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society and the
VT/COM Sweden Chapter Board, CERES organized a oneday Workshop on Wireless Vehicular Communications in October 2011.
The program included speakers from Chalmers University of
Technology, Lund University and Halmstad University, and
the main attraction, sponsored by IEEE VTS, was the invited
talk by Prof. Javier Gozálves, University Miguel Hernández,
Spain. The host was Dr. Elisabeth Uhlemann, CERES.
CERES took part in the Scandinavian Technical Fair. Jerker Bengtsson and Stella Erlandsson in the CERES stand
Graduate School on Information Technology
Dr. Elisabeth Uhlemann
Halmstad University appointed Foundation Research Centre
On December 14th 2011, the Board of The Knowledge Foundation decided to appoint Halmstad University to be a Foundation Research Centre (Swedish: KK-miljö), meaning that
a ten-year contract will be signed concerning support of the
long-term development of strategic research at the University.
The investment will be made in the areas of information technology, especially embedded intelligent systems, further in innovation sciences and, finally, in health and lifestyle. The longterm further development of CERES is of course expected to
benefit from this venture.
Teacher of the Year
Veronica Gaspes was awarded the Pedagogic Prize for being the
best teacher of the entire Halmstad University. Veronica teaches Computer Science, and her research at CERES is related to
domain specific languages.
In June 2010 the National Agency for Higher Education granted Halmstad University the rights to examine PhD students in
the areas of Information Technology and Innovation Science.
CERES played a central role in the application related to Information Technology, mainly because we could show that we
already had a good environment for PhD education including supervision, courses and follow-up procedures. Currently,
there are 8 (soon 9) PhD students admitted in Information
Technology, 4 (soon 5) from CERES. On December 17th 2011
Edison Pignaton de Freitas from CERES, who had transferred
from Örebro to Halmstad University, took his PhD, becoming
the first Halmstad graduate.
During 2011 research at CERES resulted in three PhD theses.
Zain-ul-Abdin defended his PhD thesis Programming of
Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Architectures on May 26,
2011. The defence took place at Halmstad University and the
opponent was dr. Mario Porrman, acting professor at HeinzNixdorf Institute, University of Paderborn, Germany.
Yan Wang defended her PhD thesis A Domain-Specific Language for Protocol Stack Implementation in Embedded Systems on June 8, 2011. The defence took place at Halmstad
University and the opponent was dr. Julia Lawall, DIKU, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Edison Pignaton da Freitas defended his PhD thesis Cooperative Context Aware Setup and Performance of Surveillance
Missions Using Static and Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks
on November 17, 2011. The opponent was professor dr. Franz
J. Ramming, Heinz-Nixdorf Institute, University of Paderborn, Germany.
13
Programming of Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Architectures
ZAIN-UL-ABDIN
PhD thesis, Örebro University
Main supervisor: Professor Bertil Svensson (Halmstad University)
Co-supervisors: Dr Veronica Gaspes (Halmstad University), Professor Dag Stranneby (Örebro University)
Opponent: Dr. Mario Porrman, Acting Professor, Heinz-Nixdorf Institute, University of Paderborn,
Paderborn, Germany
Grading Committee: Professor Mats Brorsson (KTH, Stockholm, Sweden), Professor Krzysztof
Kuchcinski (LTH, Lund, Sweden), Professor Lasse Natvig, Norwegian University of Science and
Technology, Trondheim, Norway
Coarse-grained reconfigurable architectures, which offer massive parallelism coupled with the capability of undergoing runtime reconfiguration, are gaining attention in order to meet
not only the increased computational demands of high-performance embedded systems, but also to fulfill the need of adaptability to functional requirements of the application.
This thesis focuses on the programming aspects of such coarsegrained reconfigurable computing devices, including the relevant computation models that are capable of exposing different
kinds of parallelism inherent in the application and the ability
of these models to capture the adaptability requirements of the
application. The thesis suggests the occam-pi language for programming of a broad class of coarse-grained reconfigurable architectures as an intermediate language; we call it intermediate,
since we believe that the application programming is best done
in a high-level domain-specific language. The salient properties
of the occam-pi language are explicit concurrency with built-in
mechanisms for inter-processor communication, provision for
expressing dynamic parallelism, support for the expression of
dynamic reconfigurations, and placement attributes.
Dr. Zain-Ul-Abdin
To evaluate the programming approach, a compiler framework was extended to support the language extensions in the
occam-pi language, and backends were developed to target two
different coarse-grained reconfigurable architectures. XPP and
Ambric. The results on XPP reveal that the occam-pi based
implementations produce comparable throughput to those of
NML programs, while programming at a much higher level
of abstraction than that of NML. Similarly the two occam-pi
implementations of autofocus criterion calculation targeted to
the Ambric platform outperform the CPU implementation by
factors of 11-23. Thus, the results of the implemented casestudies suggest that the occam-pi language based approach
simplifies the development of applications employing run-time
reconfigurable devices without compromising the performance
benefits.
14
A Domain-Specific Language for Protocol Stack Implementation in Embedded Systems
YAN WANG
PhD thesis, Örebro University
Main supervisor: Prof. Thorsteinn Rögnvaldsson (Halmstad University)
Co-supervisors: Dr Veronica Gaspes (Halmstad University), Prof Dimiter Driankov (Örebro University)
Opponent: Dr. Julia Lawall, Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Grading Committee: Prof. Görel Hedin, Department of Computer Science, Lund University,
Lund, Sweden. Prof. Björn Lisper, School of Innovation, Design and Engineering, Mälardalen
University, Västerås, Sweden. Docent Elisabeth Uhlemann, School of Information science, Computer and Electrical engineering, Halmstad, Sweden
Embedded network software has become an area of increasing
importance for both research and industry as more and more
applications are built on networked embedded systems. Modern devices and applications require newly designed or revised
protocols which have to be implemented. Also, well-known
infrastructure protocol stacks have to be reimplemented on
new hardware platforms and software architectures. However,
implementing protocol stacks for embedded systems remains
a time-consuming and error-prone task due to the complexity and performance-critical nature of network software. It is
even more so when targeting resource constrained embedded
systems, as implementations also have to minimize energy consumption and meet memory constraints.
This thesis addresses how to facilitate protocol stack implementations for embedded systems and how to determine and control their resource consumption by means of a language-based
approach. It aims at a domainspecific language (DSL) that supports abstractions suitable for the implementation of protocol
stacks. Language technologies in the form of a type system, a
runtime system and compilation can then be used to generate
efficient implementations.
Dr.Yan Wang
In the work presented in this thesis, we give background on
DSL implementation techniques. We also investigate common
practices in network protocol development to determine the
potential of DSLs for embedded network software. Finally, we
propose a domain-specific embedded language (DSEL), Protege (Protocol Implementation Generator), for declaratively
describing overlaid protocol stacks. In Protege, a high-level
packet specification is dually compiled into an internal data
representation for protocol logic implementation, and packet
processing methods which are then integrated into the dataflow framework of a protocol overlay specification. The Protege
language offers constructs for finite state machines to specify
protocol logic in a concise manner, close to the protocol specification style. Protege specifications are compiled to highly portable C code for various architectures.
Four attached papers report our main results in more detail: an
embedded implementation of the data description calculus in
Haskell, a compilation framework for generating packet processing code with overlays, an overview of the domain-specific
language Protege, including embedding techniques and runtime system features, and a case study implementing an industrial application protocol.
15
Cooperative Context-Aware Setup and Performance of Surveillance Missions Using Static and Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks
EDISON PIGNATION DE FREITAS
PhD thesis, Halmstad University
Main supervisor: Professor Tony Larsson (Halmstad University)
Opponent: Professor Dr. Franz J. Rammig, Design of Distributed Embedded Systems, Heinz
Nixdorf Institute, University of Paderborn, Germany.
Grading Committee: Professor Sten F. Andler, School of Humanities and Informatics, University of
Skövde, Professor Lars Apslund, Robotics group, Mälardalen University, Associate professor Maria
Kihl, Dept. of Electrical and Information Technology, LTH, Lund University
Surveillance systems are usually employed to monitor wide
areas in which their users are interested in detecting and/or
observing events or phenomena of their interest. The use of
wireless sensor networks in such systems is of particular interest as these networks can provide a relative low cost and robust solution to cover large areas. Emerging applications in
this context are proposing the use of wireless sensor networks
composed of both static and mobile sensor nodes. A motivation for this trend is to reduce deployment and operating costs,
besides to provide enhanced functionalities. The usage of both
static and mobile sensor nodes can reduce the overall system
costs, by making low-cost simple static sensors cooperate with
more expensive and powerful mobile ones. Mobile wireless
sensor networks are also desired in some specific scenarios in
which mobility of sensor nodes is required, or there is a specific
restriction to the usage of static sensors, such as secrecy. Despite the motivation, systems that use different combinations
of static and mobile sensor nodes are appearing and with them,
challenges in their interoperation. This is specially the case for
surveillance systems.
This work focuses on the proposal of solutions for wireless
sensor networks including static and mobile sensor nodes specifically regarding cooperative and context aware mission setup
and performance. Orthogonally to the setup and performance
problems and related cooperative and context aware solutions,
the goal of this work is to keep the communication costs as
low as possible in the execution of the proposed solutions. This
concern comes from the fact that communication increases energy consumption, which is a particular issue for energy constrained sensor nodes often used in wireless sensor networks especially if battery supplied. In the case of the mobile nodes, this
energy constraint may not be valid, since their motion might
need much more energy. For this type of nodes the problem in
communicating is related to the links’ instabilities and short
time windows available to receive and transmit data. Thus it is
better to communicate as little as possible. For the interaction
among static and mobile sensor nodes, all these communication constraints have to be considered.
so that the mission’s requirements can be fulfilled. For mobile wireless sensor networks, the problem studied is how to
perform handover of missions among the nodes ac problem
assumes that each mission has to be done in a given area of
interest, and the nodes are assumed to move according to different movement patterns passing through these areas. It is also
assumed that they have no commitment in staying or moving
to a specific area due to the mission that they are carrying. To
handle this problem, a mobile agent approach is proposed in
which the agents implement the sensing missions’ migration
from node to node using geographical context information to
decide about their migrations. For the networks combining
static and mobile sensor nodes, the cooperation among them
is approached by a biologically-inspired mechanism to deliver
data from the static to the mobile nodes. The mechanism explores an analogy based on the behavior of ants building and
following trails to provide data delivery, inspired by the ant
colony algorithm. It is used to request the displacement of mobile sensors to a given location according to the need of more
sophisticated sensing equipment/devices that they can provide
so that a mission can be accomplished.
The proposed solutions are flexible, being able to be applied
to different application domains, and less complex than many
existing approaches. The simplicity of the solutions neither demands great computational efforts nor large amounts of memory space for data storage. Obtained experimental results provide evidences of the scalability of these proposed solutions, for
example by evaluating their cost in terms of communication,
among other metrics of interest for each solution. These results
are compared to those achieved by reference solutions (optimum and flooding-based), providing indications of the proposed solutions’ efficiency. These results are rather close to the
optimum one and significantly better than the ones achieved
by flooding-based solutions.
For the interaction among static sensor nodes, the problems of
dissemination and allocation of sensing missions are studied
and a solution that explores local information is proposed and
evaluated. This solution uses mobile software agents that have
capabilities to take autonomous decisions about the mission
dissemination and allocation using local context information
16
Dr. Edison Pignation de Freitas
Edison is the first own PhD from Halmstad University, here
honoured by the university’s vice-chancellor Mikael Alexandersson
Edison and his supervisor, professor Tony Larsson
17
High-Performance Embedded Computing
Extended Abstracts
HIGH-PERFORMANCE EMBEDDED COMPUTING
J. Bengtsson, V. Gaspes, E. Gebrewahid, T. Nordström, U. Saeed, Zain-ul-Abdin
Centre for Research on Embedded Systems, Halmstad University, SE-301 18 Halmstad, Sweden
HiPEC is a project partly financed by SSF, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, in which CERES collaborates with Lund
University and Linköping University. The project started on July 2011 and addresses the development of programmable parallel
platforms for high performance signal processing applications. Two research groups at Lund and Linköping universities address the
development of parallel hardware architectures while CERES and a group at Lund University develop programming languages and
tools for programming these and other commercial parallel architectures.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. Background and Motivation
Parallelism is the main way to provide significant performance
improvement of embedded systems while keeping energy consumption low. Streaming applications are good candidates for
parallelization since they are regular and exhibit data parallelism. Traditionally, ASICs have been designed to implement
specific functionality with high performance and low power
constraints. Recently, coarse-grained reconfigurable array architectures have been proposed as flexible but still high performance alternatives. It is therefore expected that a DSP computing system, increasingly parallel and reconfigurable, will be one
of the dominating parts in OEM equipments in 2020 because
it maximally exposes opportunities of parallelization. In this
project, we address reconfigurable array processor architectures
as well as software tools for their programming. A massively
parallel execution platform with powerful computing nodes
and hierarchical interconnection structure suitable for streaming applications will be developed and studied. The distinct
features of our software development approach are the use of
the CAL language for programming of these architectures as
well as the development and use of tools for timing and energy
analysis at early design stages. Combining both hardware and
software experts in the same project provides a strong basis for
covering the whole spectrum of this new technology.
there are no common tools, no common languages, and no
common code in the form of applications or libraries. In this
project, we propose to narrow this gap and work on both massively parallel hardware platform architecture and tools for software development.
3. Approach
We focus on stream/dataflow computing and related parallel
computing platforms and programming models. In our view,
only a synergy between the hardware platform and the software
paradigm can truly bring forth the benefits of parallelism that
computing strives after today. For this purpose we adopt an
actor based programming paradigm realized in the programming language CAL and we design and study massively parallel, hyerarchical and heterogeneous architectures. The CERES
team will focus on tools for mapping programs written in CAL
and on studying forms of organizing the networks that lead to
opportunities to reduce power consumption. Figure 1 exposes
the vision for the design flow using the tools resulting from the
project.
2. Problem
Up until recently, the evolution of computing machines was
characterized by an unabated increase in performance. This
progress was in large part due to steady advances in silicon
manufacturing technology, which provided cheaper, smaller,
and faster circuits, and, to some degree due to improvements
in processor architecture that exploited those advances to create ever faster processors. This development, however, has considerably slowed down in the last few years. As a result of these
developments, the computational power of individual processors is no longer increasing, and consequently the only way to
significantly improve the performance of a computing machine
is to use more processors operating at the same time: the age of
parallelism has finally arrived.
The model of the sequential instruction set computer has been
a very powerful abstraction that brought enormous benefit to
the computing community. This is in stark contrast with the
situation in the world of parallel machines, where no such nearly-universal machine model exists. There is no common machine model tying these platforms together, and consequently
18
Figure 1: Proposed design flow for mapping CAL applications onto
reconfigurable platforms.
PARTNERS AND STATUS
Project funding: SSF, Rambidrag Elektronik/Fotonik 2010,
HiPEC: Högpresterande inbyggda system, diarienummer
RE10-0081.
The project started on July 2011.
The project leader is Krzysztof Kuchcinski. Veronica Gaspes is
coordinator for the CERES group.
Results from the project will form part of the PhD theses of
Essayas Gebrewahid and Uzma Saeed, both admitted at Halmstad University in the fall of 2011.
PUBLICATIONS
[1] Zain-ul-Abdin, B. Svensson, “Occam-pi for programming
of massively parallel reconfigurable architectures”, International Journal of Reconfigurable Computing, Vol. 2012, Article ID
504815, 2012.
[2] Zain-ul-Abdin, E. Gebrewahid, B. Svensson, “Managing
dynamic reconfiguration for fault-tolerance on a manycore architecture”, accepted for Reconfigurable Architectures Workshop, part of IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and
Systems, May 2012.
19
ARIES - Applied Research In Industrial
ARIES – APPLIED RESEARCH IN INDUSTRIAL AND EMBEDDED SOFTWARE
HH researchers: Jerker Bengtsson, Verónica Gaspes, Magnus Jonsson, Kristina Kunert, Bertil Svensson
The ARIES program forms a distributed research environment performing industrially relevant research with a focus on
Quality Software on Complex Platforms. The program main partners consist of three universities and three research institutes,
but Swedish industry is also involved in the program.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1.
Background and Motivation
Future industrial and embedded software-intensive
systems will be more and more complex and need to rely
on advanced methods for software engineering, both in
terms of development and runtime systems. The software
must run on parallel and distributed platforms where the
utilization of the computational resources face new
challenges. Research must address new computer
architectures, like multi- and manycore systems, and take
advantage of the future development in this area for both
performance and energy scaling. Moreover, there is a
strong need for methods to handle the communication
resources to get dependable and efficient communication
between the software distributed over the systems. Other
important challenges derive from the openness and
connectivity to other systems, both by wired and wireless
communication, where dependability in terms of, e.g.,
safety, security, data correctness and timing correctness
are of utmost importance. To cope with such challenges,
the objective of ARIES is to provide knowledge and novel
methods to reach quality in the development and run-time
control of software-intensive systems running on complex
platforms. As a one-liner, the focus of ARIES is on
Quality Software on Complex Platforms.
2.
Industrial relevance
The use of complex platforms, often being distributed
where each node itself is a multicore node, running
complex software with high demands on dependability is
20
Within ARIES, an industrial advisory board will ensure
the long-term industrial relevance of the research and
contribute with important real problems and concrete
cases. Moreover, researchers from the industrial partners
work actively in ARIES.
4.
Work packages
ARIES is divided into the following scientific work
packages:
 Multicore
 Dependable and Secure Systems
 Software engineering methods
The scientific work packages will interact with each other,
as indicated in the figure below. Special instruments to
accelerate the interaction will be developed.
Project Goals
On a technical level, the main goal of ARIES is to
develop a set of critical building blocks for the
development of software-intensive systems to take
advantage of challenging technological developments:
 Create a basis that enables applications to utilize
the improved execution performance delivered by
many-/multicore processor platforms.
 Model and manage dependability requirements and
trust establishment in dynamic computing
environments.
 Manage complexity in the development of
software-intensive systems, in a way that considers
the interplay between business, architecture,
process, and organisation.
On a research infrastructure level, the goal of ARIES is to
establish a collaborative platform for industrial-relevant
and internationally competitive research in the area of
software-intensive systems.
3.
foreseen to put significant challenges in several
application domains. Examples of applications are:
telecommunication equipment (e.g., radio base stations),
intra-vehicle systems, vehicles cooperating via wireless
communication for increased traffic safety, and industrial
automation applications.
In addition to the scientific work packages, there are
resource-wise small work packages for “Promotion” and
“Mobility”, and a “Programme Management” work
package.
PARTNERS AND STATUS
The project is funded by the Knowledge Foundation and
RISE. The project is granted funding for a pilot phase
from June 2010 to August 2011, but there are money
allocated for a possible continuation until 2015. The
funding is 10 MSEK per year, shared by the universities
and the institutes. Moreover, the project is funded by
Swedish industry in the form of, e.g. manpower.
Project leader: Magnus Jonsson.
Partners: BTH, FOI, HH, MdH, SICS, SP and Swedish
industry including ca. ten companies.
COACT GCDC - Competing in the grand Cooperative Driving
COACT GCDC – COMPETING IN THE GRAND
challenge
DRIVING CHALLENGE
COOPERATIVE
T. Larsson1, K. Lidström1
1. Centre for Research on Embedded Systems, Halmstad University
Traffic congestion is a large and growing problem in many countries due to an ever increasing number of vehicles coupled
with limited possibilities for deploying new road infrastructure. By enabling wireless communication between vehicles
(V2V) and between vehicles and infrastructure (V2I) one can better control the flow of traffic in order not only to increase
efficiency but also safety and comfort. The Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge (GCDC) is an attempt at moving towards quicker deployment of one particular application of V2V communication; platooning.
1.
2.
Wasted fuel and loss of productive time are both
symptoms of traffic congestion. Irregularities in acceleration of vehicles in dense traffic sometimes lead to
“shockwave” effects causing traffic jams to appear for no
apparent reason. These irregularities can be attributed to
reaction delays of drivers in relation to headway time,
each driver brakes slightly later than the previous one
which may lead to amplification of brake force. In the
worst case drivers will not be able to decelerate in time
leading to a rear-ending accident. A system that takes
over longitudinal control from the driver can be made to
react significantly quicker than a human driver.
Systems that take over longitudinal control from the
driver already come as standard on modern vehicles, from
the well-known cruise-control to the more intelligent
adaptive cruise-control (ACC) which utilizes radar information to control vehicle speed. However ACC takes
only vehicles in the immediate vicinity into account
which may still lead to amplification of acceleration behavior, so-called string instability.
Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) relies
on wirelessly transmitted information to improve ACC
performance. As the lead vehicle in cooperating queue
(so-called platoon) brakes this is immediately relayed to
vehicles behind which can then in turn also brake. It is
envisioned that CACC systems will allow shorter headway times leading to more efficient utilization of the road
surface and even fuel reduction due to slipstreaming effects, especially if the lead vehicle is a large truck.
The GCDC
The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific
Research (TNO) initiated the Grand Cooperative Driving
Challenge in order to “accelerate the development, integration, demonstration and deployment of cooperative
driving systems”. The GCDC is designed as a competition open to academia and industry from across the globe
and is intended to be held annually after the inaugural
2011 competition in Helmond, Holland. Scenarios have
been defined in which vehicles must exchange information and control their longitudinal acceleration in order
to achieve stable and efficient traffic flow.
Halmstad GCDC vehicles, one S60 and one S80
3.
Results
The three Swedish teams within the CoAct project
were each developing a cooperative platform. Halmstad
and Chalmers used vehicles provided by Volvo Cars and
AB Volvo allowing longitudinal control input while KTH
modified a Scania truck. Inter-vehicle communication
was based on IEEE 802.11p which has been extensively
studied within CERES. The three Swedish teams par-
ticipated in the final GCDC 2011 competition and
with very good result 2nd, 3rd an 4th place with Halmstad on 2nd place among 9 European teams.
PARTNERS AND STATUS
Partners: Chalmers, KTH, SAFER, Viktoria Institute,
Denso, Fengco, dSPACE, TSS, IVSS, Volvo Cars, AB
Volvo, Scania
Project funding: IVSS funding
Project duration: 2010 – 2011
Project leader: Jonas Didoff, Viktoria Institute
RELATED PUBLICATIONS
One of the GCDC competition scenarios, two platoons must merge together smoothly. (Picture from
GCDC Rules & Technology Document)
[1] K. Lidström, J. Andersson, F. Bergh, M. Bjäde, and S.
Mak, "ITS as a tool for teaching cyber-physical systems"
to be published in proc. 8th European ITS Congress,
Lyon, France June, 2011.
21
SMART - Smart multicore embedded systems
SMART MULTICORE EMBEDDED SYSTEMS
Zain-ul-Abdin1, J. Bengtsson1, H. Hoang Bengtsson1, 3, P. Ericsson3, V. Gaspes1, J. Hillberg4, S. Jonsson4, T. Nordström1,
B. Svensson1, P-A. Wiberg2, A. Åhlander3
1. Centre for Research on Embedded Systems, Halmstad University, SE-301 18 Halmstad, Sweden,
2. Free2Move AB, SE-302 48 Halmstad, Sweden,
3. Saab Electronic Defence Systems, SE-412 76 Gothenburg, Sweden,
4. Realtime Embedded AB, SE-111 34, Stockholm
SMECY is a large scale European many-core research initiative driven by a consortium of 30 academic and industrial
partners from nine European countries. The mission of the SMECY project is to develop new system design and development
technologies enabling the exploitation of many (100s) core architectures. Industrial partners from Sweden include Saab
Electronic Defence Systems, Realtime Embedded AB and Free2move AB. The joint goals of SMECY are to develop new
programmable architectural solutions based on many-core technology, and associated supporting tools in order to master
complete system design of future smart many-core embedded systems.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1.
It is today feasible to integrate more than one billion
transistors on a single silicon chip. According to the
International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors
(ITRS), the number of processor cores per chip will likely
rise above one hundred in the next couple of years. The
SMECY consortium (see figure 1) anticipates that
recently emerged multi-core technologies will rapidly
develop to massively parallel computing environments,
which in a few years will extensively penetrate the
embedded computing industry.
other properties needed in advanced embedded system
applications. However, the grand challenge of the manycores is how to program these parallel platforms to fully
exploit the available computing power efficiently and do
so with reasonable efforts. In the short term, an even more
urgent challenge is how to transform current non-scalable
(sequential) legacy assets to run on many-core platforms.
3.
Goals
The main objective of the SMECY project is to develop
new programming technologies enabling the efficient
design of miniaturized highly integrated embedded manycore systems. The overall goal is to investigate and
develop a complete compilation chain, which controls the
design flow from a domain-specific application to a
many-core platform.
4.
Approach
The project is organized around four technical work
packages (WP), see figure 2.
Figure 1. SMECY is a research initiative including 30
academic and industrial partners from nine countries.
2.
Problem
Until recently embedded systems industry have been able
to rely on the fact that new features or totally new
applications would run on the next generation of the
computing platform thanks to the increase in clock speed
and processor internal architecture advancements. This is
not the case any more. Many-core platforms are offering
an alternative that could provide the performance and
22
Figure 2. Organization of the technical work packages.
WP1 target the basic foundation of a compilation front
end while WP2 target the back end. WP3 addresses
innovative concepts and improvement techniques to
alleviate the specificity of the SMECY platform
architectures. WP4 defines the applications domains of
SMECY.
• WP1 Application Mapping and Exploration:
investigation of programming models and development of
optimisation and design space exploration methods and
tools. In this WP we are studying parallel models of
computation, intermediate representation formats and
design space exploration techniques.
• WP2 Multi-core code generation: investigation and
development of methods and tools for application and
platform dependent optimisation and code generation.
• WP3 HW/SW Architecture Innovative Concepts:
investigation of new solutions for multi-/many-core
architectures and their programmability, virtualization,
acceleration of parallel execution, and runtime execution
support. In this WP we are studying support for
management of dynamic reconfigurability and hardware
acceleration using augmented instruction sets.
• WP4 Application Domains: perform case studies in
industrial application domains with the aims to define
requirements and constraints, assess and evaluate
developed method, tool and architecture solutions. In this
WP we are studying radar signal processing implementations together with Saab and audio-/video codec
implementations together with Free2move.
5.
Results
During year 1 we have mainly been investigating
dataflow and CSP-based programming approaches for
parallel and reconfigurable processors. We have
contributed to five joint SMECY technical report
deliverables:
1.
State of the art related to Programming models
and Models of computation, data / control
transformations and optimizations,
2.
State of the art related to programming and
execution model,
3.
Analysis of Fault
(State-of-the-Art),
4.
Specifications of SMECY front end, and
5.
Preliminary report on Run time execution and
acceleration of parallel execution.
Tolerance
Execution
In terms of publications and scientific reports, we have
completed a case study on Radar programming in CSP
[1], evaluated MPEG decoding in the CAL language [3]
and, performed a study on mapping applications specified
in the CAL language on massively parallel array
processors [4]. Moreover, we have done a case study of
the processing characteristics of LTE baseband and we
propose actor-oriented models of computation for
mapping and representation of such applications on manycores [2].
PARTNERS AND STATUS
Swedish Industrial Partners: Saab Electronic Defence
Systems, Realtime Embedded AB and Free2move AB.
The project is funded within the ARTEMIS Joint
Undertaking, which means that EU funding and national
funding from the participating countries are coordinated.
The project has a total budget of 20 399 K€ (EU funding:
3 406 K€, National funding: 6 474 K€, Partners´ own
funding: 10 519 K€). The funding to CERES amounts to
about 480 K€ (about 4.8 MSEK).
Project duration is February 2010 – February 2013
PUBLICATIONS
[1] Zain-ul-Abdin, A. Åhlander, and B. Svensson, "Using
Occam-pi for Programming of Real-time Autofocus on a
Massively Parallel Processor Array", Proceedings of
Third Swedish Workshop on Multi-Core Computing,
Gothenburg, Sweden, 2010
[2] J. Bengtsson and H. Hoang Bengtsson, "Dynamic RT
DSP on Manycores", Proceedings of Third Swedish
Workshop on Multi-Core Computing, Gothenburg,
Sweden, 2010
[3] M. N. I. Patoary, H. Ali, B. Svensson, J. Eker, and H.
Gustafsson, "Implementation of AMR-WB Encoder for
Multi-Core Processors using Dataflow Programming
Language CAL", Technical report IDE1103, Halmstad
University, 2011
[4] Zain-ul-Abdin and B. Svensson, "Occam-pi as a Highlevel Language for Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable
Architectures", In proceedings of the 8th Reconfigurable
Architectures Workshop, in conjunction with the 25th
Annual International Parallel & Distributed Processing
Symposium (IPDPS), Anchorage, USA, 2011
We have also contributed with a first prototype of the
HAMMER many-core mapping and analysis tool that is
being developed at Halmstad University. The tool is being
tested and evaluated together with Saab and Free2move
for their applications during the first six months of 2011.
We are also currently working on developing run-time
support for enabling dynamic reconfiguration of hardware
resources in the P2012 platform by using the mobility
features of the occam-pi language.
23
WiSCoN - Wireless sensor concept node
WiSCoN – WIRELESS SENSOR CONCEPT NODE
P. Enoksson1, B. Fliesberg2, E. Johansson3, M. Jonsson4, K. Kunert4, and M. Öhman3
1. Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden
2. Volvo 3P, Gothenburg, Sweden
3. Volvo Technology Corporation, Gothenburg, Sweden
4. Centre for Research on Embedded Systems (CERES), Halmstad University, Halmstad, Sweden
The objective of the project is to explore and show the concrete benefits and potential of fully wireless sensors
and also to understand their limitations. The scope includes not only wireless communication but also aspects
related to energy supply and storage. The intention is to build a wireless-sensor concept node that can be used to
realistically assess the feasibility of wireless sensors from an industrialization viewpoint.
1. Background and Motivation
In today’s advanced and complex vehicles systems,
sensors are key components, acting as sources of
much of the data that is required input into a large
number of complex in-vehicle control functions.
Typically, the sensors’ power supply, as well as the
data exchange, is realized with standard wiring. A
reduction, or complete elimination of sensor wiring
will – among other things – allow for a reduction of
material cost, a reduction of product weight
(leading to better fuel economy), and a reduction of
quality issues stemming from the wiring harness
components. The implementation of self-sustaining,
wireless sensors in vehicles would also enable new
concepts that are infeasible today, due to limitations
set by the wiring harness (routing and packaging
issues, placement of moving parts, etc).
The purpose of this project is to build a solid
knowledge base when it comes to the technology
behind self-sustaining wireless sensors in vehicles
and the benefits and limitations that an automotive
application presents. The goal is to realistically
assess the feasibility of wireless sensors from an
industrialization viewpoint.
This projects aims at developing a wireless-sensor
concept node for studying and evaluating various
concepts and technologies needed for wireless
sensors for automotive, including energy supply,
communication
technologies,
and
power
management. The overall goal is to explore and
show the concrete benefits and potential of fully
wireless sensors and also to understand its
limitations. Thus, by building a wireless-sensor
concept node, we can realistically assess the
feasibility of wireless sensors from an
industrialization viewpoint. Figure 1 below
illustrates the schematic structure of a possible
concept node.
2. Problem Formulation
Sensors used in the automotive industry are
typically powered via wires and also the
information exchange occurs via wires in a harness.
In the majority of cases a sensor requires three
wires, used for power and communication. In some
few cases the sensor is grounded directly on the
chassis or frame and it is powered via one single
wire which is also for communication of the
measured value. In typical cases information from
the sensor is communicated as an analogue voltage
signal although there have been more and more
cases where digital communication takes place on
LIN (Local Interconnect Network) or CAN
(Controller Area Network) links. Nonetheless, most
cases require at least three wires.
By getting rid of the cables for power supply and
Figure 1. Schematic structure of the concept node
24
communication for sensors, routing and space
problems would be eliminated, among others, and it
would also create new opportunities as wireless
sensors can be placed where it is impossible to have
a harness. Some of the prospective benefits of
wireless sensors in automotive include:





Reduction of product cost by elimination of
wiring harness and connectors.
Increased quality by removing sources of
failures related to wiring and connectors.
Reduction of manufacturing and aftermarket
cost by reducing the installation and
replacement time for these sensors.
Reduction of wiring harness variants, which
leads to simpler variant handling (which in turn
implies lower development and product cost).
Possibility to place sensors where it is in
practice infeasible to have wired sensors (such
as moving and sealed parts).
3. Approach
The vision is to have wireless sensors (not only
wireless communication but completely harnessfree) available for use in the automotive industry. In
order to achieve this vision it is necessary to
achieve a good level of maturity in a number of
technologies (such as energy harvesting, local
energy storage, wireless energy distribution, lowpower sensor technologies, and short-range wireless
communication). During the last years there has
been good progress in the areas above, but there is
still a need to investigate them closer from the
specific perspective of the automotive industry, i.e.,
to explore and further develop those technologies
according to the particular needs of automotive
applications. Especially, there is significant work to
be done in merging all these different technologies
and concepts into one package and in turning this
into a complete system.
Energy supply for wireless sensors is one of the key
technologies to reach the goal of wireless sensors
without power supply through cables. There are
several possible solutions for the energy supply, as
e.g. local energy storage, energy supply via carrier
wave and energy harvesting devices. Energy
harvesting devices use different techniques to
harvest energy such as, vibration, temperature and
solar cells.
 Local energy storage
Energy storage could be dimensioned to carry
energy for short time intervals (as a container
for locally generated energy), or for long time
intervals (service period or lifetime of a
vehicle). It is possible to use several
technologies here; obvious are rechargeable
batteries based on NiMh, LiIon, etc. but also
small supercaps. For long-time storage it could
also be possible to use non-rechargeable
battery technologies.
 Energy harvesting devices
MEMS (Microelectromechanical systems)
based energy harvesting devices have proved
that it is possible to generate energy from
vibrations. Typically these devices are able to
produce power in μW range, which in most
cases are too low for powering sensors.
However, by optimising the choice of the
device and by combining it with energy storage
it could be possible to build a complete system.
Also, in the specific automotive case, there is
good potential to make use of heat, otherwise
wasted, in order to generate electrical energy
for powering sensors.
 Low power sensors
There are several ultra-low power sensors
available on the market and by using these
together with proper energy management it can
be possible to have an energy consumption of
the sensor node that is low enough to be
powered by one type of energy scavenger.

Short
range
wireless
digital
communication
Communication is an area that requires
focusing on reaching the vision of wireless
sensors. Since the available power is low, the
strategies of communication between the
sensor node and the transponder need to be
energy efficient. The quality of service is also a
concept which needs to be dealt with to achieve
a durable and redundant wireless sensor
system. Another important aspect is that the
frequency and modulation must be chosen
correctly so that signals really reach the
receivers in a space full of metallic structures.
Partners and Status
Academic partner:
Chalmers University of Technology
Industrial partner:
Volvo Technology Corporation
Project funding:
Funded by VINNOVA through the FFI – Strategic
Vehicle Research and Innovation program (Vehicle
Development collaboration program)
Duration:
January 1, 2011 – December 31, 2013.
Project leader:
Mikaela Öhman, Volvo Technology Corporation
25
VAS-NETWORKING - Timely and reliable inter-vehicle comm. to avoid surprise on sparsely trafficked, rural roads
VAS-NETWORKING –
TIMELY AND RELIABLE INTER-VEHICLE COMMUNICATION TO AVOID
SURPRISE EFFECTS ON SPARSELY TRAFFICKED, RURAL ROADS
Annette Böhm1, Bengt Hallström2, Magnus Jonsson1, Kristina Kunert1,
Niclas Nygren3, Tommy Salomonsson1 and Hossein Zakizadeh3
1. Centre for Research on Embedded Systems, Halmstad University; 2. Swedish Transport Administration; 3. Volvo
Technology Corporation
The focus of this project financed by Trafikverket (The Swedish Transport Administration) and the Knowledge Foundation
(through the CERES profile) has lied on the development and evaluation of communication protocols for inter-vehicle
communication on sparsely trafficked, rural roads, ensuring the reliable and timely delivery of safety-critical data. The
project has been motivated by traffic safety applications, especially warning systems to avoid surprise effects of unexpected
vehicle encounters on sparsely-trafficked, rural roads. The key issue in such an application is to make sure that the vehicles
become aware of each other´s existence by the help of communication as soon as possible. The driver can then be warned in
time to avoid a possible accident. The challenge is to gain high probabilities of successful delivery in time, especially when
having to cope with bad communication performance caused by e.g. curves or crests.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1.
After the success of passive safety features like the airbag
or the three-point safety belt, resources in the area of
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are now focused on
active traffic safety. The goal is to increase the driver’s
awareness
horizon
by
introducing
wireless
communication technology and thereby provide him/her
with the necessary information to avoid or react to
dangerous traffic situations in time. The introduction of
communication technology has great potential to reduce
the number of fatalities and the financial loss caused by
traffic accidents (figure 1). Information on e.g. a vehicle’s
geographical position, speed and status is exchanged with
other traffic participants and used to build a more
complete picture of the actual traffic situation and to send
warnings to the driver. This data has of course to be fresh
and long delays due to the communication process are not
only unacceptable, but potentially dangerous.
vegetation or steep road cuts on the road side limit a
vehicle’s transmission range and thereby its ability to
detect other vehicles and make its own presence known to
others. Vehicles on both sides of a crest or a narrow curve
can experience similar difficulties (figure 2). When the
time between the establishment of the communication
between two vehicles and the point in time when a
warning must reach the driver is short due to these
circumstances, it must be insured that the necessary data
exchange is executed in a reliable and timely manner.
For rural roads, we mostly assume V2V communication,
i.e. direct communication between vehicles. On a
particularly accident-prone road section, the deployment
of a fixed access point on the road side (Road Side Unit –
RSU) might be reasonable. This RSU can than be
integrated into an overall communication system,
increasing the real-time properties and reliability of the
system.
Impact on Fatalities Reduction
Figure 2: A type scenario of a sparsely trafficked, rural
Active safety
minutes
seconds
Passive safety
eCall
Time
milliseconds
Figure 1: Schematic visualization of the impact of ITS
safety applications on fatalities reduction.
While active ITS safety applications based on vehicle-tovehicle (V2V) or vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I)
communication have become the interest of research
groups world wide, the focus lies on dense traffic as e.g.
in urban or highway scenarios. Sparsely trafficked roads
in rural areas did not get much attention so far, although a
system warning for e.g. on-coming traffic has the
potential of saving many lives on Swedish roads. On
sparsely trafficked roads in rural areas, it is rather the
radio environment than the volume of vehicles that
challenges the communication technology. Dense
26
2.
Project Goals
In this 2-year project, we have defined a system
architecture for a V2I and V2V communication based
system to avoid surprise effects on roads with sparse
traffic. Results from projects like CVIS and SAFESPOT
have been natural input for the project. The reliability and
timing of the information exchange between vehicles and
road side units is very important in order to be able to
increase the traffic safety. We therefore consider real-time
communication aspects in the design of the system, based
on our ITS-related results from the VAS project (Vehicle
Alert System) and by adapting non ITS-related research
on real-time and reliability to the requirements of the
proposed system.
One goal has been to investigate how 802.11p, the new
standard for short to medium range vehicular
communication, performs in the targeted type scenario
and to compare 802.11p to own solutions in terms of realtime performance and reliability. Both centralized and
decentralized solutions have been targeted.
3.
Results
We have measured the communication capabilities of the
new IEEE 802.11p standard (taken summer 2010) by field
measurements, showing limitations and forming valuable
input when developing simulation models. We have used
equipment developed in the European CVIS project for
the measurements. Especially at steep crests, the range is
limited and timely communication is crucial to warn
drivers in opposite direction in time.
Project leader: Magnus Jonsson.
Involved PhD candidates: Annette Böhm, Kristina Kunert.
Research Engineer: Tommy Salomonsson
Project duration: 2009-2010 (partly prolonged into 2011).
PUBLICATIONS & REPORTS (SO FAR)
A. Böhm, ”Vehicular communication system decreasing surprise
effects on rural roads with low traffic density
(Mötesvarningssystem)”, Technical Report IDE09XX, Halmstad
University, Dec. 2008.
M. Frederix, ”Develop a system to avoid surprise effects on
sparse traffic roads”, Master’s Thesis in Electrical Engineering,
Technical Report IDE09XX, Halmstad University, Jan. 2009.
A. Böhm,”Avoiding surprise effects and enhancing driver
awareness on rural roads through inter-vehicle communication –
Overview of related/relevant research projects and results”,
Technical Report IDE09XX, Halmstad University, Oct. 2008.
Communication protocols and methods have been
developed to improve the real-time communication
performance, both using infrastructure and pure ad hoc
network solutions. We have, e.g., investigated how to
adapt the transmission period of periodic alert messages
depending on the situation and role of the vehicle. By
giving the leading vehicle of a queue of vehicles a higher
priority compared to other vehicles, the performance can
be improved. Still, there is an upper limit where the nature
of the random access MAC protocol will lead to a
saturated network. Our simulation experiments include
evaluation of the multi-hop performance. This is
especially important when a vehicle is behind another
vehicle and has reduced sight, both visually and by radio.
If the vehicle starts overtaking, the risk of collision with a
vehicle in opposite direction is obvious. The
communication is very time-critical and different methods
to increase the probability of successful warnings have
been investigated.
Böhm, A. and M. Jonsson, “Handover in IEEE 802.11p-based
delay-sensitive
vehicle-to-infrastructure
communication,”
Technical Report IDE0924, Halmstad University, April 2009.
At some places, it might be needed to install a RSU to
gain sufficient results. We have especially investigated
methods to efficiently support connection-setup of new
vehicles, including efficient handover from nearby RSUs.
Böhm, A., M. Jonsson, E. Uhlemann, “Adaptive cooperative
awareness messaging for enhanced overtaking assistance on
rural roads,” Proc. IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference
(VTC Fall), San Francisco, CA, USA, September 2011. 5 pages.
A demonstrator showing the potential in field operation
has been developed. The demonstrator plays a sound,
warning the driver, when a new vehicle is discovered via
wireless communication. Reliability aspects with
retransmissions have also been investigated to some
extent.
PARTNERS AND STATUS
The project has been directly funded by the Swedish
Transport Administration (Trafikverket) and the
Knowledge Foundation (through the CERES profile).
Moreover, the project is funded by Volvo Technology
Corporation in the form of, e.g. manpower.
Böhm, A., K. Lidström, M. Jonsson, and T. Larsson,
“Evaluating
CALM
M5-based
vehicle-to-vehicle
communication in various road settings through field trials,” The
4th IEEE LCN Workshop On User MObility and VEhicular
Networks (ON-MOVE), Denver, CO, USA, Oct. 2010, pp. 629636.
Bilstrup, K., A. Böhm, K. Lidström, M. Jonsson, T. Larsson and
E. Uhlemann, “Report on Collaboration between CVIS and
CERES in the Project Vehicle Alert System (VAS),” Technical
Report IDE - 09120, School of Information Science, Computer
and Electrical Engineering (IDE), Halmstad University, Sweden,
Dec. 2009.
Böhm, A. and M. Jonsson, “Real-time communication support
for cooperative, infrastructure-based traffic safety applications,”
International Journal of Vehicular Technology, vol. 2011,
Article ID 541903, 2011. 17 pages.
Böhm, A. and M. Jonsson, “Position-based real-time
communication support for cooperative traffic safety services,”
Proc. of the 11th biennial SNART Conference on Real-Time
Systems (Real-Time in Sweden – RTiS’11), Västerås, Sweden,
June 13-14, 2011. 11 pages.
Böhm, A., M. Jonsson, and H. Zakizadeh, “Vehicular ad-hoc
networks to avoid surprise effects on sparsely trafficked, rural
roads,” 10th Scandinavian Workshop on Wireless AdhocNetworks (ADHOC ´11), Stockholm, Sweden, May 10-11,
2011.
Böhm, A. and M. Jonsson, “Enhanced overtaking warning on
sparsely trafficked roads through flexible vehicle prioritization,”
Internal Project Report, School of Information Science,
Computer and Electrical Engineering (IDE), Halmstad
University, Sweden, Dec. 2010.
27
WIMEMO - Wireless medium monitoring
WIMEMO – WIRELESS MEDIUM MONITORING
T. Larsson1, K. Lidström1, N. Nygren4, Lars Strandén3
1. Centre for Research on Embedded Systems, Halmstad University; 2. Free2move;
3. SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden; 4. Volvo Technology Corporation
The WiMeMo project is a continuation of the work done on the application level within the Vehicle Alert System (VAS)
project. The focus of the project is on methods for increasing the reliability of traffic safety applications through communication quality-of-service (QoS) monitoring and application adaptivity. WiMeMo thus takes a cross-layer approach; addressing the impact on traffic safety applications of failures on lower levels of the communication stack as well as application and middleware layer strategies for handling such failures.
1.
Direct vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication has
been suggested as a mechanism for providing new intelligent transportation services. Vehicles communicating
with each other could warn drivers about hazardous situations, e.g. to avoid intersection collisions. Periodically
transmitted beaconing messages would be the basis of
such a system that, in contrast to current in-vehicle sensors, would be able to provide non-line of sight situation
awareness which is crucial in many traffic safety applications. V2V communication could also be augmented with
However, the mobility patterns of vehicular traffic are
highly regular (vehicles tend to travel on roads), and the
transmission range of these systems is relatively short
(~300m). By utilizing the vehicles as probes we intend to
monitor quality aspects of V2V communication in order
to increase reliability and aid in infrastructure planning.
2.
Results
The key components in a radio monitoring and evaluation “tool chain” have been developed. This includes representing and compressing raw communication observations and aggregating them into a “radio map”. To evaluate the feasibility of constructing maps of the radio environment 5.9 GHz communication experiments have been
performed [2] with encouraging results. In order to query
the radio map a requirements specification format has
been developed [1] which allows the application designer
to express dynamically changing requirements on communication coverage and quality in relation to road geometry. The result of comparing the specification to a
radio map can be used off-line by infrastructure providers
as a tool for placing relay-stations but can also be used
on-line, for example to aid in vertical handover decisions
(as is intended to be illustrated by the project demonstrator during 2011).
PARTNERS AND STATUS
Figure 1. Packet drop rate at various locations in an
urban environment with static transmitter (yellow
pins) at 5.9 GHz.
roadside infrastructure, possibly connected to a backbone
network.
Current international standards propose using dedicated ITS (Intelligent Transportation System) frequencies
around 5.9 GHz. Attenuation due to obstacles in the environment is a factor at these frequencies and may negatively impact the usability of such communication in certain scenarios, e.g. at an intersections where line-of-sight
is blocked by buildings (Fig. 1). Cooperative safety applications relying on the wireless channel would in effect
become blind in these situations. However, if site-specific
channel quality could be reliably predicted, opportunities
for adaptation such as graceful degradation of application
functionality would be possible.
For channel quality at specific locations empirical
models are not suitable due to their generality while the
overhead of model maintenance is a major drawback for
site-specific models (i.e. using ray-tracing). In general,
the possibility of characterising the channel through
measurements is burdensome in scenarios where both
transmitter and receiver can occupy any given location.
28
Industrial Partners: Free2move AB, SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, and Volvo Technology Corporation.
Project funding: CERES profile funding from the
Knowledge Foundation and the industrial partners’ in
kind efforts.
Project duration: 2009 – 2011
Project leader: Tony Larsson
RELATED PUBLICATIONS
[1] K. Lidström and T. Larsson, "A Spatial QoS Requirements Specification for V2V Applications" in Proc.
IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, San Diego, CA,
USA, Jun. 2010.
[2] Böhm, A., K. Lidström, M. Jonsson, and T. Larsson
“Evaluating CALM M5-based vehicle-to-vehicle communication in various road settings through field trials,”
in Proc. 4th IEEE LCN Workshop On User MObility and
VEhicular Networks (ON-MOVE), Denver, CO, USA,
Oct. 2010.
REALISM - Reliable real-time communication for industrial and embedded systems
REALISM - RELIABLE REAL-TIME COMMUNICATION FOR
INDUSTRIAL AND EMBEDDED SYSTEMS
M. Jonsson*, K. Kunert*, and E. Uhlemann*¤
¤
*Centre for Research on Embedded Systems, Halmstad University
Mälardalen Research and Technology Centre, Mälardalen University
The project focuses on increasing the reliability of hard real-time communication systems at low additional cost in terms of
hardware, bandwidth or complexity. We combine retransmission schemes with timing and real-time scheduling analysis.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1.
Many networked industrial and embedded systems have
high demands on both reliability and real-time behavior,
while the hardware cost must be kept low. In this project,
we address the problem of how to support reliable realtime communication taking possible packet losses into account. Our goal is to increase message reliability at low
additional cost in terms of hardware or complexity.
We have proposed a framework combining retransmissions with real-time worst-case scheduling analysis,
offering both a high grade of reliability and hard real-time
support. Our solution handles one or several retransmission attempts of erroneous data without jeopardizing already guaranteed delay bounds of other packets. As we
target hard real-time communication in embedded and distributed systems, we use data traffic models derived from
industrial embedded systems and develop analysis methods originating from the real-time systems field. We target
not only a long-term statistical delay bound, but aim to
give a probabilistic guarantee for every single packet using worst-case delay analysis, supporting short delay
bounds for periodic traffic in real-time systems. In other
words, we do not allow retransmission of a packet if it
jeopardizes the granted real-time guarantees of other
packets, which can happen with regular ARQ schemes.
2.
Results
The framework has been extended into single-hop networks for which we have developed a retransmission protocol, with timing and real-time scheduling analysis to
match. The framework is applicable to different network
types, and therefore also give benefit to many application
areas, e.g., radio base stations, radar signal processing systems, multimedia communication and surveillance applications using wireless sensor networks. When the framework is placed on top of existing wireless communication
standards, such as 802.15.4 and 802.11, our results clearly
indicate a reduction of the message error rate by several
orders of magnitude.
We have made several publications at international
conferences and journals of high academic quality, regarding how to increase reliability and support for real-time
communication when using commercially available chipsets based on IEEE 802.11 or IEEE 802.15.4, of which
one of the papers received the best paper award (ETFA
2010). Finally a dissertation concludes the work in the
project.
PUBLICATIONS
K. Kunert, M. Jonsson and E. Uhlemann, “Exploiting time and
frequency diversity in IEEE 802.15.4 industrial networks for enhanced reliability and throughput,” in Proc. IEEE Conf. Emerging Techn. & Factory Automation, Bilbao, Spain, Sep. 2010, pp.
1-9. (Best paper award)
K. Kunert, E. Uhlemann and M. Jonsson, “Enhancing reliability
in IEEE 802.11 based real-time networks through transport layer
retransmissions,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Ind. Embedded Systems, Trento, Italy, Jul. 2010, pp. 146-155.
K. Kunert, E. Uhlemann and M. Jonsson, “Predictable real-time
communications with improved reliability for IEEE 802.15.4
based industrial networks,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Works. Factory
Communication Systems, Nancy, France, May 2010, pp. 13-22.
Jonsson, M. and K. Kunert, “Towards reliable wireless industrial
communication with real-time guarantees,” IEEE Trans. Industrial Informatics, 5(4):429-442, Nov. 2009.
Jonsson, M. and K. Kunert, “Wired and wireless reliable realtime communication in industrial systems,” in Factory Automation, IN-TECH, Vienna, Austria.
Jonsson, M. and K. Kunert, “Meeting reliability and real-time
demands in wireless industrial communication,” Proc. IEEE Int.
Conf. Emerging Techn. & Factory Automation, Hamburg, Germany, Sep. 2008.
Jonsson, M. and K. Kunert, “Reliable hard real-time communication in industrial and embedded systems,” Proc. IEEE Int.
Symp. Ind. Embedded Systems, Montpellier, France, Jun. 2008.
29
IPC- Implementation of protocol stacks - second phase
IMPLEMENTATION OF PROTOCOL STACKS SECOND PHASE
V. Gaspes1, Y. Wang 1, P-A. Wiberg2
1. Centre for Research on Embedded Systems, Halmstad University, SE-301 18 Halmstad, Sweden
2. Free2Move, SE-302 48 Halmstad, Sweden
IPS2 is a project addressing programming protocol stacks for embedded systems. It is a collaboration between Halmstad
University and free2move in the context of CERES. The goal of the project is to produce software tools that facilitate the
implementation of protocol stacks. The kernel of the project is a domain specific language for describing describe protocol
stacks from which C-programs are generated automaticaly.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1.
3.
We find the need for tools that help automatize the
implementation of protocol stacks in the fact that many
companies are re-implementing well-known infrastructure
protocols as well as implementing new application
protocols. There are many well known techniques to do a
good job in these implementations in order to avoid a
number of bottlenecks. However, these techniques, that
come from a number of disciplines, are not always easy to
understand or to implement. Tools that automate the use
of these techniques are a way of providing infrastructure
that make these techniques more available for new
applications.
2.
We have designed and implemented a domain specific
language to facilitate protocol stack implementations
targeting resource constrained embedded systems. From
packet specifications and protocol logic specifications we
generate C programs while keeping correctness, effciency
and maintainability in focus. We address the protocol
stack as a whole to enable cross-layer optimizations and
address resource utilization via a suitable runtime system.
Problem
Implementing protocol stacks is tedious, error-prone and
time-consuming. It is even more so when targeting small
embedded systems, which usually have additional, nonfunctional constraints. Thus, implementations have to
minimize energy consumption, memory usage as well as
other computation resources. In order to improve on timeto-market, scalability, maintainability and product
evolution, even development time and programming
methodology are relevant.
Figure 2. A language based approach.
4.
Figure 1. Software development challenges related to
protocol stacks for embedded systems.
30
Approach
Results
The main ideas of the project were presented in [1]. We
have implemented a language (PADDLE) for writing
packet specifications in a modular way. The compiler
generates a C library with useful functions for packet
processing. Some salient features of the library are that it
can deal with both physical layout and semantic
constraints, that it is bit oriented (as opposed to requiring
byte alignment) and that it works directly on the buffer
where the packet resides.
Packet proessing with
PADDLE improves the correspondence between the
specification and the implementation as the latter is
generated from the former. Also, packet parsing and
marshaling is kept in one place instead of finding
fragments spread over packet processing code. This
results in code that is much easier to maintain as changes
can be done in only one place. We present these ideas in a
paper submitted to ICDT 2009 [2].
As part of our work we have contributed a library for
processing ad-hoc data in the programming language
Haskell [3]. Our language for describing packets
implements a special kind of ad-hoc data format. More
recently we have presented preliminary implementations
of a language for describing protocol stacks including
protocol logic from which we generate C programs [4,5].
Yan Wang defended her licentiate thesis [6] during 2009.
During 2011 we presented a full description of the
language (now called Protege) at PEPM 2011 [7] and an
industrial case study at SIES 2011 [8]. This language can
be used to specify packets, protocol logic and overlying.
The compiler takes the specifications and generates a C
implementation of the protocol stack.
Yan Wang
defended her thesis on June 8, 2011 [9].
[7] Y. Wang and V. Gaspes, “An Embedded Language for
Programming Protocol Stacks in Embedded Systems”.
20th ACM SIGPLAN workshop on partial evaluation and
program manipulation, Austin, Texas, USA, January 2425, 2011.
[8] Y. Wang and V. Gaspes, “A Compositional
Implementation of MODBUS in Protege”. 6th IEEE
International Symposium on Industrial Embedded Systems
(SIES), Västerås, Sweden, June 15-17, 2011.
[9] Y. Wang, “A Domain-Specific Language for Protocol
Stack Implementation in Embedded Systems”, PhD
Thesis, Örebro University, 2011.
PARTNERS AND STATUS
Industrial Partner: Free2Move
Project funding: CERES profile funding from the
Knowledge Foundation,
Free2Move, Halmstad
University.
The project lasted August 2006 – June 2011.
Project leader was Veronica Gaspes.
Results from the project formed of the PhD thesis of Yan
Wang.
PUBLICATIONS
[1] Y. Wang, “IPS: Implementation of Protocol Stacks for
Embedded Systems” SenSys 2007, Doctoral Colloquium,
Sydney, Australia, November 6-9, 2007.
[2] Y. Wang, V. Gaspes, “A Domain Specific Approach
to Network Software Architecture: Assuring
Conformance Between Architecture and Code”. ICDT
2009, Colmar, France, July 2009
[3] Y. Wang, V. Gaspes, “A Library for Processing adhoc Data in Haskell: embedding a data description
language”. 20th symposium on the implementation and
application of functional languages (IFL 2008), Hatfield,
UK, September 2008.
[4] Y. Wang, V. Gaspes, “A Domain-Specific Language
Approach to Protocol Stack Implementation”, 12th
International Symposium on Practical Aspects of
Declarative Languages, Madrid, Spain, January 2010.
[5] Y. Wang and V. Gaspes, “Integrating a Data
Description Language with Protocol Stack Development”,
Proceedings of the International Conference on
Communication Systems, Networks and Applications
(CSNA 2009), Beijing, China, October 2009.
[6] Y. Wang “A Language-Based Approach to Protocol
Stack Implementation in Embedded Systems”. Licentiate
Thesis, Studies from the School of Science and
Technology at Örebro University 9, Örebro, June 2009.
31
EPC - Embedded parallel computing
EPC - EMBEDDED PARALLEL COMPUTING
B. Svensson1, V. Gaspes1, T. Larsson1, H. Hoai-Bengtsson2, J. Bengtsson1,
A. Persson1, Zain-ul-Abdin1, P. Gelin2, A. Wass3, P. Ericsson4, K. Lind4, A. Åhlander4
1. Centre for Research on Embedded Systems, Halmstad University;
2. Combitech AB; 3. Ericsson AB; 4. Saab Microwave Systems
The project addressed the efficient use of parallel and reconfigurable computing structures in embedded highperformance applications. The industrial challenges for the research are, e.g., baseband processing in base stations
for future mobile communication systems based on the LTE (long-term evolution) standard, and real-time image
forming in synthetic aperture radar systems.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Keywords: Stream processing, Coarse-grain reconfigureable computing, Processor arrays, Parallel computation
models, High-performance signal processing, Radio basestations, Radar signal processing.
Purpose
Understanding parallel architectures and their usage is an
important part of the CERES research program on
Cooperating Embedded Systems. The project addressed
the efficient use of parallel and reconfigurable computing
structures in embedded high-performance applications.
Goals
The project was oriented towards the needs of highperformance embedded signal processing applications.
Overall goals of the project were: (1) to understand which
hardware and software architectures are best suited for a
given application domain, and (2) to find efficient ways of
writing programs / mapping applications that execute
efficiently on parallel/reconfigurable computing systems.
The Project had four main “threads":
Figure 1: A simplified modular view of the principal
functions of the baseband receiver in long term
evolution (LTE) radio base stations
Thread 1
Stream processing architectures and languages with
applications in baseband processing. Goal: To develop
language based tools that enable efficient execution of
baseband processing algorithms on programmable array
architectures. (See Figure 1).
Thread 2
Programming of reconfigurable chip architectures. Goal:
To explore well established computation models and
devise new design methods based on these models to
program the emerging class of reconfigurable chip
architectures with varying granularity. (See Figure 2).
Thread 3
Methods for coordination of signal processing
components. Goal: To develop methods for design of high
performance signal processing software that is portable to
several parallel platforms.
Thread 4
Studies of realization of challenging signal processing
applications. Applications were selected for which it is
initially unknown whether it is at all possible to meet their
demands with state-of-the-art or foreseeable new
technology. Goal: For these applications, develop
methods for understanding of the demands on computer
architectures, and possibly propose architecture solutions.
32
Figure 2: The development of the coarse-grained
reconfigurable computing (CGRC) paradigm.
RESULTS
Models for manycore performance evaluation. A machine
model that captures essential performance measures of
array structured, tightly coupled manycore processors has
been developed. A timed intermediate representation has
been constructed, and, by means of abstract interpretation,
this can be executed in order to obtain feedback about the
run-time behaviour of the application (see Figure 3).
Figure 3: Framework for code mapping using abstract
interpretation of timed configuration graphs.
CSP based programming of reconfigurable processor
arrays. An approach of compiling a CSP based language,
occam-pi, to a reconfigurable processor array has been
evaluated. The method is based on developing a compiler
backend for generating native code for the target
architecture.
New
parallel
architectures
from
Ambric/Nethra Imaging and PACT XPP Technologies
have been used as target.
PARTNERS AND DURATION
Industrial Partners: Combitech AB, Ericsson AB (2007-2008),
Saab Microwave Systems/SAAB EDS.
Associated partners: Ambric/Nethra Imaging, Inc., USA; UC
Berkeley, USA.
Project funding: CERES profile funding from the Knowledge
Foundation, together with the industrial partners’ efforts in the
project.
Project duration: June 2007 – March 2011.
Project leader: Bertil Svensson, CERES.
PUBLICATIONS
Zain-ul-Abdin and B. Svensson, “Occam-pi for programming of
massively parallel reconfigurable architectures”, International
Journal of Reconfigurable Computing, Volume 2012 (2012),
Article ID 504815, 17 pages.
Zain-ul-Abdin and B. Svensson, “Occam-pi as a high-level
language for coarse-grained reconfigurable architectures”, Proc.
18th Int’l Reconf. Architectures Workshop, Int’l Parallel and
Distrib. Proc. Symposium (IPDPS'2011), Anchorage, May 2011.
Zain-ul-Abdin, A. Åhlander, and B. Svensson, “Programming
real-time autofocus on a massively parallel reconfigurable
architecture using occam-pi”, Proc. 19th Annual IEEE Int’l
Symposium on Field-Programmable Custom Computing
Machines (FCCM'2011), Salt Lake City, Utah, May 2011.
Zain-ul-Abdin,
Programming
of
Coarse-Grained
Reconfigurable Architectures, PhD Thesis, Halmstad University
and Örebro University, May 2011.
S. Savaş, Implementation and Evaluation of MPEG-4 Simple
Profile Decoder on a Massively Parallel Processor Array,
Master’s Thesis in Embedded and Intelligent Systems, TR
IDE1101, February 2011
Husni Khanfar, Implementing CAL Actor Component on
Massively Parallel Processor Array, Master’s Thesis in
Computer Systems Eng., TR IDE1060, Nov. 2010
Y.Pyaram and M.M. Rahman, Radar Signal Proc. on Ambric
Platform, Master’s Thesis CSE, TR IDE1055, September 2010
H. Ali and M. N. I. Patoary, Design and Impl. of an Audio
Codec (AMR-WB) using Data Flow Prog. Lang. CAL in the
OpenDF Environment, Master’s Thesis in Embedded and
Intelligent Systems, TR IDE1009 , May 2010
Zain-ul-Abdin, and B. Svensson, “Specifying run-time
reconfiguration in Processor Arrays using high-level language”,
HiPEAC Workshop on Reconfigurable Computing (WRC 2010),
Pisa, Italy, Jan. 2010.
Cheema, F., Z. Ul-Abdin, and B. Svensson, A Design
Methodology for resource to performance tradeoff adjustment in
FPGAs, FPGA World, Copenhagen, DK, September 6, 2010.
Bengtsson, J. and B. Svensson, “Manycore performance analysis
using timed configuration graphs", 2009 IEEE Int’l Conf. on
Embedded Computer Systems: Architectures, Modeling, and
Simulation (SAMOS IX), Samos, Greece, July 20-23, 2009.
Larsson, T., "A two level approach to the design of software for
cooperating embedded systems", Proc. of 7th IEEE
International Conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN
2009), Cardiff, UK, 24-26 June, 2009.
Bengtsson, J., Models and Methods for Development of DSP
Applications on Manycore Processors, PhD Thesis, Halmstad
University and Chalmers University of Technology, June 2009.
Zain-ul-Abdin, B. Svensson, “Evolution in architectures and
programming methodologies of coarse-grained reconfigurable
computing", Microprocessors and Microsystems 33 (2009)
161—178.
Bengtsson, J. and B. Svensson, “A domain-specific approach for
software development on multicore platforms", Computer
Architecture News, December 2008.
Zain-ul-Abdin, High-Level Programming of Coarse-Grained
Reconfigurable Architectures, Licentiate Thesis, Halmstad
University and Örebro University, December 2008.
Zain-ul-Abdin and B. Svensson, “Using a CSP based
programming model for reconfigurable processor arrays," Proc.
of 2008 International Conf. on ReConFigurable Computing and
FPGAs (ReConFig'08), Cancun ,Mexico, Dec. 3-5, 2008.
Bengtsson, J. and B. Svensson, "Methodologies and Tools for
Development of Signal Processing Software on Multicore
Platforms", Workshop on Streaming Systems, 41st Annual
IEEE/ACM Int’l Symposium on Microarchitecture (MICRO),
Como, Italy, 2008.
Jerker Bengtsson, Verónica Gaspes and Bertil Svensson,
"Machine Assisted Code Generation for Manycore Processors,"
9th SNART Conf. on Real-Time Systems (Real-Time in Sweden –
RTiS’07), Västerås, Sweden, Aug. 21-22, 2007, pp. 164-172.
C. M. Ali and M. Qasim, “Signal Processing on Ambric
Processor Array: Baseband processing in radio base stations”,
Master’s Thesis in Comp.Syst. Eng., TR IDE0838, June 2008
J. Bengtsson, A Model Set for Manycore Performance
Evaluation Through Abstract Interpretation of Timed
Configuration Graphs," TR IDE0856, School of Information
Science, Computer and Electrical Eng., 2008.
Åhlander, A., B. Svensson, H. Hellsten, K. Lind, and J. Lindgren
"Architectural challenges in memory-intensive, real-time image
forming" Proc. 36th Annual Int’l Conference on Parallel
Processing, XiAn, China, Sept. 10-14, 2007.
33
Coordination support for wireless sensor networks
COOPERATION SUPPORT FOR WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS
Edison Pignaton de Freitas 1,2 and Tony Larsson1,
1. Centre for Research on Embedded Systems, Halmstad University, Box 823 – SE-301 18 – Halmstad, Sweden.
2. Informatics Institute – Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) CP:15.064 – 91.501-970 – Porto Alegre/RS – Brazil.
The assembly of different kinds of sensors cooperating in a network is a trend set in place in order to monitor and
gather different types of information. One type of application that profits from this trend is area surveillance. Area
surveillance systems are demanding a great amount of sensor node resources to provide coverage. The use of
sophisticated sensors such as video cameras or radars is desired, but the development of the entire system based
only in these types of sensors has prohibitive costs. On the other hand, the use of cheap sensors can provide a full
coverage with more affordable costs, but with less meaningful information. In order to provide a cost-effective
system, which at the same time provides meaningful information to the users, the combined usage of low-end
cheap sensors and sophisticated more expensive ones is a promising approach. However, in order to run a
heterogeneous sensor network to support such a system, cooperation strategies supporting their interoperability is
a must. The focus of this research project is to investigate techniques to enable efficient usage of resources and
autonomous decision making in heterogeneous sensor networks, aiming at surveillance system applications.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1.
Project Context and Summary Overview
The overall goal of this research is the development
of adaptable wireless sensor networks, composed of
heterogeneous sensor nodes, intended to be
employed in highly dynamic application scenarios,
such as surveillance systems, with direction towards
methods that provide autonomous adaptation
features and the ability to make different types of
sensors cooperate in the network. This cooperation is
intended to be driven by the achievement of the
goals of an overall network “sensing mission”.
More specifically a mission-driven approach is being
investigated, in which the user provides high-level
sensing commands that are translated in network
parameters in order to setup the network to gather
the data desired by the user. These parameters are
then used by the sensor nodes to autonomously
decide their responsibilities about in the sensing
mission. During the mission accomplishment,
changes in the operation scenario may happen. The
necessary adaptation in the network due to these
changes is decided autonomously by the sensors
nodes.
2.
Problem Statement
The main problem investigated is how to provide
intelligent interoperability support to sensor
networks composed of static and mobile sensor
nodes, more specifically, low-end ground sensor
nodes and/or mobile sensors such as Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or Manned or Unmanned
Ground Vehicles (M- or U- GV), applied to
34
surveillance of large contiguous areas. To study this
problem one studied scenario is presents both UAVs
and ground sensors that have different sensing,
computing and communication capabilities. From
the user’s point of view, the system is seen as a
whole, and he/she just states sensing missions in
order to gather information about a given
phenomenon of interest, without concerning about
the details related to the nodes heterogeneity, or the
network configuration.
Figure 1 presents the above mentioned scenario, in
which it is possible to observe the different elements
that compose it, namely: 1) the end user specifying
sensing missions; 2) the static sensors on the ground
and, 3) the mobile sensors (UAV-carried).
Figure 1: Scenario Overview
A system to handle the described surveillance
scenario faces several problems:
The first problem comes from the network setup and
configuration, which is related to the high-level
network mission setup, guided by the user
commands or directives, and how to disseminate the
mission among the network nodes in order to
configure them.
The second problem is related to how to provide
autonomy and intelligence to the nodes in order to
enable that most decisions about the network
configuration can be taken in a decentralized
fashion. This requires autonomous decision making
mechanisms and negotiation schemes that try to find
the best solution to the problem of task allocation to
respond the user’s needs, with the lowest possible
overhead.
Third, network management and context awareness
influence the two above problems. The network
management problem, or simply networking, is
related to the selection of communication links,
prioritizing certain communication in spite of other
and issues about how to relay and route
communication in such ad hoc networks. The
context awareness is related to the network state,
such as node reachability, and nodes’ status, like
sensor device conditions and energy levels.
Fourth, due to the resource constraints, the nodes
may carefully use communication, for secrecy and in
order to not unnecessarily consume energy
resources. Moreover, schemes to optimize the
resources usage should take into account the
network as a whole and do not the individual nodes.
And finally, the intrinsic heterogeneity of the
networks considered in this work requires an
appropriated support to address the above described
nodes, and which will provide the desired node
interoperability.
3.
Proposed Approach
A number of techniques are being investigated in the
context of this project in order to provide the desired
features to support the solution that is intended to be
developed. However, the focus is being concentrated
in the coordination mechanisms to solve mainly two
of the problems described above, i.e., the
autonomous WSN setup and support to runtime
sensor nodes cooperation.
In order to support network setup, a multi- and
mobile- agent approach is proposed. Mobile agents
are responsible to carry the mission directions to the
sensor nodes in order to drive their setup to perform
the missions. This type of agents is supposed to
move mission to the network according to the users’
needs. Multi-agent reasoning is used in order to
spread intelligence over the network nodes, and like
this decentralize the decision-making about what
each node will perform to make the network
accomplish with the missions. The multi-agent
approach provides thus the desired autonomy to the
sensor nodes.
A particular difference among sensor nodes studied
in this work is related to their mobility capabilities.
The goal is to provide interoperability support for a
co-work between mobile and static sensor nodes.
The investigated solution is based on a bio-inspired
mechanism that explores the concept of stigmergy
by which animals leave pheromones on the
environment as indication of some kind of
information. In an attempt to do likewise, mobile
sensor nodes leave information to the static sensor
nodes while they are moving. This information is
further used by the static sensor nodes to locate and
cooperate with the mobile nodes.
The project contemplates other studies related to
solutions for the other above mentioned problems,
but as secondary goals. In this context, it is possible
to mention the efforts in coping with the complexity
to setup and configure the sensor network, from the
user point of view, in which a high-level abstraction
language is proposed to describe the sensing
missions, called Mission Description Language
(MDL).
Another secondary investigated aspect is the solution
for the heterogeneity among the used sensor nodes.
This can be addressed by a middleware oriented
solution to encapsulate the agents and the intelligent
cooperation mechanisms. This middleware may be
customizable via a component and aspect oriented
approach, as to fit in the different types of sensor
nodes.
Figure 2 presents the overview of the proposed
approach, in which from the left to the right it is
represented the mission specification, followed by its
transmission to the network via mobile agents
(Mission-agents), until its dissemination into the
network nodes, which are equipped with the
supporting platform for the used agents (represented
by the middleware).
Figure 2: Solution Approach Overview
35
4.
Results
Concrete results have being achieved in the
strategies to disseminate and allocate missions in the
network [3] [4] [7] [9] [11]; to coordinate the actions
of mobile sensor nodes (UAVs) with the static
ground sensor nodes [1] [2] [5] [6] [8] [10] [12]; in
the architectural level, in which a scheme of the
supporting platform is defined [13] [15]; and in the
mission-driven specification [14]. The overall
contribution is presented in [16].
PARTNERS AND STATUS
Academic Partners: Federal University of Rio Grande do
Sul, Porto Alegre – Brazil.
Fraunhofer IGD, Technisch Universität Darmstadt,
Darmstadt – Germany.
Industrial Partners: Skydrones do Brasil.
Project Funding: CERES profile funding from the
Knowledge Foundation.
The Project leader is Prof. Tony Larsson.
PUBLICATIONS
[1] Freitas, E. P., Bösch, B., Allgayer, R.S., Steinfeld, L.,
Wagner, F. R., Carro, L., Pereira, C. E. and Larsson, T.
"Mobile Agents Model and Performance Analysis of a Wireless
Sensor Network Target Tracking Application," Proceedings of
10th IEEE International Conference On Next Generation
Wired/Wireless Advanced Networking, 2011, St. Petersburg,
Russia, August 2011, p.274-286.
[2] Freitas, E. P., Heimfarth, T., Netto, I. F., Lino, C. E.,
Wagner, F. R., Ferreira, A. M., Pereira, C. E. and Larsson, T.
“Handling Failures of Static Sensor Nodes in Wireless Sensor
Networks by Use of Mobile Sensors,” Proceedings of
Workshops of IEEE International Conference on Advanced
Information Networking and Applications (WAINA’11), p.127
– 134, Singapore, March 2011.
[3] Freitas, E. P., Heimfarth, T., Costa, L. A. G., Wagner, F. R.,
Ferreira, A. M., Pereira, C. E. and Larsson, T. “Analyzing
Different Levels of Geographic Context Awareness in Agent
Ferrying over VANETs,” Proceedings of 26th ACM Symposium
on Applied Computing (SAC'11), p.413-418,Taichung, Taiwan,
March 2011.
[4] Freitas, E. P., Heimfarth, T., Wagner, F. R., Ferreira, A. M.,
Pereira, C. E. and Larsson, T. “Multi-Agent Support in a
Middleware for Mission-Driven Heterogeneous Sensor
Networks”, in Special Issue on Agent Technology for Sensor
Networks, Computer Journal, Vol. 54, No. 3, p. 406-420,
Oxford Journals. March 2011. doi:10.1093/comjnl/bxp105
[5] Freitas E.P., T. Heimfarth, Netto, I. F., Lino, C.E., Wagner,
F. R., Ferreira, A. M., Pereira, C. E. and Larsson, T. “UAV
Relay Network to Support WSN Connectivity.” Proc.
International Conference on Ultra Modern Telecommunications
and Control Systems. Moscow, Russia, October 2010.
[6] Freitas E.P., T. Heimfarth, Wagner, F. R., Ferreira, A. M.,
Pereira, C. E. and Larsson, T. "Experimental analysis of
36
coordination strategies to support wireless sensor networks
composed by static ground sensors and UAV-carried Sensors".
ISPA 2010 - IEEE International Symposium on Parallel and
Distributed Processing with Applications. Taipei, Taiwan,
September 2010.
[7] Freitas, E.P., T. Heimfarth, F.R. Wagner, A.M. Ferreira, C.E.
Pereira, and T. Larsson. "Geo-aware handover of mission agents
using opportunistic communication in VANET". Proc. of
New2An 2010 - 10th International Conference on Next
Generation Wired/Wireless Advanced Networking, St.
Petersburg, Russia, August 2010. p. 365-376.
[8] Freitas, E.P., T. Heimfarth, A.M. Ferreira, C.E. Pereira, F.R.
Wagner, and T. Larsson. Pheromone-based coordination strategy
to static sesors on the ground and unmanned aerial vehicles
carried sensors. Proc. of SPIE, 0277-786X, v. 7694. April 2010,
p. 769416-1 - 769416-9.
[9] Heimfarth T., Freitas, E. P., Pereira, C. E., Ferreira, A.M.,
Wagner, F.R. and Larsson, T. "Experimental analysis of a
wireless sensor network setup strategy provided by an agentoriented middleware", Proc. of AINA 2010 - 24th IEEE
International Conference on Advanced Information Networking
and Applications. Perth, Australia, April 2010. p. 820-826.
[10] Freitas, E. P., Heimfarth, T., Allgayer, R.S., Wagner, F.
R., Ferreira, A. M., Pereira, C. E. and Larsson, T. “Coordinating
Aerial Robots and Unattended Ground Sensors for Intelligent
Surveillance Systems”, in International Journal of Computers,
Communications & Control. 2010. pp. 55-72
Pereira, C. E. and Larsson, T. “An Agent Framework to Support
Sensor Networks’ Setup and Adaptation”, in Proceedings of
International Multiconference on Computer Science and
Information Technology, Mragowo, Poland, October 2009. pp.
533–540.
Pereira, C. E. and Larsson, T. “Evaluation of Coordination
Strategies for Heterogeneous Sensor Networks Aiming at
Surveillance Applications”, in Proceedings of 8th IEEE Sensors,
Christchurch, New Zealand, October 2009. pp. 591–596.
[13] Freitas, E. P., Ferreira, A. M., Pereira, C. E. and Larsson, T.
“Middleware Support in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and
Wireless Sensor Networks for Surveillance Applications”, in
Proceedings of 3rd International Symposium on Intelligent
Distributed Computing, SCI 237, Springer Berlin, Heidelberg,
Ayia Napa, Cyprus, October 2009. pp. 289–296.
[14] Freitas, E. P., Heimfarth, T., Wehrmeister, M. A., Wagner,
F. R., Ferreira, A. M., Pereira, C. E. and Larsson, T. “An Agent
Framework Support to Provide Sensor Network’s Intelligent
Setup and Adaptation”, in Proceedings of 9 Simposio Brasileiro
de Automacao Inteligente (SBAI), Brasilia, Brasil, September
2009.
[15] Freitas, E. P., Allgayer, R.S., Wehrmeister, M. A., Pereira,
C. E. and Larsson, T. “Supporting Platform for Heterogeneous
Sensor Network Operation based on Unmanned Vehicles
Systems and Wireless Sensor Nodes”, in Proceedings of the
IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV'09), 2009. pp. 786791.
[16] Freitas, E. P., Cooperative Context Aware Setup and
Performance of Surveillance Missions Using Static and Mobile
Wireless Sensor Networks. Ph.D. Thesis, Halmstad University,
Halmstad, Sweden, 261 p., November 2011.
R2D2 - Reliable real-time communications for dependable distributed systems
R2D2: RELIABLE REAL-TIME COMMUNICATIONS FOR
DEPENDABLE DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS
Elisabeth Uhlemann1,2, Katrin Sjöberg, Mats Björkman2, Kristina Kunert1 and Thomas Nolte2
1. Centre for Research on Embedded Systems, Halmstad University
2. Mälardalen Real-Time Research Center, Mälardalen University
The R2D2 project focuses on developing tools and methods for achieving more reliable real-time communications in industrial applications. The project leader will conduct research in close cooperation with industry to ensure the usefulness of the
research results. An additional goal of the R2D2 project is to initiate collaboration between the research profiles CERES at
Halmstad University and MRTC at Mälardalen University, and their respective industrial partners.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1
Wireless technologies offer significant benefits in many
diverse application areas; they provide a novel approach
to existing applications, such as localization and tracking
of goods, or enable new applications where wireless access is the only option, e.g., measurements and control of
highly mobile devices. These new application areas have
higher and more diverse communication requirements
than previously experienced. For example, real-time constraints and reliability are often required concurrently.
2.
0.996
0.994
0.992
0.99
Fixed packet length
Optimized packet length
0.988
0
50
100
150
200
250
time units
300
350
400
Figure 1. Data reliability as a function of time for two different physical layer algorithms.
Problem formulation
Existing communication protocols typically provide either
reliable (e.g., emailing) or real-time communications
(e.g., voice) – not both. Research on real-time communications is traditionally focused on scheduling and prioritizing messages in conjunction with different medium
access control (MAC) methods, i.e. introducing real-time
properties, but assuming a reliable (i.e., a wired) communication channel. When a wireless channel is considered and more reliable communications is called for,
retransmissions are typically introduced, generally leading
to loss of real-time properties. Besides reliable wireless
real-time communications, many applications using distributed systems also have additional requirements such as
low latency (e.g., traffic safety systems) or energy efficiency (e.g., wireless sensor networks).
3.
0.998
Pd
1.
Approach
In contrast to traditional research on real-time communications, the research in the R2D2 project is focused on
increasing the data reliability by introducing changes to
the lower layers in the communication stack such that
real-time properties still hold (or are enforced). Figure 1
shows how the data reliability is improved over time using two different physical layer protocols. Since the wireless channel is error-prone with limited resources that all
users share, the communication protocols need to be made
application specific such that the available resources can
be fully exploited. A cross-layer design paradigm enables
sufficient dynamics to meet the increased performance
requirements of emerging applications. By allowing the
specific Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements from the
application layer to influence physical layer parameters
(e.g., adaptive coding and modulation), the data reliability
can be enhanced while respecting real-time deadlines.
The cross-layer design enables suitable trade-offs between
information reliability, latency, energy efficiency, required bandwidth and complexity. The R2D2 project aims
at developing adaptive, cooperative error control strategies tailored to the QoS parameters of each specific application or even situation. Information theoretical tools
such as cooperative coding, cooperative diversity and
network coding, will be applied together with dynamic
scheduling of messages, and evaluated for practical systems with realistic assumptions.
PARTNERS AND STATUS
Academic partner: Mälardalen University
Project funding: Funded by VINNOVA through the
VINNMER program.
Duration: March 2009 – March 2012.
Project leader: Dr. Elisabeth Uhlemann, CERES
Ph D students: Katrin Sjöberg and Kristina Kunert
PUBLICATIONS
E. Uhlemann and T. Nolte, “Scheduling relay nodes for reliable
wireless real-time communications,” Proc. IEEE Conf. Emerg.
Techn. & Factory Autom., Mallorca, Spain, Sep. 2009, pp. 1-3.
E. Uhlemann and A. Willig, “Joint design of relay and packet
combining schemes for wireless industrial networks,” Proc.
IEEE Vehicular Techn. Conf., Singapore, May 2008.
D. Miorandi, E. Uhlemann, S. Vitturi and A. Willig, “Guest
editorial: special section on wireless technologies in factory and
industrial automation,” in IEEE Trans. Industrial Informatics,
vol. 3, no. 2/3, May/Aug. 2007.
L. K. Rasmussen, E. Uhlemann and F. Brännström, “Concatenated systems and cross-layer design,” Proc. Australian Commun. Theory Workshop, Perth, Australia, Feb. 2006, pp. 80-86.
37
SELIES - Supporting elderly thru intelligent and embedded systems
SELIES – SUPPORTING ELDERLY THRU INTELLIGENT AND EMBEDDED
SYSTEMS
A. Sant’Anna2, W. O. deMorais1, and N. Wickström1,2
1. Centre for Research on Embedded Systems, Halmstad University, SE-301 18 Halmstad, Sweden
2. Intelligent Systems Laboratory, Halmstad University, SE-301 18 Halmstad, Sweden
A rapidly growing elderly population in Sweden, as well as in the rest of the world, imposes a need for ambient assisted
living technology. To better tailor the technology to the elderly needs an understanding about the user’s context as well as
their intention is desired. Likely, future systems are worn ubiquitously or embedded in everyday objects and interoperable
with other devices in its surrounding. The operation is human centered and special concern to the user privacy needs is taken.
Two main aspects of this is explored further in this project, the analysis of human movements by accelerometer based
“motion primitives” and the aspects of integration of hardware components, functions and services in a platform to support
applications.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1.
Background
The rapid aging of Europe’s population poses new
problems to be addresses in the near future. According to
the World Health Organization Statistics [1], about 1.6
million of Swedish people (17% of total population) are
aged 65 or over. Projections show that in the next 40
years, the largest part of population growth will be among
people aged 65 and older.
In future years, the increased number of people aged 65
and over will exert great pressure on the healthcare
system to treat age-related problems. These problems
cover different aspects of physical, social and cognitive
wellness as well as assistance from professional or
informal caretakers.
Most age-related problems demand long-term,
expensive treatments which weigh upon society as a
whole. To cope with economic limitations of the available
resources, the traditional health care system has been
shifting its attention from medical facilities to home-based
medical assistance.
2.
Technical Motivation
Great part of technological development aims at
creating intelligent systems to aid humans in performing
certain activities. The success and effectiveness of these
systems are correlated with their ability to perceive,
interpret and interact with the environment. The
comprehension of movements can provide important
information about what is happening in the surroundings
(context awareness) and consequently, information about
what actions need to be taken. Therefore an artificial
conceptual system, capable of coding and decoding
physical movements, is of primary importance.
To make solutions appealing, practical and useful
outdoors, poses several challenges; light-weight and
ubiquitous, robust and embedded in devices normally
worn such as shoes, bracelets or jewelry and wrist
watches. Thus utilizing modern MEMS sensors built can
lead to products of low cost and less obtrusive operations.
38
Currently, the accelerometer is the main candidate, due
to its low cost and power consumption and general
applicability [2].
When dealing with small and portable sensors, the
volume of the power source represents a significant
portion of the device’s total size. Thin-film batteries, for
example, are small (less than 0.5 millimeters), of
customizable shapes and flexible form factor. However,
reducing the size of the power supply should not
compromise the energization of the embedded system. For
instance, medical sensors and smart tags, powered by
small batteries, should work from several months to many
years.
3.
Intelligent systems approach
One important challenge of recognizing human
behaviors is to understand the current activities as well as
how they are performed over time. The development of
intelligent ambulatory monitoring systems and smart
living environments is important for the aging society.
Here, the main aspect is the use of human motion analysis
as a tool for supporting elderly life and suggests a new
“motion language” approach to such task. More
specifically, the concept of “motion primitives” which is
an effective technique to automatically decompose human
activity into building blocks which belong to an
“alphabet” of elementary actions. Current attempts are
based on motion capture data [3] only possible to use
indoor in limited settings. Figure 2 show alternative path
to analysis of human motion.
The information obtained from this type of analysis can
be used for interpretation of human motion.
Furethermore, a strength in the approach is the possibility
to also characterize the human motion. An important
characteristic of human motion is symmetry. An example
of symmetry analysis of human gait is presented in Paper
V. A clinical example of detection of very early Parkinson
patients is presented in Paper VII.
[2] Mathie M. J. et al, Accelerometry: providing an
integrated, practical method for long-term, ambulatory
monitoring of human movement, Physiological
Measurement, 2004, 25: R1-R20.
[3] Guerra-Filho G. et al, A language for human action,
Computer, 2007, 40: 42-51.
Raw data
Segmentation
Symbolization
Data segments
Symbolized data
Feature extraction
Motif discovery
PARTNERS AND STATUS
Features
Clustering
Atomic patterns
Grammar structure
Composite patterns
Expert
System
Characterization
Legend
Proposed
approach
Classification
Motion data
abstractions
Intermediate
abstractions
Actions
Methods
Figure 2 Information flow of analysis of human motion.
One of the keys to successful interpretation is the coding
and utilization of expert knowledge.
4.
Embedded systems approach
To better understand the challenges and build more
effective and efficient embedded systems for home
healthcare, a long-term service model to support aging in
place, see Figure 3, is presented. The three phases of the
model is characterized by the different role they play in
life. To evaluate the usefulness of the model and test how
embedded systems technology can adapt to individual,
needs and changes over a life span. The model and the
demonstrator are further discussed in Paper VI, a video is
also available on YouTube VIII.
Figure 3 The long-term service model. The three phases are
characterized by the individual and evolving needs in life.
5.
References
[1] World Health Organization. Available at:
http://www.who.int/countries/swe/en/
· Project funding: Sparbanksstiftelsen Kronan, Halmstad
University. The two PhD students are part of a university
research school; Research school in entrepreneurship and
health.
· Clinical experiments are performed with Sahlgrenska
University Hospital in Gothenburg and Oregon Health and
Science University in Portland, Oregon.
· The project period is October 2007 – present. Project
leader is Dr. Nicholas Wickström.
· The implementation of the “Bed Demonstrator” is
performed at Health Technology Centre Halland (HCH),
with funding from Region Halland and EU. More info at:
http://www.hh.se/hch_en/
PUBLICATIONS
[I] A. Sant’Anna, W. O. de Morais, and N. Wickström,
Gait Unsteadiness Analysis from Motion Primitives, 6th
International Conference on Gerontechnology - Pisa, June
4-7 2008
[II] W. O. de Morais, A. Sant’Anna, and N. Wickström,
A Wearable Accelerometer Based Platform to Encourage
Physical Activity for the Elderly, 6th International
Conference on Gerontechnology - Pisa, June 4-7 2008
[III] A. Sant’Anna and N. Wickström, Developing a
Motion Language: Gait Analysis from Accelerometer
Sensor Systems, IEEE 3rd International Conference on
Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare 2009 London, April 2009
[IV] Sant’Anna, A. and N. Wickström, A linguistic
approach to the analysis of accelerometer data for gait
analysis, Proceedings of The Seventh IASTED
International Conference on Biomedical Engineering,
BioMed
2010,
February
17
–
19,
2010.
[V] Sant’Anna, A. and N. Wickström, A Symbol-Based
Approach to Gait Analysis From Acceleration Signals:
Identification and Detection of Gait Events and a New
Measure of Gait Symmetry, Information Technology in
Biomedicine, IEEE Transactions on , vol.14, no.5,
pp.1180-1187, Sept. 2010.
[VI] W. O. de Morais and N. Wickström, A Long-term
Service Model to Support Aging in Place with
Demonstration by the Smart Bed, submitted to IEEE 5th
International Conference on Pervasive Computing
Technologies for Healthcare 2011.
[VII] Sant’Anna, A., A. Salarian and N. Wickström, A
new Measure of Movement Symmetry in Early
Parkinson’s Disease Patients Using Symbolic Processing
of Inertial Sensor Data, in review, IEEE Transactions on
Biomedical Engineering, 2011.
[VIII] W. O. de Morais, N. Wickström, Video on
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9TNBvjHlXk
39
GEIS- Gender perspective on embedded intelligent systems - Application in healthcare technology
Gender Perspective on Embedded Intelligent Systems –
Application in Healthcare Technology
The project was part of the programme Applied Gender Research for Strong Research and Innovation
Milieus (TIGER) funded by the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA)
The aim of the project (G-EIS) was to integrate a gender perspective in the Halmstad Embedded and
Intelligent Systems Research Environment (EIS) at Halmstad University in order to contribute to its
positive development on several levels. As EIS is particularly well organised and accomplished
concerning applications of technology in the area of health technology, this was the main focus of the
project.
Embedded Intelligent Systems (EIS) is the
joint research field of the four collaborating
laboratories at the School of Information
Science, Computer and Electrical Engineering
(IDE) at Halmstad University. The four labs
are: Computing and Communication lab (CClab), Intelligent Systems lab (IS-lab), Man and
Information Technology lab (MI-lab), and
Mathematics,
Physics
and
Electrical
Engineering lab (MPE-lab).
EIS has strong connections to both
established and new, expanding firms hived off
from the university. The research environment
is active in the Healthcare Technology
Alliance, a network of around sixty companies,
counties and health care providers in south
western Sweden with the aim of developing
the region into a leading arena for the
development of health technological products
and services. Several projects together with
these participants concern both research and
technology transfer.
An integrated gender and gender equality
perspective in innovations within the health
technology area is necessary in order to be able
to meet the needs of an ageing population with
quality innovations. The relevancy of a gender
perspective is clear in relation to the fact that
about 70% of all those older than 75 years are
women. Older women are on average cared for
in hospital for twice as long as men, partly due
to differing disease panoramas, but also
because men are more often cared for in the
home by a woman while the women who live
longer more often live alone. With the
expansion of home-help and home nursing new
needs follow and it is likely that a gender
perspective will become necessary for the
development of products and services that can
make daily life easier for the elderly.
The gender perspective also has relevance
from the point of view of care staff. New
technology is developed for application within
the health and care sector where the larger
professional groups consist mainly of women.
The technology, most often designed by men,
is used by women.
Problem formulation
Technology is traditionally considered a male
area of work and this is reflected in the sex
distribution within IDE. Among the enrolled
students, the discrepancy is even larger than
among the staff. A pilot study showed that
there is a need to problematise the science of
technology and its application in relation to
gender and gender equality, and to carry out
development work for a more gender equal and
gender aware work and research environment.
In addition, health care is an area concerned
with both technology development and gender
aspects. Technology can be used to facilitate
both being able to stay in one’s own home and
the often heavy and complex work of health
care. The end users are regarded as possessing
untapped knowledge that can help researchers
produce more user-friendly products.
Approach
The gender and gender equality perspective
was to be integrated not only in the research
environment of EIS and its research partners,
but also in the whole chain from the
recruitment of students to the consumers of the
innovation system’s products and services. The
project team has consisted of a combination of
staff from EIS and gender researchers. Four
Ph.D. students or younger researchers
represented the four labs and functioned as
1
40
“change agents” – they received training in
gender equality, research aspects of gender
equality in their respective labs, and reported
back to the gender researchers as well as to
IDE. Phases of the project were named the
“sowing phase”, the “growth phase” and the
“harvest phase” with the intention of sowing
the seeds of gender equality awareness and
competency, expanding this over and
throughout the whole health technology field
and finally reaping the benefits of an integrated
gender perspective. The four dimensions of
Joan Acker’s theory of gendered organisations
were applied to and mapped in the research
environment EIS.
Results
Increased gender awareness – the four
“change agents” have spread awareness in their
lab environments. EIS has been mapped from a
gender perspective and a questionnaire
showing the attitudes on gender and gender
equality among the staff was created and
distributed, and the results were used to inform
the rest of the project work. G-EIS has strongly
influenced the internal processes in a great
number of the development projects within the
newly established Centre for Health
Technology Halland (HCH). Due to a number
of researchers from EIS being involved in
projects within HCH, gender awareness has
spread throughout both environments.
Changes in processes and action patterns – as
a result of health technology being the focus
for G-EIS, HCH became its workshop. Early
on a person responsible for gender aspects was
enlisted in HCH not only to evaluate and
follow up the organisation itself, but also to
coordinate several of its projects. This further
increased the possibility to integrate a gender
perspective. A guide for reflecting over the
gender perspective and gender equality within
projects was produced in order to create action
patterns anchored in gender awareness. Also,
the meeting between users (most often women)
and producers (most often men) of health
technology has inspired new questions and
perspectives on technology which carries the
potential for innovation.
Better gender balance, new participants in the
research environment and new applications –
G-EIS has contributed to an even gender
balance in and a gender perspective throughout
HCH. Those researchers from EIS who
normally work in a male-dominated
environment, experience, at HCH, a balanced
environment not only in terms of gender, but
also in terms of various disciplines and
scientific traditions. The HCH environment is
seen as very creative and is used as inspiration
when new research environments are created.
As a result of G-EIS the School of Information
Science, Computer and Electrical Engineering
(IDE) is now planning to offer health
technology as a shared theme for all
programmes on an undergraduate level. There
are also discussions on a European Master’s
programme with focus on health technology.
Publications
Byttner, Stefan, Annette Böhm, Emma
Börjesson, Jesper Hakeröd, Mikael Hindgren
and Suzanne Almgren Mason, ”Lägesrapport
G-EIS”, Report 9 June 2009.
Hansson, Agneta, Gunilla Fürst Hörte, E.
Börjesson, S. A. Mason, and B. Svensson,
“Bridging gendered and scientific cultures in a
healthcare technology context”, Poster
presented at VIII Triple Helix Conference,
Madrid, October 20-22, 2010.
Hansson, A. et al, “Bridging gendered and
scientific cultures in a healthcare technology
context”, Proceedings from the International
Conference Equality, Growth and
Sustainability Do They Mix?, Linköping,
November 25-26, 2010, pp. 57-63.
Börjesson, E. ”Genusperspektiv på tillväxt”,
Final report pilot study 960729, HCH 2011
Byttner, S. et al and G. Fürst Hörte, A.
Hansson, B. Svensson, ”Enkät om jämställdhet
vid IDE-sektionen på Högskolan i Halmstad”,
Report 13 maj 2011.
Börjesson, E., ”Hälsoteknik ett tillväxtområde
och innovationssystem med
gränsöverskridande potential utifrån ett
genusperspektiv?” Bachelor thesis political
science, Halmstad university, 2011
Byttner, S. et al and G. Fürst Hörte, A.
Hansson, B. Svensson n; Genusperspektiv på
inbyggda intelligenta system Tillämpning
Hälsoteknik, 2012 Work in progress.
2
41
Acumen+: Core Enabling Technology for Acumen
Acumen+: Core Enabling Technology for Acumen
Walid Taha, Veronica Gaspes, Jerker Bengtsson
Centre for Research on Embedded Systems (CERES),
Halmstad University, Halmstad, Sweden.
References
Introduction
We are developing a modeling and simulation language design
called Acumen around the thesis that, for a variety of reasons
mathematics is the right formalism for describing many cyberphysical systems. Two key hypotheses underlying this thesis are
that
•
Precise modeling is essential for meaningful experimentation, analysis, and verification and
•
Mathematical models are more amenable to parallel
simulation than efficient codes.
For the Acumen research program to take off, and to develop
more traditional research funding proposals, attaining some
preliminary results along these two dimensions is of crucial importance. To this end, we propose a two year activity that will
develop Acumen along two dimensions that will allow us to
accumulate a wide range of preliminary results that would form
a solid basis for pursuing funding from a wide range of sources
beyond CERES and the KK foundation. The proposed project
also includes a component on developing international connections both in terms of software development and in terms
of teaching a course on the results of the project internationally.
[1] The Acumen Distribution at www.acumen-language.org.
[2] Mathematical Equations as Executable Models, Yun
Zhu, Edwin Westbrook, Jun Inoue, Alexandre Chapoutot,
Cherif Salama, Marisa Peralta, Travis Martin, Walid Taha,
Marcia O'Malley, Robert Cartwright, Aaron Ames, Raktim
Bhattacharya,vThe First International ACM/IEE Conference
on Cybe Physical Systems (ICCPS’10), Stockholm, 2010.
[3] In Pursuit of Real Answers, Angela Yun Zhu, Walid Taha,
Robert Cartwright, Matthieu Martel, Jeremy G. Siek, International Conference on Embedded Software and Systems (ICESS’09), Hangzhou, 2009.
[4] “Globally Parallel, Locally Sequential”, Paul Brauner and
Walid Taha, International Workshop on Parallel/High-Performance Object-Oriented Scientific Computing (POOSC'10),
Las Vegas, 2010.
[5] Differential dynamic logic for hybrid systems, Andre
Platzer, Journal of Automated Reasoning, 2008 - Springer.
[6] The Ambric, Wikipedia Article.
[7] A new representation for exact real numbers, A Edalat, Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, 1997 - Elsevier.
Research Questions
The overarching question behind this research is whether simulation technologies can be relied on for early experimentation
with novel designs of embedded and cooperative systems. This
general question gives rise to important technical questions,
including:
•
•
•
42
Are there effective and efficient methods for
detecting numerical precision errors?
Are there ways to effectively and efficiently compute with variable precision representations?
Are there ways to unify the diverse methods
available from numerical computation, starting from integration to more sophisticated operations?
Publications 2009-2011
Mhaidat, K. M., M.A. Jabri, and D. Hammerstrom, “Representation, methods, and circuits for time-based conversion and
computation,” International Journal of Circuit Theory and Applications, vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 299-311, Mar. 2011.
International full-paper reviewed journal papers
2010
Freitas E.P., T. Heimfarth, R.S. Allgayer, F.R. Wagner, C.E.
Pereira, T. Larsson, and A.M. Ferreira. “Coordinating aerial robots and unattended ground sensors for intelligent surveillance
systems,” International Journal of Computers, Communications
& Control. vol. 5, no.1, 2010. p. 55-73.
Accepted for publication
Wolkerstorfer M., D. Statovci, and T. Nordström, “Enabling
greener DSL access networks by their stabilization with artificial noise and SNR margin,” Cluster Computing, Special Issue
on Optimization issues in energy efficient distributed systems.
Wolkerstorfer M., D. Statovci, and T. Nordström, “Energysaving by low-power modes in ADSL2,” Computer Networks,
Special Issue on “Green Communication Networks”.
Wolkerstorfer M., J. Jaldén, and T. Nordström, “Column generation for discrete- rate multi-user and multi-carrier power
control,” IEEE Transactions on Communications.
Zain-Ul-Abdin, and B. Svensson, “Occam-pi for programming
of massively parallel reconfigurable architectures”, International Journal of Reconfigurable Computing, vol. 2012, Article ID
504815, 2012.
2011
Böhm, A., and M. Jonsson, “Real-time communication support for cooperative, infrastructure-based traffic safety applications,” International Journal of Vehicular Technology, 2011. 17
pages.
Salama, C., G. Malecha, W. Taha, J. Grundy, and J. O’Leary,
“Static consistency checking for verilog wire interconnects,”
Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation 2011, pp. 1-34, Sept.
2011.
Taha, W., P. Brauner, R. Cartwright, V. Gaspes, A. Ames, and
A. Chapoutot, “A core language for executable models of cyber
physical systems: work in progress report,” SIGBED Review,”
vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 39-43, 2011.
Ku, B.-Y., and E. Uhlemann, “Report on rail conference and
wireless communications : [VTS News]”. IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 111-117, 2011.
Pignaton de Freitas, E., T. Heimfarth, C. E. Pereira, A. Morado
Ferreira, F. Rech Wagner, and T. Larsson, “Multi-agent support in a middleware for mission-driven heterogeneous sensor
networks”, The Computer Journal, vol. 54, no. 3, pp. 406-420,
2011.
Sant’Anna, A., A. Salarian, N. Wickström, “A new measure of
movement symmetry in early Parkinson’s disease patients using symbolic processing of inertial sensor data,” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, vol. 58, no. 7, pp. 2127-2135,
2011.
Zaveri, M.S. and D. Hammerstrom, “Performance/price estimates for cortex-scale hardware: A design space exploration,”
Neural Networks, (Archival Journal of the International Neural
Network Society), vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 291-304, Apr. 2011.
Sant’Anna, A. & N. Wickström “A symbol-based approach to
gait analysis from acceleration signals: identification and detection of gait events and a new measure of gait symmetry”, IEEE
Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, vol. 14,
no. 5, pp. 1180-1187, Sept. 2010.
Nilsson, B., L. Bengtsson, and B. Svensson, “An energy and
application scenario aware active RFID protocol,” EURASIP
Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, vol. 2010,
Article ID 432938, 15 pages, 2010. doi:10.1155/2010/432938
Zaveri, M. S. and D. Hammerstrom, “Nano/CMOS implementations of inference in bayesian memory – an architecture
assessment methodology,” IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 194-211, Mar. 2010.
2009
Bilstrup K., E. Uhlemann, E. G. Ström, and U. Bilstrup, “On
the ability of the 802.11p MAC method and STDMA to support real-time vehicle-to-vehicle communication,” EURASIP
Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, vol. 2009.
(13 pages)
Freitas E.P., T. Heimfarth, C.E. Pereira, A.M. Ferreira, F.R.
Wagner, and T. Larsson. “Multi-agent support in a middleware
for mission-driven heterogeneous sensor networks”. The Computer Journal, vol. 54, no. 3, pp. 406-420, 2009.
Fan, X., M. Jonsson, and J. Jonsson, “Guaranteed real-time
communication in packet-switched networks with FCFS queuing,” Computer Networks, vol. 53, no. 3, pp. 400-417, Feb.
2009.
Zain-ul-Abdin and B. Svensson, ”Evolution in Architectures
and Programming Methodologies of Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Computing,” Microprocessors and Microsystems, vol.
33, no. 3, pp. 161-178, May 2009.
Persson, A. and L. Bengtsson, “Forward and reverse converters
and moduli set selection in signed-digit residue number systems”, Journal of Signal Processing Systems, vol. 56, no. 1, pp.
1-15, July 2009.
Jonsson, M. and K. Kunert, “Towards reliable wireless industrial communication with real-time guarantees,” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 429-442, Nov.
2009.
43
Grubinger, T., N. Wickström, A. Björklund, and M. Hellring,
“Knowledge Extraction from Real-World Logged Truck Data,”
Technical paper 2009-01-1026, SAE International Journal of
Engines, Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), vol. 2 no. 1,
pp. 64-74, 2009.
Books and book chapters
2011
De Freitas, E., B. Bösch, R. Allgayer, L. Steinfeld, F. Wagner,
L. Carro, C. Pereira, and T. Larsson, “Mobile Agents Model
and Performance Analysis of a Wireless Sensor Network Target
Tracking Application,” Smart spaces and next generation wired/
wireless networking: 11th International Conference, NEW2AN
2011, and 4th Conference on Smart Spaces, ruSMART 2011,
St. Petersburg, Russia, August 22-25 2011 : proceedings.
Springer, Heidelberg. pp. 274-286, 2011.
Müller, I., A. Cavalcante, E. De Freitas, R. Allgayer, C. Pereira,
and T. Larsson, ”Evaluation of RTSJ-Based Distributed Control System,” Smart spaces and next generation wired/wireless
networking: 11th international conference, NEW2AN 2011,
and 4th Conference on Smart Spaces, ruSMART 2011, St. Petersburg, Russia, August 22-15, 2011 : proceedings. Springer,
Berlin. pp. 295-303, 2011.
Wolkerstorfer M., Nordström, T., B. Krasniqi, M. Wrulich,
and C. Mecklenbräuker, “OFDM/OFDMA Subcarrier Allocation”, Cross Layer Designs in WLAN Systems, Eds. N. Zorba, C.
Skianis and C. Verikoukis, Troubador Publishing Ltd, vol. 1,
Chapter 6, pp. 177-216, 2011, ISBN 9781848762275.
2010
Bengtsson J., “Intermediate representations for simulation and
implementation,” in Handbook of Signal processing systems, 1st
ed., Bhattacharyya, S.S., E.F. Deprettere, R. Leupers and J.
Takala, Springer, Aug. 29, 2010. ISBN: 978-1-4419-6344-4
Jonsson, M., and K. Kunert. “Wired and wireless reliable realtime communication in industrial systems,” in Factory Automation, Editor: J. Silvestre-Blanes, IN-TECH, Vienna, Austria,
pp. 161-176, 2010, ISBN 978-953-7619-42-8. 2010.
Heimfarth, T., E. P. Freitas, F. R. Wagner, and T. Larsson.
“Middleware support for wireless sensor networks: a survey,”
in Handbook of Research on Developments and Trends in Wireless
Sensor Networks: From Principle to Practice, H.Jin and W.Jiang
(organizers), Hershey, Information Science Reference (IGI
Global), 2010.
Zaveri, M. S. and D. Hammerstrom, “Chapter 4: CMOL/
CMOS implementations of bayesian inference engine: digital and mixed-signal architectures and performance/price
– a hardware design space exploration,” in CMOS Processors
and Memories, Ed. Krzysztof Iniewski, Springer, 2010. DOI:
10.1007/978-90-481-9216-8.
44
Doctoral and Licentiate theses
2011
Pignaton de Freitas, E., “Cooperative Context Aware Setup and
Performance of Surveillance Missions Using Static and Mobile
Wireless Sensor Networks,” Ph.D. thesis, Halmstad University,
November 2011.
Zain-ul-Abdin, “Programming of Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Architectures,” Ph.D. Thesis, Örebro University, May
2011.
Wang, Y., “A Domain-Specific Language for Protocol Stack
Implementation in Embedded Systems,” Ph.D. Thesis, Örebro
University, June 2011.
2010
Nilsson, B., “Energy efficient protocols for active RFID,” Ph.D.
Thesis, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden,
June 2010.
Kunert, K., “Architectures and protocols for performance improvements of real-time networks,” Ph.D. Thesis, Chalmers
University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden, Dec. 2010.
2009
Bengtsson, J., “Models and methods for development of DSP
applications on manycore processors”, Ph.D. Thesis, Chalmers
University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden, June 2009.
Lidström, K., “On strategies for reliable traffic safety services in
vehicular networks,” Licentiate Thesis, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden, Apr. 2009.
Böhm, A., “ Real-time communication support for cooperative
traffic safety applications,” Licentiate Thesis, Örebro University,
Örebro, Sweden, May 2009.
Wang, Y., “A language-based approach to protocol stack implementation in embedded systems,” Licentiate Thesis, Örebro
University, Örebro, Sweden, June 2009.
Pignaton de Freitas, E., “Coordination support for heterogeneous sensor networks,” Licentiate Thesis, Örebro University,
Örebro, Sweden, Nov. 2009.
Sjöberg Bilstrup, K., “Predictable and scalable medium access control for vehicular ad hoc networks,” Licentiate Thesis,
Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden, Dec.
2009.
International full-paper reviewed conference papers
Willig, A. and E. Uhlemann, “On relaying for wireless industrial communications: Is careful placement of relayers strictly
necessary?” Proc. IEEE International Workshop on Factory Communication Systems, Lemgo, Germany, May 2012.
Girs, S., E. Uhlemann, and M. Björkman, “The effects of relay behavior and position in wireless industrial networks,” Proc.
IEEE International Workshop on Factory Communication Systems,
Lemgo, Germany, May 2012.
Zain-ul-Abdin, E. Gebrewahid, and B. Svensson, ”Managing
dynamic reconfiguration for fault-tolerance on a manycore architecture”, Proc. RAW’2012 held in conjunction with 26th Annual Int. Parallel & Distributed Processing Symp. (IPDPS 2012),
May 21-22, Shanghai, China.
2011
Sjöberg, K., E. Uhlemann, E. G. Ström, “How severe is the
hidden terminal problem in VANETs when using CSMA and
STDMA?,” in Proc. IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC
Fall), San Francisco, CA, September 2011, pp. 1-5.
Lidström, K., J. Andersson, F. Bergh, M. Bjäde, and S. Mak,
“ITS as a tool for teaching cyber-physical systems,”
8 t h
ITS European Congress, Lyon, France, 2011.
Taha, W. and R. Cartwright, “The trouble with real numbers,”
Proceedings of the Workshop on Software Language Engineering for
Cyber-Physical Systems (WS4C 2011), Lecture Notes in Informatics, Berlin, Germany, 2011.
Taha, W., V. Gaspes, and R. Page, “Accurate programming:
thinking about programs in terms of properties,” IFIP Working Conference on Domain-Specific Languages (DSL 2011), Bordeaux, France, 2011.
Ourique de Morais, W. and N. Wickström, “A serious computer game to assist Tai Chi training for the elderly,” IEEE 1st
International Conference on Serious Games and Applications for
Health (SeGAH 2011), Braga, Portugal, 2011.
Uhlemann, E., “Communication requirements of emerging
cooperative driving systems,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics, Las Vegas, NV, Jan. 2011, pp.
281-282. Invited paper.
Wang, Y. and V. Gaspes. “An embedded language for programming protocol stacks in embedded systems” Proc. 20th ACM
SIGPLAN 2011 Workshop on Partial Evaluation and Program
Manipulation (PEPM’11), Austin, TX, USA, Jan. 24-25, 2011.
Zain-ul-Abdin and B. Svensson, “Occam-pi as a high-level language for coarse-grained reconfigurable architectures”. Proceedings of the 18th International Reconfigurable Architectures Workshop (RAW’2011) in conjunction with International Parallel and
Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS’2011), 2011.
Böhm, A., M. Jonsson, E. Uhlemann, “Adaptive cooperative
awareness messaging for enhanced overtaking assistance on rural roads,” in Proc. IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC
Fall), San Francisco, CA, September 2011, pp. 1-5.
Freitas, E.P., T. Heimfarth, L. A. G. Costa, C. E. Pereira, A.
M. Ferreira, F. R. Wagner, and T. Larsson, “Analyzing different
levels of geographic context awareness in agent ferrying over
VANETs,” Proc. of the 2011 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2011), Taiwan, Mar. 2011, pp. 413-418.
Hassan, A., and T. Larsson, “On the requirements on models
and simulator design for integrated VANET Simulation,” International Workshop on Intelligent Transportation - WIT, Hamburg, Germany, 2011.
Larsson, T., W. Taha, K.-E. Årzen, “Dependable automotive
systems based on model certified components,” Automotive
CPS Workshop, June 2011.
Motter, P., R. S. Allgayer, I. Müller, C. E. Pereira, and E. P.
Freitas, “Practical issues in wireless sensor network localization systems using received signal strenght indication,” Proc. of
IEEE SAS 2011, San Antonio, USA, Feb. 2011, pp. 227-232.
Nilsson, E., and C. Svensson, “Envelope detector sensitivity
and blocking characteristics,” 20th European Conference on Circuit Theory and Design (ECCTD 2011). pp. 802-805, 2011.
Nilsson, E., B. Nilsson, and E. Järpe, “A pharmaceutical anticounterfeiting method using time controlled numeric tokens,”
2011 IEEE International Conference on RFID-Technologies and
Applications, pp. 335-339, 2011.
Freitas, E.P., T. Heimfarth, I. Farah Netto, C.E.Pereira,
A.M.Ferreira, F.R.Wagner, and T.Larsson. “Handling failures
of static sensor nodes in wireless sensor network by use of mobile sensors,” Proc. of IEEE FINA-AINA 2011, Singapore, Mar.
2011, pp. 127-134.
Sajadian, S., A. Ibrahim, E. P. Freitas, and T. Larsson, “Improving connectivity of nodes in mobile WSN,” Proc. of IEEE
Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA
2011). Singapore, pp. 364-371, Mar. 2011.
Sjöberg, K., E. Uhlemann, and E. G. Ström, “Delay and interference comparison of CSMA and self-organizing TDMA
when used in VANETs,” in Proc 7th International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, July 2011, pp. 1488-1493.
Wang, Y., and V. Gaspes, “A compositional implementation of
Modbus in protégé,” 6th IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Embedded Systems (SIES), pp. 123-131, 2011.
Zain-ul-Abdin, A. Åhlander, and B. Svensson, “Programming
real-time autofocus on a massively parallel reconfigurable architecture using Occam-pi,” Proceedings of the 19th Annual
IEEE International Symposium on Field-Programmable Custom
Computing Machines (FCCM’2011), 2011.
2010
Freitas E.P., T. Heimfarth, I. Farah Netto, C.E. Lino,
C.E.Pereira, A.M.Ferreira, F.R.Wagner, T.Larsson. “UAV Relay
Network to Support WSN Connectivity.” Proc. International
Conference on Ultra Modern Telecommunications and Control
Systems. Moscow, Russia, Oct. 2010.
45
Böhm, A., K. Lidström, M. Jonsson, and T. Larsson, “Evaluating CALM M5-based vehicle-to-vehicle communication in
various road settings through field trials”, The 4th IEEE LCN
Workshop On User MObility and VEhicular Networks (ONMOVE), Denver, CO, USA, Oct. 2010
Freitas E.P., T. Heimfarth, C.E. Pereira, A.M. Ferreira, F.R.
Wagner, T. Larsson. “Experimental analysis of coordination
strategies to support wireless sensor networks composed by
static ground sensors and UAV-carried Sensors”. ISPA 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing with Applications. Taipei, Taiwan, September 2010.
Freitas E.P., T. Heimfarth, F.R. Wagner, A.M. Ferreira, C.E.
Pereira, and T. Larsson. “Geo-aware handover of mission agents
using opportunistic communication in VANET”. Proc. of New2An 2010 - 10th International Conference on Next Generation
Wired/Wireless Advanced Networking, St. Petersburg, Russia,
August 2010. p. 365-376.
Freitas E.P., R. Allgayer, T. Heimfarth, F.R. Wagner, T. Larsson,
C.E. Pereira, and A.M. Ferreira. “Coordination Mechanism
and Customizable Hardware Platform to Provide Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks Support”. Proc. of WTR 2010
- 12th Brazilian Workshop on Real-Time and Embedded Systems,
Gramado, Brazil, May 2010. p. 77-88.
Kunert K., M. Jonsson and E. Uhlemann “Exploiting time and
frequency diversity in IEEE 802.15.4 industrial networks for
enhanced reliability and throughput.” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, Bilbao, Spain, September 2010, pp. 1-9. Best paper
award.
Lidström K., and T. Larsson. “A Spatial QoS Requirements
Specification for V2V Applications”, Proc. of IEEE Intelligent
Vehicles Symposium, pp. 548-553, 2010
Nilsson, B.; L. Bengtsson; and B. Svensson, “A snoozing frequency binary tree protocol,” Proc. of The Third International
EURASIP Workshop on RFID Technology, 6-7 Sept, 2010.
Nilsson, B., L. Bengtsson, B. Svensson, U. Bilstrup, and P.A.
Wiberg, “An active backscatter wake-up and tag identification
extraction protocol for low cost and low power active RFID,”
Proc. of 2010 IEEE Conference on RFID-Technology and Applications, 17-19 June, 2010, Guangzhou, China, pp. 86-91.
ISBN/ISSN: 978-142446700-6.
Nilsson E., P. Linnér, A. Sikö, U. Bilstrup and P-A. Wiberg ”
A new CMOS radio for low power RFID applications,” Proc.
of IEEE International Conference on RFID-Technology and Applications 2010, Guangzhou, China, June 17-19, 2010.
Freitas E.P., T. Heimfarth, A.M. Ferreira, C.E. Pereira, F.R.
Wagner, and T. Larsson. Pheromone-based coordination strategy to static sesors on the ground and unmanned aerial vehicles
carried sensors. Proc. of SPIE, 0277-786X, v. 7694. April 2010,
p. 769416-1 - 769416-9.
Nilsson E., B. Nilsson, L. Bengtsson, B. Svensson, P-A. Wiberg
and U. Bilstrup ” A low power-long range active RFID-system
consisting of active RFID backscatter transponders,” Proc. of
IEEE International Conference on RFID-Technology and Applications 2010, Guangzhou, China, June 17-19, 2010.
Freitas E.P., T. Heimfarth, A.M. Ferreira, C.E. Pereira, F.R.
Wagner, and T. Larsson. “Decentralized task distribution
among cooperative UAVs in surveillance systems applications”.
Proc. of WONS 2010 - 7th International Conference on Wireless
On-demand Network Systems and Services, Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, February 2010. pp. 121-128.
Sant’Anna, A. & Wickström, N. “A linguistic approach to the
analysis of accelerometer data for gait analysis”, Proceedings 7th
IASTED International Conference on Biomedical Engineering
(BioMed2010), Innsbruck, 2010.
Heimfarth T., E.P. Freitas, C.E. Pereira, A.M. Ferreira, F.R.
Wagner, and T. Larsson. “Experimental analysis of a wireless
sensor network setup strategy provided by an agent-oriented
middleware”, Proc. of AINA 2010 - 24th IEEE International
Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications. Perth, Australia, April 2010. p. 820-826.
Islam Cheema, F, Zain-Ul-Abdin, and B. Svensson. A design
methodology for resource to performance tradeoff adjustment
in FPGAs. Proc. of 7th FPGAWorld Conference 2010, Copenhagen, Denmark, September 6, 2010.
Kunert K., E. Uhlemann and M. Jonsson, “Enhancing reliability in IEEE 802.11 based real-time networks through transport
layer retransmissions,” in Proc. IEEE International Symposium
on Industrial Embedded Systems, Trento, Italy, July 2010, pp.
146-155.
Kunert K., E. Uhlemann and M. Jonsson, “Predictable realtime communications with improved reliability for IEEE
802.15.4 based industrial networks,” in Proc. IEEE International Workshop on Factory Communication Systems, Nancy, France,
May 2010, pp. 13-22.
46
Sjöberg-Bilstrup K., E. Uhlemann and E. G. Ström, “Scalability issues of the MAC methods STDMA and CSMA of IEEE
802.11p when used in VANETs,” in Proc. IEEE International
Conference on Communications Workshops, Cape Town, South
Africa, May 2010, pp. 1-5.
Sjöberg K., J. Karedal, M. Moe, Ø. Kristiansen, R. Søråsen, E.
Uhlemann, F. Tufvesson, K. Evensen, E. G. Ström, “Measuring and using the RSSI of IEEE 802.11p,” in Proc. 17th World
Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, Busan, Korea, October
2010, 9 pages.
Wang Y., and V. Gaspes, “A domain-specific language approach
to protocol stack implementation,” Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages 12th International Symposium, PADL 2010, Madrid, Spain, Jan. 18-19, 2010.
Zain-ul-Abdin and B. Svensson, “Specifying run-time reconfiguration in processor arrays using high-level language,” Proc.
of 4th HiPEAC Workshop on Reconfigurable Computing, Jan. 23,
2010.
Freitas, E.P., T. Heimfarth, I. F. Netto, A. G. Cardoso de Sá, C.
E. Pereira, A. M. Ferreira, F. R. Wagner, T. Larsson, “Enhanced
wireless sensor network setup strategy supported by intelligent
software agents,” Proc. Sensors’10 - The 9th Annual IEEE Conference on Sensors, Waikoloa, USA, Nov. 2010, pp. 813 - 816.
Nilsson, B., L. Bengtsson, and B. Svensson, “An application
dependent medium access protocol for active RFID using dynamic tuning of the back-off algorithm”, 2009 IEEE International Conference on RFID, Orlando, FL, USA, Apr. 27-28,
2009.
Brauner, P. and W. Taha, “Globally parallel, locally sequential: a preliminary proposal for Acumen objects,” Proc. 9th
SPLASH/OOPSLA Workshop on Parallel/High-Performance Object-Oriented Scientific Computing (POOSC’10), Renoe-Tahoe,
NV, USA, Oct. 18, 2010.
Bengtsson J., and B. Svensson, “Manycore performance analysis using timed configuration graphs”, 2009 IEEE International
Conference on Embedded Computer Systems: Architectures, Modeling, and Simulation (SAMOS IX), Samos, Greece, July 20-23,
2009.
Bruneau, J., C. Consel, M. O’Malley, W. Taha, and W. M.
Hannourah, “Preliminary results in virtual testing for smart
buildings,” Proc. International ICST Conference on Mobile and
Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking, and Services (MOBIQUITOUS), Sydney, Australia, Dec. 6-9, 2010.
Wang, Y. and V. Gaspes, “A domain specific approach to network software architecture -- assuring conformance between
architecture and code”, The Fourth International Conference on
Digital Telecommunications (ICDT 2009), Colmar, France, July
20-25, 2009.
2009
Freitas, E. P., T. Heimfarth, F. R. Wagner, A. M. Ferreira, C.
E. Pereira, and T. Larsson, “An agent framework to support
sensor networks - setup and adaptation”, Proc. of International
Multiconference on Computer Science and Information Technology, Mragowo, Poland, Oct. 2009.
Bilstrup, K., E. Uhlemann, E. G. Ström, and U. Bilstrup, ”On
the ability of IEEE 802.11p and STDMA to provide predictable channel access”, in Proc.16th World Congress on Intelligent
Transport Systems, Stockholm, Sweden, Sept. 2009, 10 pages.
Freitas, E. P., A. P. D. Binotto, C. E. Pereira, A. Stork, and
T. Larsson, “Dynamic activity and task allocation supporting
uav teams in surveillance systems,” 4th international workshop
on real-time software,” Proc. of International Multiconference on
Computer Science and Information Technology, Mragowo, Poland, Oct. 2009.
Freitas, E. P. , A. M. Ferreira, C. E. Pereira and T. Larsson,
“Middleware support in unmanned aerial vehicles and wireless sensor networks for surveillance applications”, Proc. of 3rd
International Symposium on Intelligent Distributed Computing,
SCI 237, Springer Berlin, Heidelberg, 289–296, Ayia Napa,
Cyprus, Oct. 2009.
Freitas, E. P., T. Heimfarth, F. R. Wagner, A. M. Ferreira, C.
E. Pereira, and T. Larsson, “Evaluation of coordination strategies for heterogeneous sensor networks aiming at surveillance
applications”, Proc. of 8th IEEE Sensors, Christchurch, New
Zealand, Oct. 2009.
Wang, Y. and V. Gaspes “Integrating a data description language with protocol stack development” Proc. IASTED International Conference on Communication Systems, Networks and
Applications (CSNA 2009), Beijing, China, October, 2009.
Wang, Y. and V. Gaspes, “A library for processing ad-hoc data
in Haskell -- embedding a data description language”, 20th International Symposium on the Implementation and Application of
Functional Languages, Hatfield, United Kingdom, Sept. 10-12,
2008, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), Springer
Verlag, 2009.
Böhm, A. and M. Jonsson, “Supporting real-time data traffic
in safety-critical vehicle-to-infrastructure communication,”
Proc. IEEE Vehicular Networking and Applications Workshop
(VehiMobil 2009) in conjunction with the IEEE International
Conference on Communications (ICC), Dresden, Germany, June
14, 2009.
Larsson T., “A two level approach to the design of software for
cooperating embedded systems”, Proc. 7th IEEE International
Conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN 2009), June 2325, Cardiff, UK, 2009.
Freitas, E. P., M. A. Wehrmeister, C. E. Pereira, A. M. Ferreira,
and T. Larsson, “Multi-agents supporting reflection in a middleware for mission-driven heterogeneous sensor networks”,
Proc. of 3rd Agent Technology for Sensor Networks (ATSN), in
conjunction with 8th AAMAS, Budapest, Hungary, May 2009.
Freitas, E. P., T. Heimfarth, M. A. Wehrmeister, F. R. Wagner, A. M. Ferreira, C. E. Pereira, and T. Larsson, “Using link
metric to improve communication mechanisms and real-time
properties in an adaptive middleware for heterogeneous sensor
networks”, Proc. of ISA Conference - First International Workshop on Mobile & Wireless Networks, LNCS 5576, Springer,
June 2009. pp. 422-431.
Freitas, E. P., R. S. Allgayer, M. A. Wehrmeister, C. E. Pereira,
and T. Larsson, “Supporting platform for heterogeneous sensor
network operation based on unmanned vehicles systems and
wireless sensor nodes”, Proc. of the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV’09), June 2009. pp. 786-791.
Sant’Anna, A., N. Wickstrom, “Developing a motion language:
Gait analysis from accelerometer sensor systems,” Proc. 3rd International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for
Healthcare (PervasiveHealth 2009), pp.1-8, April 1-3, 2009.
Uhlemann, E. and T. Nolte, “Scheduling relay nodes for reliable wireless real-time communications,” in Proc. IEEE Conference on Emerging Technologies & Factory Automation, Mallorca,
Spain, Sept. 2009, pp. 1-3.
E. Uhlemann and N. Nygren, “Cooperative systems for traffic
safety: Will existing wireless access technologies meet the communications requirements?,” in Proc. 16th World Congress on
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), Stockholm, Sweden, Sept.
2009, 8 pages.
47
Internal reports
2011
Lidström, K., J. Andersson, F. Bergh, M. Bjäde, S. Mak, and
K. Sjöberg, “Halmstad University Grand Cooperative Driving
Challenge,” Research Report IDE1120, School of Information
Science, Computer and Electrical Engineering (IDE), Halmstad
University, Sweden, 2011. 14 pages.
Patoary M.N.I., H. Ali, B. Svensson, J. Eker and H. Gustafsson, “Implementation of AMR-WB encoder for multi-core
processors using dataflow programming language CAL”, Research Report IDE1103, School of Information Science, Computer
and Electrical Engineering (IDE), Halmstad University, Sweden, 2011.
Ul-Abdin Z., and B. Svensson, “Programming real-time autofocus on a massively parallel reconfigurable architecture using
Occam-pi”, Research Report IDE1102, School of Information
Science, Computer and Electrical Engineering (IDE), Halmstad
University, Sweden, 2011.
2010
Jonsson, M. and K. Kunert, “Control-channel based wireless
multi-channel MAC protocol with real-time support “, Research Report IDE1054, School of Information Science, Computer
and Electrical Engineering (IDE), Halmstad University, Sweden, 2010.
2009
Böhm, A. and M. Jonsson, “Handover in IEEE 802.11p-based
delay-sensitive vehicle-to-infrastructure communication,” Research Report IDE - 0924, School of Information Science, Computer and Electrical Engineering (IDE), Halmstad University,
Sweden, 2009.
K. Bilstrup, A. Böhm, K. Lidström, M. Jonsson, T. Larsson
and E. Uhlemann, Report on the Collaboration between CVIS
and CERES in the Project Vehicle Alert System (VAS), Technical
Report IDE09120, Halmstad University, Sweden, Dec. 2009.
Other (incl. national conferences and international
conferences without full-paper review)
Girs, S., E. Uhlemann, and M. Björkman, “On the benefits
of using relaying in industrial networks with different wireless
channel characteristics,” Third Nordic Workshop on Systems &
Network Optimization for Wireless, Trysil, Norway, Apr. 2012.
2011
Gebrewahid, E., Zain-ul-Abdin, and B. Svensson, “Mapping
occam-pi programs to a manycore architecture,” 4th Swedish
Workshop on Multi-Core Computing MCC-2011,” Linköping,
Sweden, 2011.
Jonsson, M. “Why real-time communication matters,” Embedded Conference Scandinavia (ECS2011), Stockholm, Sweden,
Oct. 4-5, 2011.
48
Böhm, A., M. Jonsson, and H. Zakizadeh, “Vehicular ad-hoc
networks to avoid surprise effects on sparsely trafficked, rural
roads,” 10th Scandinavian Workshop on Wireless Ad-hocNetworks (ADHOC ´11), Stockholm, Sweden, May 10-11, 2011.
5 pages.
Böhm, Annette, Jonsson, Magnus (2011). Position-based real-time communication support for cooperative traffic safety
services. Proc. of the 11th biennial SNART Conference on Real-Time Systems (Real-Time in Sweden – RTiS’11), Västerås,
Sweden, June 13-14, 2011. 11 pages.
Taha, W. and M. Weckstén, “Real-time reflection for threat detection and prevention,” position paper, Workshop on Cooperative Autonomous Resilient Defenses in Cyberspace, Arlington, VA,
USA, Jan. 27-28, 2011.
S. Girs, E. Uhlemann and M. Björkman, “The effects of channel characteristics on relay behavior and position in wireless
industrial networks,” presented at the IEEE Swedish Communication Technologies Workshop, Stockholm, Sweden, Oct. 2011.
B.-Y. Ku and E. Uhlemann, “Report on Rail Conference and
Wireless Communications (VTS News),” IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 111-117, September 2011.
A. Alonso, K. Sjöberg, E. Uhlemann, E. Ström, and C.F.
Mecklenbräuker, “Challenging Vehicular Scenarios for SelfOrganizing Time Division Multiple Access,” presented at the
1st COST IC1004 Management Committee Meeting, Lund, Sweden, TD(11)01031, Jun. 2011.
2010
Ström, E., E. Uhlemann and C.F. Mecklenbräuker, “Performance Metrics for mobile-to-mobile communications,” presented at 12th COST2100 Management Committee Meeting,
Bologna, Italy, TD(10)12026, Nov. 2010.
2009
Zain-ul-Abdin, “High-level programming of coarse-grained reconfigurable architectures”, Proc. 19th International Conference
on Field Programmable Logic and Applications, Czech Republic,
Aug. 31 – Sept. 2, 2009.
Lidström, K. and T. Larsson, “Act normal: using uncertainty
about driver intentions as a warning criterion”, Technical Paper, Proc. 16th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems,
Stockholm, Sep. 2009.
Freitas, E. P., T. Heimfarth, M. A. Wehrmeister, F. R. Wagner, A. M. Ferreira, C. E. Pereira, and T. Larsson, “An Agent
Framework Support to Provide Sensor Network’s Intelligent
Setup and Adaptation,” 9 Simposio Brasileiro de Automacao Inteligente (SBAI). (9th Brazilian Intelligent Automation Symposium), 2009.
K. Bilstrup, E. Uhlemann, E. G. Ström and U. Bilstrup, “Does
the 802.11p MAC method provide predictable support for
low delay communications?” presented at the 1st ETSI TC ITS
Workshop, Sophia Antipolis, France, Feb. 2009.
K. Sjöberg-Bilstrup, E. Uhlemann and E. Ström, “Performance of IEEE 802.11p and STDMA for vehicular
cooperative awareness applications,” presented at the 9th
COST2100 Management Committee Meeting, Vienna,
Austria, TD(09)938, Sep. 2009.
R. Bossom, R. Brignolo, T. Ernst, K. Evensen, A. Frötscher,
W. Höfs, J. Jääskeläinen, Z. Jeftic, P. Kompfner, T. Kosch,
I. Kulp, A. Kung, A.-K. Mokaddem, A. Schalk, E. Uhlemann, C. Wewetzer, “European ITS Communication
Architecture - Overall Framework - Proof of Concept
Implementation” Technical Report from the COMeSafety
project, Mar 2009. http://www.comesafety.org/
49
PERSONAL FINAL STATEMENTS FROM
REFERENCE GROUP MEMBERS
The six-year profile funding of CERES came to an end during
2011. The members of the appointed Reference Group made
the following finals statement concerning the progress of CERES.
Christer Fernström
PhD, Independent consultant; formerly
research coordinator at Xerox Research,
Chairman of the reference group
Embedded computing systems have a long-standing tradition
in Sweden as a technological corner stone for many diverse
industry sectors where Sweden has a highly competitive position, such as in the automotive industry, telecommunications
and defense systems. With the aim to address new challenges
in embedded computing, CERES was established in the early
2000s building on the combined research competence available at Halmstad University at that time in the areas of parallel,
reconfigurable computer architectures and real-time network
systems.
Emerging systems were characterized by much larger levels of
parallelism and distribution, and the need to be able to build
highly complex yet adaptable and configurable systems from
components developed by independent actors. To address these
challenges, CERES defined a research agenda centred on the
topic of co-operating high-performance embedded systems.
At that time I was leading a research team at the Xerox European research centre in Grenoble, France, working on coordination technologies (middleware technologies for systems
constructed from autonomous sub-systems). Initial contacts
from some of the leading CERES researches led to a few years
of interesting research collaboration between CERES and the
Xerox team, which ended when Xerox decided to spin off its
technology and move on to other topics. However, my personal interest in the CERES research agenda was strong and
when the centre received profile funding from KK in 2005,
and asked me to join the newly established reference group I
accepted with pleasure.
Becoming a successful research centre with national and international recognition involves a large number of diverse challenges. Not only do you need to do excellent research, you
also need to establish collaborations with industry that lead to
successful transfer of research results into industrial products,
processes and services; you need to publish results to establish
a research reputation; you need to create an environment that
attracts both senior and junior researchers; you need to create
the necessary conditions for sustained funding, etc. The role
of the reference group has very much been to work with the
CERES management team to not lose focus on any of these
important aspects.
During the KK profile period, CERES has run an impressive
number of joint projects with its industry partners, and has
been able to find an excellent balance between the seemingly
contradictory targets of long-term research and immediate
concrete industrial results. The publication track record has
become very good and involved both senior and younger researchers. Several published results have received specific dis-
50
tinctions (best paper and other awards), and at the same time
the industrial collaborations have both broadened on national
and international levels and deepened to involve strategic recruitments and the establishment of longer-term collaboration
projects.
As mentioned in the CERES final report, all measurable goals
that were defined when CERES was established have been successfully met. Yet, with profile funding coming to its end, the
single most significant question remains: has the centre been
able to establish a strong enough basis to continue its growth
in the future? I feel quite confident to say yes, the main reason
being that there is today no “single point of failure”. Funding comes from a number of different sources, the number
of senior and younger researchers has grown, and industrial
collaborations are diverse. I therefore see CERES remain and
strengthen its position as one of the principal academic actors
in Sweden in the area of embedded systems.
Hans Hansson
Professor, Mälardalen University
It is extremely satisfying to have observed the progress of CERES from 2005-2011. The years of focused efforts to build up
CERES have resulted in a large number of positive achievements and developments, in recent years including
•
The right to give PhD degrees in information tech-
nology.
•
Recruitment of Professor Walid Taha.
•
Increased funding from competitive sources, includ-
ing SSF and the EC.
•
The KKS-funded 2-year prolongation of CERES.
•
CERES participation in the national strategic initia-
tive ELLIIT.
•
Continuous increase in quantity and quality of pub-
lications.
•
Close co-production with industrial partners.
I am additionally delighted by the way the CERES leadership
has made use of and interacted with the reference group. In a
very open atmosphere the reference group has been given insight in and discussed the development of the centre with the
CERES leadership. Suggestions and recommendations have
been very well received and relevant actions have been taken
and reported back to the reference group.
For the coming years it is important that CERES continues to
focus on producing high-quality publications, securing external funding, recruiting top-talents at all levels, as well as maintaining and developing the strong industrial links and good
working environment.
In conclusion, I would like to congratulate CERES for excellent achievements, and for having successfully established a
strong research centre at Halmstad University in close cooperation with industrial partners. The CERES team has done
an excellent job under the very competent leadership of Prof.
Bertil Svensson, and the team is now well prepared to face the
many challenges that lay ahead.
Åsa Lindholm Dahlstrand
Professor, Halmstad University and Lund
University
Rolf Rising
Vice President, Business Development,
Invest Sweden Agency
It is very satisfying to note the very good progression of the
CERES research center. CERES is highly important for Halmstad University and for the region. The interaction between its
management, members and reference group has worked well.
The centre has a well articulated research agenda with challenging research goals of both academic and industrial relevance.
CERES is an important part of the EIS research environment
(Embedded and Intelligent Systems Research) at Halmstad
University. The EIS centre is one of the university’s three ‘areas of strength’, upon which Halmstad University is building
its profile and research strategy. After Halmstad University received the rights to grant PhD degrees in two fields (Information Technology and Innovation Sciences) EIS has started PhD
education in Information Technology in 2011. This further
underlines the importance of CERES for the future development of Halmstad University.
As a member of Halmstad University, as well as the Reference
group, I am very much looking forward to following the development of CERES in the future.
Over the years CERES has become an important part of
Halmstad University and has succeeder to attract new sources
of research funding and continued to establish new industrial
partnerships. By doing so CERES has added recognition to
this regional university in both a national and an international
context.
With its attractiveness to several advanced industrial partners
CERES will also continue in attracting motivated PhD students looking for an industrial career. This may then also allow
CERES to foster good research ambassadors within those companies. This is a positive spiral both from the academic and the
funding point of view. Within in the CERES core areas much
research and new advancement are market driven and without
a strong industrial connection it will not be possible to stay in
front. Also the competition between nations will increasingly
force national research funding to give priorities to research
projects with strong national industrial interest.
From the successful base that CERES has created in Sweden it
has now also gone further, utilizing the participation in different EU programs, to attract new European industrial partners.
This looks very promising for the future!
Lucia Lo Bello
Professor, University of Catania, Italy
Thorsteinn Rögnvaldsson
Professor, Halmstad University
As a member of the reference group since the start of the profile
in 2005, I have followed the development of CERES with great
interest. Europe is strong in research on embedded systems,
and within Europe, Sweden stands out as one of the leaders
with strong research groups at several universities. In this highly competitive environment CERES has managed to establish
its own profile - co-operating embedded systems - and created
strong industrial interest and involvement in the research.
It has been satisfying to see how CERES has developed to a
mature research environment, with funding from several funding sources, including European funding, with a good mix of
junior and more senior researchers, with its own PhD education, with strategic partnerships in research, etc. The scientific
output in terms of publications and PhD theses is very satisfactory, and it is impressive to see also spin-off companies as a
result of the research.
Summarizing, all the goals set up at the beginning of CERES
have been fully achieved. CERES is an attractive research partner, recognized at both national and international level. It has
a significant impact on industry, society and the academic system.
I have been a member of the CERES reference group since
2007. During the same time have I also been chairman of
Halmstad University’s Research Board for Science and Technology and, since November 2011, chairman of Halmstad
University’s Faculty Board. I have been able to follow CERES
development closely and also see, with a “bird’s eye view”, how
it has affected the University.
In my opinion has CERES developed excellently from the University’s point of view. CERES has expanded and developed
in research (volume and production), in education (number
of students taught), in contacts with organizations (number of
companies and institutes) outside the University; and in contacts within the University. All of these aspects are essential
for a successful and sustainable research environment within
the University. This development is evident not least from the
tables and figures in the final report.
During this period has CERES been outstandingly important
for the University’s work with applying for and achieving the
right to grant PhD degrees, which was awarded in 2010 (I have
commented on this also in my previous statements). Halmstad
University’s first own PhD dissertation took place on November 17, 2011. It was of course one of the CERES PhD students
that was the first PhD student. The University’s right to grant
PhD degrees has lifted the University one academic level and
we have probably not yet seen the full significance and importance of this. CERES has been the locomotive in the research
education at Halmstad University, together with EIS (the research environment around CERES).
51
There are many positive results from CERES that could be
brought up now in the end. I emphasize the PhD rights because I think they have the strongest and most long term effect
on the University.
Tommy Skoog
Independent consultant; formerly with
Novosense, Acreo, Scanditronix, Saab
Combitech
It has been immensely satisfying to follow CERES during its
evolution since it started almost six years ago. With continuous improvement CERES has managed to create impressive
research results on an internationally competitive level, while
at the same time successfully improving its co-operation with
a growing number of academic partners as well as important
industrial companies.
52
HALMSTAD UNIVERSITY
For the Development of Organisations,
Products and Quality of Life.
Halmstad University is a popular university. It is wellknown for its broad range of courses and small student
groups. In addition the university is distinguished by
its eminent and internationally recognised research.
The university’s profile is based on strong educational research areas. The profile is made up of
three interwoven areas of strength which can be
summarised as the development of organisations,
products and quality of life.
HALMSTAD UNIVERSITY
PO Box 823 • SE-301 18 Halmstad • Visiting Adress: Kristian IV:s väg 3
Phone: +46 35 16 71 00 • Fax: +46 35 18 61 92
E-mail: [email protected] • www.hh.se

annual report 2011 - Högskolan i Halmstad

Transcription

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