EMBEDDED SYSTEMS ACTIVITIES
@IISc, 2010 - 11
Main activities
• Research in various departments
• Development support for products
• Entrepreneurship activities
• Curriculum development and training
Research activities
2010 onwards
Research areas
• System design
– Design of embedded systems – Verification and testing
– SOC
– Low power DSP blocks
– Reconfigurable machines for communication systems
• Circuit and sensors
– Low power circuits for embedded applications
– Design of MEMs sensors and sensor network components – Energy harvesting systems
Departments and areas
• CEDT: System design (7)
• CSA: Software for ES (2)
• ECE: Low power SOC and MEMs (2)
• ME: MEMs sensors (2)
• SERC: SOC and verification (2)
• Nano Science and Technology: (8)
Some statistics for 2010
• Number of PhD (2010): 8
• Number of MSc (Engg): 10
• Number of ongoing projects (industry and government support): more than 20
Typical research topics
• Verification of mixed signal circuits
• Reconfigurable DSP blocks for specific applications
• Reconfigurable decoders for error control
• New arithmetic for low power digital filters
• Strategies for interference mitigation in coexistence situations
• Low power radio for embedded systems
• DRM
• Energy neutral sensors: protocols and base energy saving
• MEMS and CMOS integration on SOC
Directed research and development
2010 onwards
18-Mar-11
Capabilities: Technology space
Domain labs: India centric apps:
Energy generation, management, healthcare,
infotainment
Embedded Systems Networking
& Telecom
18-Mar-11
Current work …1
1. Solar energy for lighting
• Considerable energy used for lighting in buildings during the day
• Significant saving if solar energy is used
• No storage
• Connectivity from the grid for back up
• Embedded system wireless control for the entire floor
2. Sensor networks for diverse applications
– Embedded sensors distributed over a geographic area
– Customizable sensors: cameras, microphones, weather monitors, pollution sensors ...
– Integrated into a social networking site (custom built) – Immediate applications: disaster warning, traffic control
18-Mar-11
Current work …2
3. Delay Tolerant Networks for rural applications
a. Large delays (up to one day) tolerated
b. Embedded system with multiple connectivity
c. Low seed connectivity used for queries and “telegrams”
and high speed for data transfers
d. Public information system and email delivery applications
4. Energy neutral sensors
a. Energy harvesting techniques
b. Optimal usage of energy for longest possible NW life time
Protocols, circuit techniques, network “intelligence”...
Mule on a Bicycle
The system
Embedded System
DATA MONITORING AND CONTROL PLATFORM
An open source Project
PLATFORM
REAL TIME INFORMATION MANAGEMENT REAL TIME Reception
REAL TIME Processing
REAL TIME information distribution
APPLICATION AREAS
SECURITY ALERT SYSTEM
Applications
TRANSPORT INFORMATION SYSTEM DISASTER MANAGEMENT
WEATHER MONITORING SYSTEM
TRANSPORT INFORMATION SYSTEM
Real time vehicle tracking
Vehicle status maintained in a central server
Status analyzed and
advice sent to user as SMS
Assist information
management in personal vehicles, fleet of trucks, service vehicles
BLOCK DIAGRAM
Gather Process Distribute
Disaster Information Processing
TARGET SPECIFICATIONS
Data gathering
SMS: 250 messages per hour
Pictures: Embedded camera system with Flikr upload interface
Twitter: sensor data with embedded sensors with Twitter upload interface
Cell phone interfaces: Currently android Data aggregation
Open Source tool : Swift River
Aggregation of 6, 000 messages/day, SMS, Twitter, email, flikr……
Processing and analytics, inference engine, User alerts and messages
Dedicated system (LAMP architecture)
Person Recognition Based on Automatic Learning
For security applications
Need Statement
To monitor continuously presence of a person or persons in an enclosure (like seat in a Cockpit) and to alert if the
person changes in the enclosure Requirements and Assumptions :
◦ Meant for aircraft safety
◦ Persons authenticated for first ten minutes in the beginning when the enclosure is first occupied (say, during take-off)
◦ Applicable to all seats inside cockpit.
◦ Non Cooperative Process: the occupants don’t participate in any authentication process
◦ Possible Events :
Absence of Pilot from his seat.
Presence of unknown person in the pilot’s seat.
Remote Server (for configuration)
RECOGNITION SYSTEM Neural Network
Event Registration Pattern Analyzer
•Face
•Audio
•Pressure Pattern
CAMERA ARRAY
Inside cockpit
PRESSURE SENSOR ARAY
On control wheel
MIC Array
Configurations
(Flight Settings) Event updates
BLOCK OVERVIEW OF THE SYSTEM
Face Detection
• By skin color - red chrominance
• By motion – Consecutive frame subtraction, detect blinking
• Model-based
• Combination
Speaker Detection
• Consists of :
• Feature Extraction
• Feature Matching
• Pitch is not a reliable feature
• Perceived frequency depends upon amplitude, receiver, timbre
• Mel-Frequency Cepstrum Coefficients
• 19 Mel Cepstra, 19 delta Cepstra
• Obtained by DCT of log magnitude FFT of sampled audio.
• Model speaker’s voice (GMM-UBM)
• Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) for speaker
• Universal Background Model (UBM)
Wish Specifications
• Reliability of recognition ~ 99%.
• Maximum time delay between event and its registration ~5 sec.
• Detection and tracking at 15 fps.
• Max. video resolution 640*480 pixels (VGA), preferable 320 X 288
• No. of cameras : 2-6.
• Find a method to measure reliability.
Energy Neutral Sensors
PV and Thermal energy based
Specifications
• No external power source
• Harvested from PV and Thermal sources (Peltier block)
• At least 4 sensors
• Energy storage with super capacitors
• Transmission and storage strategies
• Network based data gathering exploiting dense sensor deployment
Current status
• Energy neutral system with temp, insolation, humidity, soil moisture and one other optional parameter functional
• Harvesting with a 20 cm2 solar panel, 5 cm2 Peltier block
• Tests underway for throughput and speed
• Platforms available for experiments
Entrepreneurial activities
2010 onwards
18-Mar-11
Some Observations
1. Risk taking is almost nonexistent among students and faculty members
2. They are technically sound
3. May develop product for nearly production level 4. IISc focus in on research and NOT much on
innovation and product development
5. IISc incubation is largely open only to students, alumnae, and faculty… counter to point 1
Incubation Partner IISc
Idea reception from labs in IISc and external
sources (web based)
Committee for evaluation of ideas and
preliminary selection
Quick prototyping, demonstration, first level user feedback, and
idea selection
Ideas from faculty members, students,
incubation Centre
Testing and evaluation, Release of product
documents IISc Digital Product Lab
Product development, Incubation
Final Specifications, Timelines, Business models
Pilot production, Customer contact and field testing, IP portfolio
management, Investor contact....
Vision, Mission, Objectives, Areas of
interest
Product Launch
Faculty research
Product development cycle Finished product Research and innovation
cycle
Digital Product Lab (DPL)
• Set up at IISc consisting of
– Embedded labs (with others like Intel, Freescale, Xilinx...)
– ID Lab (CEDT and CPDM) – Rapid prototyping (CPDM)
– Testing lab with all test facilities
– Wireless communication systems lab...
Use of the DPL
• For developing products requested from the selection process
• For developing ideas of IISc researchers
• For developing products suggested by others and selected by the selection process
Curriculum activities
2010 onwards
Embedded Curriculum Initiative:
Objectives
• To encourage embedded systems innovation in India with university as the fulcrum and the epicentre from which the innovation
propagates to the industry, academia, and startups.
– Developing appropriate curricula – Setting up state-of-the-art labs
– Integrating innovation as well as incubation with the curricula in universities
Key elements
• Embedded Systems Curriculum
• Lab : Set up, Lab exercises and mini projects
• Student Internships
• Curriculum Development Workshops
• Faculty Training
• Consortium of participating institutes
Phases of Lab exercises
• Level 1: Familiarization exercises: For those not yet familiar with Embedded Systems, a set of small exercises would be provided that would help familiarize them with a few basic concepts.
• Level 2: Preset Exercises: As a part of the regular course that is being recommended, a set of very small exercises/projects would be provided that could be completed in a couple of lab sessions.
• Level 3: Mini Projects: These exercises would train the candidate in depth in one of the applications of the embedded system
Other activities...1
• Curriculum Development Workshops
– Introducing model curriculum on Embedded Systems and facilitating the adaptation of the curriculum in institutions
• Faculty Training
– hands on including setting up of the lab and conducting the course in their respective
institutes. The training would comprise of theory and lab
Other activities...2
• Consortium of participating institutes:
– collaborative model of education could be tried
• Curriculum material preparation:
– cooperative mode between teachers from
different intuitions trough author workshops, writing workshops, and meeting with publishers
Intel Initiatives @ IISc
2010 onwards
Intel supported Embedded Lab
Product idea
Embedded system
Hardware OS
Domain lab
Applications
The lab
Support by the lab
• Design of HW or selection of existing hardware optimally for a given product
• HW development, fabrication, and testing
• Typical embedded OS on hardware
• Application development process and tools
• Help in packaging in collaboration with another lab
• Testing, documentation
Satellites of the lab
• Domain labs
– Sensor networks in agriculture, ddisaster warning and recovery, health care and transportation
• Analytics in image processing and web data
• Product design and fabrication
• Operating systems lab
• Hardware, co-design, and verification labs
Outcomes of the lab
• HW and SW for specific systems
• Applications in collaboration with other labs
• Support to entrepreneurs as an incubation set up
• Interns from institutions
• IISc student projects
• Open source courses: Offering within IISc and elsewhere
• Continuing education courses: Boot camps
Other labs in Embedded systems
• Labs supported for their respective Embedded Systems
– Freescale, Intel, TI, Xilinx
• SMDP Lab: Lab for design of VLSI with high-end tools like Synopsis, Cadence, Magma, Mentor, Coware, verification tools....
• MEMS design lab
• Electronics systems lab with instruments to test up to 10 GHz clock rates
• PCB design, fabrication, and assembly lab, Industrial design studio and Department for product development
• Nano lab: characterization lab, fabrication lab
THANKS
• Questions
• Comments, suggestions
• Partnership offers
• Tearing down ideas...