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TCP/IP to the wireless sensor node.

During a presentation about wireless sensor networks to the WSN-SIG in 2005, David Culler of Arch Rock said, “Don’t bet against IP.” Recents events seems to confirm that prognostication for wireless sensor networks. Zensys, who makes chips for “other Z protocol” Z-wave, publicly announced their intention to integrate TCP/IP with their proprietary low power wireless protocol. Their “Z/IP” protocol will be licensed. In other news, the IETF effort, 6lowpan, to merge IPv6 and low power wireless sensor networks has received attention in that a company is already open-sourcing their 6lowpan implementation. (This comes on the heels of the “free MAC campaign” where 802.15.4 implementations are being open-sourced or given away.

Moteiv releases new miniSDIO module

Moteiv announced the release of their new Tmote Mini — a mote module in the form factor of a miniSDIO card. This departure from the standard OEM module is refreshing and should lower the barrier for integration with existing technology platforms…with miniSDIO interfaces. This release follows the Crossbow release of their newest OEM module, IRIS.

Home automation: Accelerating innovation with open source?

Open source home automation is the concept of a fully open platform(s) for automation of controls, communications, security, entertainment, and health within a residential environment — Honestly, I particularly dislike the term “home automation” as it conjures up thoughts of gee-whiz toys for geeks. Hindered by unreliable power line communication systems and simplistic if-then loops, it is no wonder that the adoption of home automation hasnt’ quite reached beyond the early adopters or really rich. Even with improved communications technology like 802.15.4, why would anyone pay $200 to see if they left a door open (and that product does exist). There needs to be more innovation in both the technology and applications.

Can open source technologies catalyze the innovation process where proprietary efforts have struggled? Open source home automation software has been around for a while, a la MisterHouse a PERL-based program for X-10 devices. A recent podcast with Dave Winter, founder of MisterHouse, provides insight on the development of the application. But, MisterHouse still requires a programming — still not useful to the masses who want “plug-n-play.” (Dave Winter does note that MisterHouse in not intended for the masses in the podcast) More recently, LinuxMCE, a new linux media center, presents a more mainstream approach to a general home automation platform. While clearly focused on media managment and access, LinuxMCE provides a path to accelerate the development and dissemination of “home automation” applications and programs. It’s interesting that LinuxMCE is based on the code base from a commercial company, Pluto, who has open-sourced their software efforts. And finally, it’s worth noting the latest Make blog about open source hardware.. The writers at Make have put together a “layered” definition as to what it means to be open source hardware. This is a good start to “standardizing” the open source hardware movement to enable a level of quality to all the open source hardware projects that already exist.

Real Time Pricing Seminar

Severin Borenstein gave a very informative talk about real time electricity pricing during the latest CITRIS Research Exchange at UC Berkeley. Real time (we’re talking “real-time” on the order of minutes) electricity pricing should increase the market efficiency of the electricity market. Whereas today, the wholesale and retail markets are not connected in real time. One concern Severin pointed out was that real time pricing may increase bill volatility - which is a bad thing. The solution? Hedging. Severin suggests that to do real time pricing correctly the end consumer should hedge, or buy electricity at future prices — then when the time arrives either buy more at the spot market price or even sell back into the market. Severin also pointed out that Demand Response — the latest instantiation of real-time pricing — is not necessarily a “green” effort. Rather “Green” Demand Response is a regional issue depending on the base load generation. His example was Pennsylvania, a state with a large coal base. Coal also happens to be very dirty compared to peaker plants in the region. So if more people shifted load in Pennsylvania, then more coal-generated dirty electricity would be produced. The bottom-line: be sure to look at all the costs associated with Demand Response and real-time electricity pricing.

MASSive sensornets are the future Internet

One of the highlights from IEEE MASS was the panel discussion on the state of the future internet. Feng Zhao (Microsoft Research), Tarek Abdelzaher (UIUC), Rick Han (Univeristy of Colorado, Boulder), and John Heidemann (ISI/USC) traded thoughts on how the next Internet is shaping up — not suprisingly, there were many slides of the traditional Internet “cloud” touching the wireless sensor network “cloud”. One common theme was enabling sciences for the masses — the idea that anyone and everyone should and will have access to the coming onslaught of pervasive sensors. Feng showed the new MSR sensorweb that integrates real-world sensors with Microsoft’s earth-scale mapping service. “Data is King”, Feng wrote as he discussed how every-day users will write mash-ups of sensor feeds. Rick Han discussed “sensing for the masses” enabled by “cheap technology and open innovation.” John Heidemann brought a reality check and questioned the panel about the definition of a “user” of this future Internet. But, John followed up with a new term, “slogging”, that he uses to describe the coming age of things blogging (see previous post, doesn’t really roll off the tongue like “blogjects” or “spimes”). John added two twists to the future Internet — the idea of federated sensornets enabling the “citizen scientist” (John cites Mark Hansen as coining this term).

While I think these ideas were perfectly academic in scope, the reality of free access to a global treasure trove of sensors is far-fetched at best. Take GPS for example, free for all, but resolution limited by a few. Take Google Maps for example, “free” for all, but resolution-limited by a few. Feng Zhao put it best in his answer to an audience question about his opinion on business models for sensornets and the reality of every seeing a $1 wireless sensor node — Feng replied the answer lies in amortization of cost, not necessarily an inexpensive sensor. In other words, providing access to data for those willing to pay for it. So for those holding access to the data when “data is king”, it’ll be “good to be the king”.

IEEE MASS 2006 under way

IEEE MASS (Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Systems) started with a terrific keynote from Professor Kumar (UIUC). The general thesis of the talk concerned the acceptance and future research of wireless sensor networks as hybrid control systems rather than data-centric sensing networks. Prof. Kumar proposed academia is in the “age of system building” and cited the current state of wireless sensor network technology as the third generation of control. The third being networked embedded control, preceeded by electrical digital and electrical analog generations. (Ok, as a mechanical engineer, I have to say fifth generation — what about mechanical control preceeded by pneumatic!).

Professor Kumar concluded with two rather poignant ideas. He proposed theory as the limiting factor, not technology, in developing and deploying wireless sensor network hybrid control systems. The idea being that all the pieces of technology exist to create complex systems, but the underlying control theory lacks the ability to handle the new paradigm of a multiple input, multiple output system as presented by wireless sensor networks. Following that premise, Professor Kumar argues that theory cannot derive the needed architectures for complex, distributed hybrid systems — rather experience will produce the appropriate architecural characteristics.

Pervasive, Intelligent, Social wireless sensor networks, eh?

The 2006 IEEE IST-WSN workshop was yesterday in Vancouver, B.C. A small group of researchers talked about intelligent systems with wireless sensor networks. Ankur Teredesai from RIT talked about pervasive social networks — the idea being hardware can push social networking. His prime example is the integration of IM onto cellphones. Ankur’s ideas are very much akin to blogjects, and I think the presentation at a technical conference confirms the evolution of the present day social networking technology from the browser.

The highlight of the day-long workshop was the panel discussion — Peter Graham from the University of Manitoba, Ankur Teredesai, and Alex Coleman from the University of Alberta gave thoughts on the current state of wireless sensor network research. Power management — either the lack of or glutony therein gave cause to a good debate that ended not about power and energy effiiciency, but rather about ethical issues and the need for a top-down design emphasis. The leave-off point: research can benefit by (futher) involving the application/user. And we’re left with that old design mantra: use what you build.

Grapes, Wildfires, Mountains: Wireless sensor networks take a hike (outdoors)

It seems experiences with real world wireless sensor network applications for the great outdoors was the theme for this past week. Peter Tsepeleff, CEO Grape Networks, gave a talk at the WSN-SIG about a depoyment in several California vineyards. Peter and company deploy agricultural sensor networks to help vinters improve yield and/or quality of the grapes. A neat niche application — developed in a new unit: acreage. They figure the way to address scalability is designing and deploying their system in units of 100 square acres. Regardless of the exact number of acres, this definition of strategy, constraint, and objective — all rolled into one — for deploying an outdoor wireless sensor network is great to see.

At the latest CITRIS event Nick Sitar, Professor & Director of the Earthquake Engineering Center at UC Berkeley, talked about his experiences in monitoring wildfires and mountains with wireless sensor networks. In the wildfire deployment, wireless sensor nodes were staked on poles six feet above a burning grass fire — and survived the fire! Turns out grass fires only reach 80 C or so that high above the ground. Professor Sitar’s next goal is to outfit an entire moutain face in Yosemite with wireless sensors!

So what were the common grounds between the two? Range — or more accurately how the actual operating range in the field didn’t come close to the data sheet 100’s of meters outdoor. Maybe a revisit is in order of the great work presented at Sensys 2003 about the gray areas of communication performance in wireless sensor networks as a function of distance. What happens to the range with different semi-permiable matter between two nodes, like smoke, vines, etc?

MPM: reading a blog written by things in your house

In late 2005 I figured out the next stage for my research would be “what if your house could blog” that might actually make use of an old project, tinyML, an XML schema for wireless sensor networks. The technology I work with (i.e. wireless sensor networks) provides much richer information that currently available (e.g. your monthly electricity bill). The missing piece is frequent, relevant delivery and access to that information, rather than some standalone GUI or even a slick but infrequent online bill analysis software. RSS and standard feed readers seem to fit the bill; I already read what Guy Kawasaki has to say about startups, why not read what my house has to say? So machine-to-machine (M2M) now transforms into machine-to-person-to-machine (MPM).

All of this reminded me of Neil Gershenfeld’s When Things Start to Think. So I started keeping an eye out for similar ideas. Recently, WSNblog noted that some IBM master inventor discussed the idea of “blogjects” — things that blog about their life. A little more digging and you’ll find Julian Bleecker’s Why Things Matter manifesto that uses the neologism “blogject”. An interesting commentary that discusses the coming age of machines, as well as “trans-species” interaction citing a scenario where pigeons will be our new environmental sensors, blogging about air conditions as the fly around.

But, getting back to reality…the potential for your house to become an educational resource for you presents a nice opportunity to tackle that elephant in the room — educating people about energy consumption in their house. So maybe the biggest influence for a home owner’s isn’t the government rebate for that new high-efficiency air conditioner — maybe it’s simply communication …. between home and human.

ACEEE Summer Study and Zero Energy Homes

Last week I attended the ACEEE Summer Study program. Attending an event with such a diverse attendance list is always interesting, proof of which being talks on performance contracting for homes (read: micro-ESCO’s for those in the energy world, and still not a scalable business model) and why Louisiana should be reconstructed with pre-fabricated modular homes with air conditioning to reduce energy consumption (although apparantely most pre-Katrina homes were sans A/C by preference). A good portion of the event involved zero energy homes — the concept of a energy-sustainable home using on-site renewable energy, mainly from photovoltaic panels. And while current zero energy homes (of which there hundreds in California) aren’t quite *zero* energy, drastic order-of-magnitude reductions in electricity bills are common among home owner’s. The prevailing focus on zero peak-energy communities was highlighted in a discussion section led by Lew Pratsch from DOE and Jeff Christian from ORNL — a system-level acknowledgement for residential peak energy management that I was suprised and delighted to see. So what was missing? User information. By and large, the excellent efforts to design high-performance energy efficient homes still leave the home owner out of the information loop.