Technical Reports

Cogent has published a number of technical reports exploring various research themes (see below).

Internal Reports List: COGENT.001, COGENT.002,  COGENT.006

Abstracts

Posture Determination using a Body Sensor Network (December 2008)

Ramona Rednic, John Kemp, James Brusey, Elena Gaura

Due to the large number of degrees of freedom of the human body, posture monitoring of human during activity regimes presents many research challenges. Several research groups world wide have engaged with the development of low-power wireless body sensor networks that are capable of providing real-time posture tracking for a variety of applications, such as dance and sports. The work reported here is concerned with the development of a wireless body sensor network that, as opposed to posture tracking, can: a) provide the identification and classification of eight human postures (standing, kneeling, sitting, crawling, walking, laying down on front and back, and laying on one side) in real-time and b) is able to relate this information wirelessly to a remote monitoring point. Posture information is an essential part of monitoring operatives in safety critical missions. The work sits within a larger project aiming to increase general safety of operatives in bomb disposal missions.

The goal of the posture body sensor network developed here is to identify the eight named postures using data from nine accelerometers placed at various sites on the human body. A prototype implementation which fulfills the goal has been produced and evaluated and is reported.

Read the full report. Cogent Internal Report 006

Prototype of a Wireless Monitoring System for a Gas Turbine Engine (August 2008)

Dan Goldsmith, Elena Gaura, James Brusey, James Shuttleworth, Nigel Poole

A critical aspect of modern condition-based maintenance (CBM) systems is the provision of detailed, accurate and reliable sensing for the part, or subsystem under observation. Existing thermocouple based flow sensing systems for gas turbine engines deal effectively with the multipoint measurement of the high temperatures involved, however, due to the need for low added weight, they only provide averaged temperature data over a single heavy duty cable. The conflicting measurement system requirements of low weight and detailed, high rate, robust, multipoint measurement can be mitigated through the use of wireless instrumentation. This technical report describes a prototype system that explores the use of multiple wirelessly networked sensors to deliver detailed spatial-temporal flow temperature information to enable

CBM and enhance informational output from engine testing.

Information Extraction from Large-scale WSNs - A Complex Querying Perspective (January 2008)

Tessa Daniel

Regardless of the application domain and deployment scope, the ability to retrieve information is critical to the successful functioning of any wireless sensor network (WSN) system. In general, information extraction procedures can be categorized into three main approaches: agent-based, query-based and macroprogramming. Of the three, query-based systems are the most popular mainly because they provide a usable, high level interface to the sensor network while abstracting away some of the low level details like the network topology and radio communication. In contrast, macroprogramming provides a more general-purpose approach to distributed computation compared to traditional query-based approaches and focus on programming the network as a whole rather than programming the individual devices that form the network.

The agent-based approach tailors the information extraction mechanism to the type of information needed and the configuration of the network it needs to be extracted from. This report surveys extensively the literature in the area of WSN information extraction, highlights the benefits of in-network processing and proposes a novel hybrid approach that incorporates query and macroprogramming techniques for information extraction in large-scale, informational systems. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated
through simulation.

Read the full report. Cogent Internal Report 002

Investigation into the Use of Advanced Sensing Technologies for Protection Suits (October 2007)

John Kemp

The goal of the project presented in the report is to develop a wearable wireless sensing system suitable for deployment in manned bomb disposal missions. The system will be capable of making in-network autonomous decisions related to the actuation of the cooling system within the suit, to increase the comfort of the wearer. In addition, it will allow an external observer to remotely monitor the health and comfort of the operative.

Results are presented from a series of experimental runs performed using a prototype sensing system. The need for timely application of in-suit cooling is shown, as well as the importance of monitoring the overall health of the wearer of the suit.

Read the full report. Cogent Internal Report 001