Embedded Networked Systems Design EE202C Lecture 1 Introduction

Embedded Networked Systems Design
EE202C Lecture 1: Introduction
NETWORKED EMBEDDED SYSTEMS DESIGN

EE 202C LECTURE 1
INTRODUCTION
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. COURSE INFORMATION .................................................................................................................................3

INSTRUCTOR: W. J. KAISER ......................................................................................................................................3
Background: ...........................................................................................................................................................3
Research Programs with UCLA Students: .............................................................................................................3
Course Web Site .....................................................................................................................................................3
Contact Information ...............................................................................................................................................3
WEEKLY GROUP MEETINGS and Office Hours .................................................................................................3
2. EE202C AND STUDENT SUCCESS ..................................................................................................................4
3. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..................................................................................................................................8
4. CRITICAL FIRST ASSIGNMENT ....................................................................................................................8
Project Assignment................................................................................................................................................8
Background and Interests e-mail .........................................................................................................................8
Project Selection ....................................................................................................................................................9
Reading: .................................................................................................................................................................9
TextBook .................................................................................................................................................................9
Team Assignment ...................................................................................................................................................9
5. GRADING AND RESPONSIBILITIES ...........................................................................................................10
6. LABORATORY PROJECT WORK ................................................................................................................11
7. SYLLABUS..........................................................................................................................................................12
8. CRITICAL RESOURCES FOR EE202C .........................................................................................................15
9. WIRELESS HEALTH PROJECTS OVERVIEW ..........................................................................................16
10. ENERGY EFFICIENCY COMPUTING PROJECTS OVERVIEW ..........................................................18
11. ADVANCED HUMAN MOTION ANALYSIS: EXPLOITING INERTIAL SENSING AND
BIOMECHANICAL CONSTRAINTS FOR PRECISE MOBILITY MEASURES ............................................19
12. ADVANCED HUMAN MOTION ANALYSIS: EXPLOITING INERTIAL SENSING AND
BIOMECHANICAL CONSTRAINTS FOR PRECISE UPPER BODY MOTION MEASURES .....................21
13. ADVANCED SYSTEM TRAINING FOR SENSOR FUSION – ANDROID GUIDANCE AND
MONITORING ...........................................................................................................................................................23
14. ADVANCED CONTEXT CLASSIFICATION EXPLOITING AMBIENT ACTIVITY LEVEL ...........24
15. SMART EXERCISE BANDS WITH ANDROID TRAINING TRACKING AND GUIDANCE .............25
SYSTEMS: ..................................................................................................................................................................25
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16. MFIT - ENERGY HARVESTING ..................................................................................................................26

BACKGROUND ...........................................................................................................................................................26
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE ..............................................................................................................................................26
SYSTEMS ...................................................................................................................................................................26
TEAM MENTOR: ....................................................................................................................................................26
17. MFIT - ANDROID REMOTE FITNESS ASSESSMENT AND REMOTE GUIDANCE .........................27
BACKGROUND ...........................................................................................................................................................27
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE ..............................................................................................................................................27
18. MONITORING OF PRESCRIPTION COMPLIANCE FOR ORTHOPEDIC DEVICES ......................28
TEAM MENTORS: ..................................................................................................................................................29
19. ACOUSTIC EMISSION FOR JOINT MONITORING ...............................................................................30
TEAM MENTORS: ..................................................................................................................................................31
20. DIAGNOSIS OF ACL DEFICIENCY USING INERTIAL SENSING .......................................................32
BACKGROUND ...........................................................................................................................................................32
21. DETAILED VERTEBRAE MEASUREMENT SYSTEM ...........................................................................33
22. SMARTCAST: INSTRUMENTED CASTS FOR MONITORING AND INTERVENTION DURING
BONE HEALING .......................................................................................................................................................34
23. DEEP SYSTEM MEASUREMENT INTEGRITY ........................................................................................35
BACKGROUND: ..........................................................................................................................................................35
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: .............................................................................................................................................35
SYSTEMS: ..................................................................................................................................................................35
TEAM MENTOR: ....................................................................................................................................................35
24. DEEP: ENERGY COST OF SYSTEM STORAGE ......................................................................................36
BACKGROUND ...........................................................................................................................................................36
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES .............................................................................................................................................36
SYSTEMS: ..................................................................................................................................................................36
TEAM MENTOR: ....................................................................................................................................................36
25. GREEN ANDROID ..........................................................................................................................................37
BACKGROUND ...........................................................................................................................................................37
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES .............................................................................................................................................37
TEAM MENTOR: ....................................................................................................................................................37
26. ROBOTIC SYSTEMS: RELIABLE, LOW COST OBSTACLE DETECTION USING ULTRASONIC
RANGING ...................................................................................................................................................................38
NETWORKED EMBEDDED COMPUTING EXPERIENCE; ................................................................................................39
TEAM MENTORS: ..................................................................................................................................................39
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1. COURSE INFORMATION
INSTRUCTOR: W. J. KAISER
BACKGROUND:
• Ford: Embedded systems and sensors for powerplant emissions control and automotive
networks
• JPL: Embedded systems, sensors, networked microinstruments
• Sensoria: Co-founder – networked embedded sensors and systems, municipal multihop mesh
WiFi networks
• UCLA - 1994 (Electrical Engineering Department Chairman 1996-2000)
• UCLA – Co-founder of the UCLA Wireless Health Institute
RESEARCH PROGRAMS WITH UCLA STUDENTS:

• Sensor Network programs in 1994 through present
• Embedded systems, low power RF CMOS integrated systems, low power sensor interface and
signal processing, circuits, and sensor systems.
• Actuated sensing systems, networked embedded systems for applications in environmental
sustainability, energy aware sensor node and computing systems.
• Current programs
o Wireless Health Institute (WHI)
o LEAP Low power Energy Aware Platform
o Technology for Education: The Engineering Pipeline
COURSE WEB SITE

• Standard eeweb access and material posted separately
CONTACT INFORMATION
• Office: 56-147L Engineering IV
• E-mai: kaiser@ee.ucla.edu
• Preface e-mail messages with EE202C:
• Cell Phone: 310-593-1967
• Web: www.ee.ucla.edu/faculty/bios/kaiser.htm
WEEKLY GROUP MEETINGS AND OFFICE HOURS

o To be arranged on lab days on Thursday and Friday.
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2. EE202C AND STUDENT SUCCESS
• Opportunity for fundamental innovations and research advances
• Instructor and mentors dedicated to providing student experience in most important topics in
embedded computing
• Successes in 202C
o 2011: Best Paper Aware at Wireless Health 2011

o 2011: Conference publications
o 2010: Best Demonstration Award at Wireless Health 2010
o Prior: Best Demonstration Award at IPSN
• Example Projects in 2011

o Context Aware Human Motion Classification
o LEAP Mobile Testbed
o LEAP Multicore and DSP
o Perfusion Oxygenation Monitor (POM)
• Methods for Success

o Commitment
o Focus on innovation
o Work with instructor and mentors
o Team structure and sharing of effort
• New Grading Plans

o Weekly meetings will include grade inputs on individual progress
• New Linux and LEAP Embedded System Laboratory (demonstration grading)

• Five Class Embedded System Quizzes based on Laboratories
• Two Critical Tasks Now
• Group Formation
• Partner Selection
• ENS: an ideal embedded computing design problem

o Healthcare – Wireless Health Industry
§ Healthcare is $2.3T US business
o Energy-efficient computing
o Consumer products – major shift in consumer purchasing underway
• Course Objectives
o Topics essential for engineering careers in research and industry
o Fundamental algorithm development
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o Experience in development of autonomous, self-organized embedded systems

o System design and optimization experience
o Exposure and experience with physical sensing – now part of personal embedded and
wireless devices
o Acquire implementation experience
• Student Preparation
o Direct focus on advancing preparation for either PhD program research or industry
research and development
o Examples:
§ Current development of Augmented Reality for Smartphone technology
§ The Interview Questions
• Software systems
• Hardware systems
• Sensing systems
• Design
§ Direct focus on preparation for MS Thesis and EE299 projects
• Student Background
o Adapt projects to student background
o Project objectives emphasize multiple backgrounds and skill sets
§ Computer engineering
§ Computer science
§ Biomedical engineering
o Interdisciplinary partners are encouraged
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• Partners
o Energy aware systems
§ Industry: Qualcomm, Intel, National Instruments, others
o Wireless Health
§ Medicine: UCLA Wireless Health Institute
§ Industry: Qualcomm, Intel, Nokia, and others
§ Government: Department of Homeland Security
• Approach
o Emphasize support and guidance – many experts to learn from
o Emphasize entirely new platforms that illustrate fundamental principles
o Lecture
§ Two parts
• Primary Topics
• Secondary Topics focused on specific ENS technology required for
projects
§ Topics
• ENS design principles
• Embedded computing platforms
• Embedded Linux principles
• ENS sensor systems
o Laboratories
§ Short focused assignments
• Introduction to Android
• Introduction to Wireless Health physical sensing
• Introduction to LEAP
§ Technology Advance
• Direct access to per process and per subsystem energy usage
• Breakthrough for embedded computing and general purpose
computing
§ ARM Processor Systems
• Code Optimization
o C Code
o Assembler Code
o Development and Analysis
§ Kernel Development Testbed
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• Introduction and experience with system internals
• Course Design Project

o Selected to best advance student progress and benefits
o Supported by instructor with dedicated commitment, time, and weekly intensive
meetings and reporting
o Supported by team leaders and team mentors
o Supported by purchase of any equipment needed
o Supported by collaborating research groups
o Two to five student members per team is typical
o Will adapt projects to specific interests
o Project descriptions following in this lecture period
o Urgent planning meetings as soon as possible
• Successes in 202C
o MS Thesis Programs
o PhD Thesis Programs
o Best Demonstration Award at IPSN
o Best Paper Award at BodyNets
o Best Demonstration Award at Wireless Health 2010
o Many Publications
o New Platforms
o New programs (Broadcom, Intel, and Qualcomm)
o Wireless Health Initiative
• Focus in 2012
o Encouragement from industry sponsors
o Specific request to combine embedded systems development, C – code skills,
platform design skills, and signal processing
o Application objectives include Wireless Health and Energy Efficient Computing
o Platform background:
§ Embedded Linux (at the core of smartphone technology today)
§ Android and embedded Java Virtual Machine
§ ARM Processor architecture
§ Intel Atom Multicore Processor architecture
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3. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
o Mahdhi Ashktorab
o Henrik Borgstrom
o Bijan Mapar
o Peter Peterson
o Digvijay Singh
o Yan Wang
o Celia Xu
o James Xu
o Guidance and Collaboration with Seth Thomas and Dr. Bruce Dobkin of the UCLA Neurology
Department
4. CRITICAL FIRST ASSIGNMENT
PROJECT ASSIGNMENT
• Group formation
• Partner assignment for laboratories
• Critical to start now and avoid delay
BACKGROUND AND INTERESTS E-MAIL

EXTREMELY URGENT – Require by end of day Today
1. Your Information
a. Name
b. Major
c. Degree objective (MS/PhD),
d. Your Advisor
e. Your CV
2. Provide a description of:
a. Software System Development Experience and/or Interest and/or Interest
b. Hardware System Development Experience and/or Interest
c. Linux Operating System Internals Experience and/or Interest
d. C Code Development Experience and/or Interest
e. Android Development Experience and/or Interest
f. Signal Processing Background Experience and/or Interest
g. Sensing System Background Experience and/or Interest
h. Robotics Systems Background Experience and/or Interest
i. Special Interests and/or other Embedded Computing Experience
j. Please send your CV via email to your instructor tonight (Monday)
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3. Specific interests in research projects in these areas

a. Wireless Health
b. Energy Efficient Embedded Computing
4. Questions or concerns
5. Please share a phone number – I may try to reach you by phone on Tuesday
PROJECT SELECTION
• Identify project topic selection
• Schedule meetings or calls with instructor for discussion and fine tuning of project
• Complete by end of week
READING:
• References
TEXTBOOK
• Sensor Systems Chapter 4
• Embedded Networked Sensing Platforms Chapter 13
TEAM ASSIGNMENT
• Select Team Partner – URGENT
• Will require partners for assignments
• ee202C Web Page for Reporting

o Create team web page
§ Weekly Engineering Progress Reports and Design Documents
§ experimental results
§ source code
§ documents (presentation and reports)
§ Identify contributions for each report from each team member
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5. GRADING AND RESPONSIBILITIES
1) Objective Component and Responsibilities

a) Laboratory Assignment scores (15 percent)
b) Laboratory Quiz Scores (15 percent)
c) Project Scores (60 percent)
i) Scores component
(1) Design Documents - template posted on eeweb
(a) Design
(b) Implementation Plan and Schedule
(c) Test Plan
(2) Weekly Engineering Progress Report
(a) Individual reporting at group meetings
(3) Midterm Presentations
(a) Design progress
(b) Results
(4) Final Presentation
(5) Final report – may be in ACM format manuscript
(6) Production of components for shared use
2) Subjective Component and Responsibilities Contribute to Grading
a) Presentations
i) Formal
ii) Informal
b) Contribution to your project
c) Awareness of concepts in class and in lab
i) Plan to be engaged in discussions
d) Instructor will evaluate performance of individual team members independently of team. It is
your responsibility to ensure that both team members are engaged.
e) Stay focused in class – avoid use of notebooks for e-mail or web browsing in class
f) Class questions on motivation or objectives for any topics are encouraged
g) If you have lost sight of the “big picture” at any stage, please ask about this.
3) Grading Feedback
a) Initial Design Document
b) Engineering Journal – Weekly Progress Reports
c) Final Design Document
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6. LABORATORY PROJECT WORK
1) Each student will join a group of two

a) Each student team will be provided with an account on testbed
b) Each student team will also be provided with access to many hardware systems as needed.
Components and instruments will be purchased to support as well.
c) Each student team will be provided with a directory in development machines. Note that this is not a
safe repository! This data will be removed at the end of each session
d) Note: All systems may be shared at any time so no personal information should be stored on any of
the EE202C host machines
e) Each student team will have access to Atom LEAP and x86 kernel system development host
machines
2) Lab Times
a) The lab, 44-110 will be our primary development and meeting area. It is available at most times
b) We will also plan to meet in Room 5704: Wireless Health Institute
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7. S YLLABUS
1) ENS Background
a. Design constraints and objectives
b. Challenges
2) Introduction to EE202C Projects

a. Wireless Health
b. Energy Efficient Computing
3) ENS Embedded Computing Platforms

a. Classes
b. Description
c. Design principles
d. EE202C Platforms
4) Sensing Principles
a. Fundamental Sensor And Instrument Properties
b. Characterizing Sensors
c. Physical Sensors
d. Chemical Sensors
e. Sensor Energy And Resource Requirements
f. Sensor System Analysis
g. Sensor Interface Circuits
h. Sensor Sampling
i. Limitations Of Sensor Systems
j. Biomedical Sensor Systems
5) ENS Embedded Computing Operating Systems

a. Classes
b. Description of state of the art RTOS
i. OSEK standard
6) The Linux Operating System

a. Overview
b. Primary components and tools
7) ARM Embedded Computing Platforms

a. ARM architecture
b. ARM instruction set
c. ARM assembler
d. ELF executable format
e. C Code optimization for ARM
8) ARM Embedded Code Optimization

a. RISC development
b. Cache usage
c. Loop design
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d. DSP systems
9) Intel Atom Architecture

a. Intel Atom processor
b. Intel Atom platforms
10) Embedded Multicore System Optimization

a. Multicore system energy efficiency advantages
b. Advanced threading concepts
c. Signal processing optimization
d. Video/audio processing optimization
e. Data compression optimization
f. Other multicore topics
11) New Linux diagnostics systems

a. kprobes
12) Scheduler
a. Dynamic scheduling problem
b. Overview
i. Scheduler operations
ii. Kernel preemption
iii. Scheduler
1. O(1) scheduler overview
2. Tasks and processes
3. Unique nature of general purpose platform and ENS requirements
c. Scheduling Latency
d. Waitqueue systems
e. Scheduler characterization tools
13) Interrupt Services

a. Processor Interrupt Interfaces
b. Interrupt controllers
c. Kernel interrupt support
d. Interrupt service routines
e. Detailed ISR processing
i. Deferring work
14) Timing
a. Processor timer hardware
b. Processor timer interrupts
c. Timing in the kernel
15) Synchronization in the Kernel

a. Races
b. Locking
c. Deadlocks
d. Scaling
e. Semaphores
f. Atomic operations
g. Multicore synchronization methods
i. Optimizing lock mechanisms with multicore
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h. Energy-efficient locking in multicore

i. Multicore ARM systems
16) Process management

a. Processes
b. Threads
i. Kernel threads
ii. User threads
17) Memory Management

a. Overview
b. Memory technologies
c. Memory physical architecture
d. Memory in the kernel
e. Memory management algorithms and implementation
18) Embedded Storage Systems

a. Flash technologies
19) Boot Systems

a. Boot loaders
20) Other Topics to be distributed as Appendices
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8. CRITICAL RESOURCES FOR EE202C
Wireless Health Overview on Human Motion Monitoring
http://www.ee.ucla.edu/~kaiser/documents/EE202C/Wireless_Health_References/
Android Tutorials and Laboratories: James Xu and Maxim Batalin
http://www.ee.ucla.edu/~kaiser/documents/EE202C/Android_Laboratory_Tutorials/
Wireless Health Sensor Fusion Toolkit (WHSFT): Maxim Batalin, Jay Chien, Celia Xu, Gregory Pottie, William
Kaiser
http://www.ee.ucla.edu/~kaiser/documents/EE202C/Wireless_Health_Sensor_Fusion_Toolkit/
Low-power Energy Aware Platform (LEAP): Atom LEAP: Digvijay Singh, Peter A. H. Peterson, Peter Reiher,
William Kaiser
http://www.ee.ucla.edu/~kaiser/documents/EE202C/Atom_LEAP_Platform_Resources/
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EE202C 2012
RESEARCH PROJECTS
9. WIRELESS HEALTH PROJECTS OVERVIEW
Wireless Health today combines novel sensing, embedded computing, wireless networking, and high
performance enterprise computing to monitor physiological variables, infer subject status, detect disease
conditions, and guide individuals towards the best treatment and promote health and wellness. This new
frontier is directed to fundamentally advancing human performance for objectives in health, productivity, and
even athletic achievement.
The capability for continuous monitoring of physiological status and detailed behavior combined with
individualized guidance will have a fundamental impact on healthcare delivery. Indeed, the current time is
historic in that in the future, for the first time, the outcomes of treatment, the decisions regarding healthcare
pathways, the effectiveness and accuracy of clinical trials will all be affected by this new capability and forever
change healthcare, medical research and education, and related fields. Research led by UCLA has invested
early in the creation of the broad-based and fine-grained continuous monitoring and guidance methods.
Services associated with continuous monitoring and guidance will soon empower all individuals to understand
and promote their health and wellness, assure outcomes of treatment and rehabilitation, and advance human
performance.
The Wireless Health field is virtually unprecedented in affording compelling research opportunities led by our
clinician experts. Engineering research that provides solutions through development of fundamental
algorithms, embedded computing hardware and software implementation, new sensing principles and new
sensor systems, and complete system implementation and delivery to the healthcare enterprise. These
research achievements are now also accompanied by delivery of systems that are serving many patients today
in the US and in 12 other nations that my group supports in an international trial.
Monitoring of human activity is one of the most important objectives for Wireless Health. The Wireless
Health Institute has established a lead in this area.
It is quite important to note that the Best Paper Award at Wireless Health 2011 was given to a paper led by
James Xu that documented work that was based entirely on research performed in an EE202C project in
Winter 2011 – just last year.
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The following is an abstract from a publication by our colleagues: Dr. Bruce Dobkin (Co-Director of UCLA
WHI) and Dr. Andrew Dorsch.
Mobile health tools that enable clinicians and researchers to monitor the type, quantity,
and quality of everyday activities of patients and trial participants have long been needed to
improve daily care, design more clinically meaningful randomized trials of interventions, and
establish cost-effective, evidence-based practices. Inexpensive, unobtrusive wireless sensors,
including accelerometers, gyroscopes, and pressure-sensitive textiles, combined with Internet-
based communications and machine-learning algorithms trained to recognize upper- and lower-
extremity movements, have begun to fulfill this need. Continuous data from ankle triaxial
accelerometers, for example, can be transmitted from the home and community via WiFi or a
smartphone to a remote data analysis server. Reports can include the walking speed and
duration of every bout of ambulation, spatiotemporal symmetries between the legs, and the type,
duration, and energy used during exercise. For daily care, this readily accessible flow of real-
world information allows clinicians to monitor the amount and quality of exercise for risk factor
management and compliance in the practice of skills. Feedback may motivate better self-
management as well as serve home-based rehabilitation efforts. Monitoring patients with
chronic diseases and after hospitalization or the start of new medications for a decline in daily
activity may help detect medical complications before rehospitalization becomes necessary. For
clinical trials, repeated laboratory-quality assessments of key activities in the community, rather
than by clinic testing, self-report, and ordinal scales, may reduce the cost and burden of travel,
improve recruitment and retention, and capture more reliable, valid, and responsive ratio-scaled
outcome measures that are not mere surrogates for changes in daily impairment, disability, and
functioning.
Dobkin BH, Dorsch A., “The promise of mHealth: daily activity monitoring and outcome assessments by
wearable sensors.”, Neurorehabil Neural Repair. 2011 Nov-Dec;25(9):788-98.
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10. ENERGY EFFICIENCY COMPUTING PROJECTS OVERVIEW
Energy Efficient Computing has been developed by UCLA in the Low power Energy Aware Platform
(LEAP) and the new advance, Decision support for Energy Efficient Processing (DEEP) systems. DEEP
technology is based on LEAP. We will be referring to both in this quarter with presentations and
background on LEAP. However, the new DEEP platform will be our focus.
These systems provide the first complete platform characterization of energy usage including energy usage in
each component and attributed to each supported computing task as well as each event. This capability has
been shown to be necessary to enable energy and performance optimization and has fundamentally not been
previously available. DEEP enables direct energy measurement of discrete events in kernel and user space
code, limited only by the sampling rate. The new platform-independent DEEP architecture synchronizes the
processor clock with high speed analog sampling of supply current and bias for processor, memory, storage,
network interfaces, and other components. This enables a new tool, Energy Calipers, which allows precise
assignment of energy dissipation in components attributed to kernel or user space code sequences. These
tools have been used in many investigations and instructional applications in our courses. LEAP research is
performed in a series of exciting collaborations with faculty in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
In both examples, it is the direct measurements provided by LEAP that enable the optimization goals.
It is important to note that LEAP technology was advanced in EE202C project groups and resulted in a Best
Demonstration award at a recent IPSN conference.
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11. ADVANCED HUMAN MOTION ANALYSIS: EXPLOITING INERTIAL

SENSING AND BIOMECHANICAL CONSTRAINTS FOR PRECISE
MOBILITY MEASURES
BACKGROUND
performance.
Sensor fusion methods have been critical in the advancement of human motion monitoring. As noted
research in this area by EE202C students in 2011 resulted in publications, conference presentations, and a
Best Paper Award.
A new set of challenges confronts human motion monitoring where it is now required to determine
parameter absolute values (for example, of stride length) for subject that may exhibit complex gait
characteristics due to disease conditions. Conventional analysis methods are not successful for this
application.
Progress was limited in the past due to the limitations on sensor platforms – including only triaxial
accelerometer sensors (as will be discussed beginning in Lecture 2).
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
Wireless Health research, however, can now exploit advances in new sensor platforms that integrate
gyroscope rotation rate, magnetic compass, and triaxial accelerometer devices. These new sensor platforms
with 9 degrees of freedom are referred to here as 9DOF sensors. These also include Bluetooth network
access accompanied by Android platform interfaces developed by our group. This creates new opportunities
for advanced motion sensing
In addition to the advance in sensors, it is also now proposed to exploit the known constraints of
biomechanical motion to enhance classification accuracy.
This will now be applied to the accurate classification of complex mobility motion including, for example,
accurate stride length computation that exploits wearable sensors at shoe and ankle.
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SYSTEMS:
Successful projects will likely exploit system development and skills in the following areas:
`
1. Signal processing
2. Sensor fusion
3. Development of new algorithms
4. Android system development
TEAM MENTORS:
Yan Wang
Celia Xu
James Xu
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12. ADVANCED HUMAN MOTION ANALYSIS: EXPLOITING INERTIAL

SENSING AND BIOMECHANICAL CONSTRAINTS FOR PRECISE
UPPER BODY MOTION MEASURES
BACKGROUND
This project is related to the project described above focused on mobility measures. However, this project is
directed to the specific new challenge associated with measures of upper body motion with an emphasis on
hand motion.
Hand and arm motion presents a critical monitoring need for neurological rehabilitation. The requirement
for monitoring is fundamental to determining whether an individual is performing rehabilitaiton therapy, may
remain well and may live independently.
performance.
Sensor fusion methods have been critical in the advancement of human motion monitoring. As noted
research in this area by EE202C students in 2011 resulted in publications, conference presentations, and a
Best Paper Award.
A new set of challenges confronts human motion monitoring where it is now required to determine
parameter absolute values (for example, of stride length) for subject that may exhibit complex gait
characteristics due to disease conditions. Conventional analysis methods are not successful for this
application.
Progress was limited in the past due to the limitations on sensor platforms – including only triaxial
accelerometer sensors (as will be discussed beginning in Lecture 2).
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
Wireless Health research, however, can now exploit advances in new sensor platforms that integrate
gyroscope rotation rate, magnetic compass, and triaxial accelerometer devices. These new sensor platforms
with 9 degrees of freedom are referred to here as 9DOF sensors. These also include Bluetooth network
access accompanied by Android platform interfaces developed by our group. This creates new opportunities
for advanced motion sensing
In addition to the advance in sensors, it is also now proposed to exploit the known constraints of
biomechanical motion to enhance classification accuracy.
This will now be applied to the accurate classification of complex upper body mobility motion including
motion of the hand.
Research objective elements also include:
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With a single 9-DOF platform, apply methods that may include Kalman Filter approaches to determine the
coordinates of the center of the palm in real-time relative to the subject’s body.
2. With multiple 9-DOFs, build an robotic biological model of arm, using forward kinematics to determine
the center of palm.
3. Given the time series of data of end effector's position(it's a time based trace) derived from step 2, infer the
motion type, that may be, for example reaching.
SYSTEMS:
`
5. Sensor fusion
6. Development of new algorithms
TEAM MENTORS:
Yan Wang
Celia Xu
James Xu
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13. ADVANCED S YSTEM TRAINING FOR SENSOR FUSION – ANDROID

GUIDANCE AND MONITORING
BACKGROUND
The technology of sensor fusion has been introduced for WIreless Health systems and is often the most
important fundamental component. For example, in the development of solutions for monitoring and
guiding human motion, signal processing methods extract sources of evidence from the data stream, referred
to as features. The value of these features, obtained from each sensor, may be provided as inputs to a
Bayesian classifier system or other choice of sensor fusion classifier. If the classifier system has been
configured with an accurate conditional probability table that links evidence to inferred state, then
classification accuracy is high.
This is a powerful method that enables the autonomous extraction of a model for motion from actual events
that then guides classification. The applicability of this technology is broad. It has provided solutions for
classification of motion, classification of user context and also methods for disease diagnosis.
However, sensor fusion depends fundamentally on system training where specific behaviors are produced and
labeled acccurately while sensor data is acquired. The sensor fusion training system is provided with this
“ground truth” combination of events and associated sensor data.
Management of the training system is critical. It must have these attributes:
1. Inherent remote guidance capability for subjects and caregivers in the healthcare
clinic or residential environment.
2. Inherent remote monitoring capability for assurance of proper operation
3. Methods for subject localization
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
This project will integrate:

1. Android smartphone system development
2. Motion sensor systems
3. Novel localization systems
The objective will be to develop a rapidly deployable, low cost system that may guida a user,
accurately track a user’s actions, acquire data, and ensure that system training data is captured with
high integrity.
SYSTEMS:
4. Embedded computing
6. Sensor fusion
TEAM MENTORS:
James Xu
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14. ADVANCED CONTEXT CLASSIFICATION EXPLOITING AMBIENT

ACTIVITY LEVEL
BACKGROUND
After treating a patient for one of the many life threatening ailments (such as stroke, heart surgery), medical
professionals are interested in knowing whether the patient discharged home is experiencing improvements in
their quality of life. While activity monitoring provides a measure of activity, we are also interested in knowing
if the patient is able to continue their daily lives by going to the supermarket, walking outside and travel to
other public areas. While there are GPS and other location technologies to be exploited, these are generally
expensive, require large energy, may not be available in many environments, and require effort in integrate
into existing systems. Further, an aim of this development is to avoid privacy concerns that may arise from
tracking.
Combined with activity monitoring, this could not only tell a medical professional whether the person is
active, but also if the person is successfully being active in public areas.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
This project aim is to provide a quantitative measure (in the form of a score) of a person’s ambient activity
level, through the use of a single microphone (or microphone arrays).
Through signal processing techniques we could derive a score that is monotonically increasing with increase
in background noise, which is indicative of increased ambient activity level.
SYSTEMS:
`
3. Sensor fusion
TEAM MENTORS:
James Xu
24
15. SMART EXERCISE BANDS WITH ANDROID TRAINING TRACKING

AND GUIDANCE
BACKGROUND
Resistance training is fundamental in rehabilitation where subjects must regain motor skills following stroke
for example, or as a result of a reduction in motor skills due to other disorders. Resistance training remains
important for well individuals and for athletes.
While resistance training machines and free weight systems are available, these often represent cost and safety
concerns. In addition, these do not include monitoring.
A need exists for adding accurate measurement capability to resistance training processes. This can have a
profound impact by enabling direct feedback on level of effort, ensuring compliance, and tracking fitness
advances.
This project will accomplish two objectives: 1) Development of resistance training tracking and guidance
leveraging Android technology, and 2) Development of resistance training systems based directly on low cost
and safe exercise band technology.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE:
1. Develop a system that provides the first accurate means for monitoring the force and
workload for exercise bands
2. Provide the end user with accurate and relevant sensory information about workout
intensity, technique, and duration while using an exercise band.
3. Development of a method for assessing fitness in subjects from those recovering
from disease conditions, to well individuals, to athletes.
4. Development of a system that integrates Smart Exercise Band technology with
Android guidance
5. Development of guidance methods that ensure compliance with protocol execution
6. Develop methods that provide a means to calibrate user response and recover from
usage errors.
7. Provide the end user with accurate feedback regarding training intensity.
SYSTEMS:
1. New exercise band systems that will integrate recently developed sensor technology
with Bluetooth interfaces
2. Android Platform
3. Thera-Band exercise bands. (http://www.thera-band.com/)
TEAM MENTOR:
Mahdi Ashktorab
25
16. MFIT - ENERGY HARVESTING
BACKGROUND
Measurement and advancement of fitness is one of the most fundamental objectives in healthcare. Fitness
assessment is critical in evaluating recovery and risk for the most important cardiovasculartory and respiratory
disease conditions. It is also critical in neurological rehabilitation. Conventional means require costly
equipment and expert guidance in laboratory conditions.
WHI has developed two platforms that may provide remote monitoring of fitness and operate in clinic rooms
or a residence. These are inherently accurate and low cost platforms. Clinical trials of these systems is
underway now.
The portability of mFit in a clinic or home will benefit from a system design that avoids the requirements for
battery energy storage and replacement.
A system that harvests energy from mFit will provide an important advance for healthcare applications.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
1. Develop energy requirements model based on usage profiles and required

functionlity.
2. Develop method for unobtrusive, low cost addition of energy harvesting systems to
the mFit exercise cycle.
3. Develop energy availability model.
4. Develop low cost power supply systems for mFit sensor and embedded computing
systems.
5. Develop power sources for associated Android devices.
SYSTEMS
1. mFit stationary cycle system

2. mFit sensor systems
3. Any required electronic, electromechanical, sensor, and embedded computing
systems
TEAM MENTOR:
Mahdi Ashktorab
26
17. MFIT - ANDROID REMOTE FITNESS ASSESSMENT AND REMOTE

GUIDANCE
BACKGROUND
Measurement and advancement of fitness is one of the most fundamental objectives in healthcare. Fitness
assessment is critical in evaluating recovery and risk for the most important cardiovasculartory and respiratory
disease conditions. It is also critical in neurological rehabilitation. Conventional means require costly
equipment and expert guidance in laboratory conditions.
WHI has developed two platforms that may provide remote monitoring of fitness and operate in clinic rooms
or a residence. These are inherently accurate and low cost platforms. Clinical trials of these systems is
underway now.
At this time, new technology is required to guide users to perform important, well-validated exercise tests that
apply submaximal effort to directly determine fitness. Most critically, these methods should not rely on
expert operators, but rather function independently, remotely, and in support of subjects who require a
straightforward, easily understood interface. These systems should also provide networked data archiving
capability.
This project can take advantage of a platform available now to produce this unique advance.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
1. Development of a method for assessing fitness in subjects from those recovering

from disease conditions, to well individuals, to athletes.
2. Development of a system that integrates mFit technology with Android guidance
3. Development of guidance methods that ensure compliance with protocol execution
4. Develop methods that provide a means to calibrate user response and recover from
usage errors.
5. Provide the end user with accurate feedback regarding training intensity.
6. Systems
7. mFit Stationary Cycle integrating recently developed sensor technology with
Bluetooth interfaces
8. Android Platform
27
18. MONITORING OF PRESCRIPTION COMPLIANCE FOR

ORTHOPEDIC DEVICES
BACKGROUND
Traditional wisdom argues that orthopedic patient outcomes improve significantly with increased compliance
with physician recommendations. However, such conclusions are notoriously difficult to support
conclusively, as prescription compliance is typically self-reported. Non-compliant patients may over-report
the frequency and duration of their use of prescribed orthopedic supports, resulting in highly skewed data.
Accurate monitoring of prescription compliance is of critical importance for a number of reasons. First, it
would enable for the very first time quantitative studies of patient outcome as related to usage of orthopedic
braces and supports. This will provide physicians with unprecedented data to guide selection of support
devices and prescribed amount of use. Second, accurate monitoring will entice patients to more strictly adhere
to prescribed device usage. This type of “coercion” has been proven to be effective in a number of related
fields and would likely yield tremendous benefits in patient outcomes.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
As an exploratory study, you will be tasked with equipping foot braces for toddlers with compliance
monitoring technology. These braces are used for post-operative recovery and correction for toddlers with
club feet. They are meant to be worn extensively at first, and then only during “night and naptime” as the
child grows older. Sadly, it is thought that many parents underuse the device. This can be due to ignorance of
prescribed use, toddler resistance to use, or laziness. Thus, it is critical to provide physicians with a device to
measure compliance with prescribed corrective measures.
Because parents who are using the device insufficiently can not be counted on to recharge batteries on a
monitoring device, it is necessary that such a device be capable of vigilantly monitoring compliance for the
entire three-month period between doctor’s visits. Thus, the primary difficulty associated with this project is
to provide the required monitoring capabilities at extremely low average power.
You will be asked to decide upon a suite of low-power sensors that will enable reliable detection of patient
use. These may include accelerometers, temperature sensors, pressure transducers, and a number of other
sensing modalities. It will be necessary to provide very high sensitivity and specificity and extremely low
power. Thus, you will likely need to determine efficient duty-cycling algorithms to provide long-term use
from a single battery charge.
28
SYSTEMS:
1. Low-power embedded computing
2. Sensor development and operation
3. Analog circuit design
4. Physiological monitoring
TEAM MENTORS:
Mahdi Ashktorab
Bijan Mapar
29
19. ACOUSTIC EMISSION FOR JOINT MONITORING
BACKGROUND
Recent recalls of two DePuy Metal-on-Metal (MoM) hip implant devices have heightened public awareness of
the increased susceptibility of such devices to early failure. An estimated 500,000 people in the US have
received MoM hip implants, and a recent study shows that the rates of surgical revision for such devices are
three to four times higher than those for devices made from different materials. Of all devices considered, the
DePuy articular surface replacement total hip implant had the highest revision rate. A staggering 29% of
patients have had it replaced within 6 years of their arthroscopy. These numbers indicate that MoM hips may
become the most extensive and costly medical implant recall since the recall of a widely used Medtronic heart
lead in 2007.
With these recent recalls of MoM devices and mounting evidence that similar devices may also be prone to
early failure, it will be critical to provide patients with adequate diagnostic and preoperative screening
methods. Current screening technology is primarily comprised of X-Ray imaging, Magnetic Resonance
Imaging (MRI), and blood screening. However, even in combination, these methods do not represent a
complete, sensitive, and specific diagnostic tool.
X-Ray imaging can determine the skeletal integrity of an implanted device. Improper positioning, bone
damage, and insufficient attachment between bone and implant can be detected using this method. X-Ray
imaging is widely available, fast, and relatively inexpensive. However, soft-tissue symptoms such as
pseudocancer and metallosis can not be detected.
Detection of such soft-tissue maladies is typically attempted through MRIs, as they provide superior soft
tissue contrast. Thus, MRI scans are a viable candidate for preoperative screening of MoM hip implants.
However, the use of MRIs for this purpose has only recently been investigated. In a small-scale prospective
study released in 2011, 31 patients with unexplained painful MoM hips were scanned using Metal Artifact
Reduction Sequence Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MARS MRI). Soft-tissue symptoms such as lesions,
muscle atrophy, and muscle edema were indentified in 27 of these patients. Thus, MARS MRI appears to be a
promising candidate for detection of soft-tissue disorders associated with MoM implants, but a significant
amount of validation and verification work remains. Until such work is completed, MRI-aided discovery of
soft-tissue symptoms in painful MoM hips does not yet sufficiently support an intervention.
Blood screening for chromium and cobalt ions has been widely researched as a potential diagnostic tool for
MoM implant patients. In one study, it was found that serum concentrations of these ions can be used as an
indicator for wear on the articular surfaces of MoM implants. However, the uncertain relationship between
elevated metal ion levels and implant failure limits the certainty of diagnoses based on such measurements. A
recent study of 176 MoM hip patients showed that an optimal a posteriori cobalt or chromium threshold of
4.97 ppb yielded sensitivity of 63% and specificity of 86% in predicting implant failure. This result clearly
validates the use of blood screening for cobalt and chromium ions as a diagnostic tool, but detection of
elevated levels alone remains insufficient grounds for invasive revision procedures.
Research Objective
Apart from pain, poor joint integrity, and swelling, another commonly reported symptom of failed MoM
implants is grinding, clunking, or squeaking of the device. The frequency of such symptoms indicates that
acoustic sensing may represent a new sensing modality to assist in diagnosing implant failure. Previous work
has focused on the use of acoustic emissions (AE) to determine structural integrity of implants and the
cement used to adhere them to bone, but the integrity of implant devices as a whole has rarely been
30
investigated.
You will be tasked with generating a sensor platform to enable investigation of the acoustic emissions of
MoM hip implants and the possible applicability of acoustic sensing devices for diagnosis and prediction of
implant failure. Initial research would be directed toward recording emissions from symptomatic and
asymptomatic MoM hips and using advanced data processing techniques to discover acoustic signatures and
properties attributable to failed implants. Critical to this work will be the design and implementation of
broadband passive and active acoustic and ultrasonic devices. This work will be carried out in collaboration
with the UCLA Orthopaedic Hospital, which hosts the world’s finest hip implant research facility. This
collaboration will provide critical access to implant devices, implant wear simulators, and premiere experts in
a number of fields.
The long-term objective of this research is to generate non-invasive, low-cost, effective, and fast tools for
diagnosis and prediction of implant failure. High quality acoustic and ultrasonic sensors are widely available,
and discovery of acoustic signatures in patient data can largely be accomplished autonomously with little
physician intervention. The availability of such a device would streamline the preoperative screening and
diagnosis of failed implants and could potentially improve diagnostic certainty.
SYSTEMS:
1. Acoustic and ultrasonic signal processing

2. Circuit design
3. Sensor device design
4. Broadband acoustic and ultrasonic transducers
TEAM MENTORS:
Henrik Borgstrom
Bijan Mapar
31
20. DIAGNOSIS OF ACL DEFICIENCY USING INERTIAL SENSING
BACKGROUND
Despite the high frequency of Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) tears, the diagnosis of such injuries is an
inexact science. Preliminary diagnoses are made by physicians based on a number of examinations, one of
which includes the pivot shift. I this test, a valgus and internal rotation force is applied to the extended knee,
which is subsequently flexed approximately 20-30 degrees. When performed correctly, this illicits a rotational
instability present in ACL damaged knees. Upon diagnosis of a torn ACL, patients are subjected to secondary
tests, including MRIs or other imaging techniques.
The pivot shift test presents a number of difficulties. First, it relies heavily on physician expertise. Not only is
the maneuver difficult to master, but the diagnosed grade of instability can vary heavily for one examiner to
the next. Second, the pivot shift yields very poor resolution, as it is graded on an integer scale of 0-4, where 0
represents a firm, healthy knee, and 4 represents extreme rotational instability. This rough granularity is due
to the difficulty of performing the maneuver and the variation between physicians. More precise evaluations
are critical in enabling quantitative patient outcome studies.
In a current large-scale, interdisciplinary study involving team members from the UCLA hospital, the
ASCENT laboratory, and UCLA biomechanics laboratories, inertial measurement units (IMUs) are being
used to provide more quantitative data from pivot shift evaluations; patients undergoing ACL repair surgeries
are subjected to pivot shift tests with gyroscopes attached to their heels. Their feet are taped rigidly in such a
way that they are locked relative to the tibia, meaning that the rotation of the gyroscopes accurately reflect
tibial rotation. Advanced processing techniques enable a number of metrics to be generated from this data,
and preliminary studies on cadaver knees and live patients appear very promising.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
You will be tasked with upgrading the brace and sensor system used for this study. The objective will be to
design and implement a system that is much smaller, more lightweight, and more comfortable for patient use.
Measurement of foot flexion during the pivot shift will increase sensing accuracy. Further, an Android
interface will allow physicians to observe data streams in real time. Selection of sensor and processor
platforms will be critical, as will choice of radio platform for real-time streaming of sensor data.
SYSTEMS:
3. Wireless networking
4. Mechanical design
TEAM MENTORS:
Henrik Borgrstrom
Bijan Mapar
32
21. DETAILED VERTEBRAE MEASUREMENT S YSTEM
BACKGROUND
Back injuries represent a major medical issue, and the financial impacts of such injuries are staggering.
Despite the high rate of occurrence of muscular and skeletal injury, surprisingly little is known about the
mechanical loads to which the spine is subjected during the course of normal activities. The UCLA
Orthopaedic Hospital is currently engaged in a number of research programs to characterize these loads and
the response they illicit in healthy and unhealthy spinal columns.
Their current experimental platform leverages 3D Motion Capture (MoCap) technology and LED markers to
accurately track individual vertebrae during mechanized applications of a variety of loads. Although highly
accurate, this system is expensive and time-consuming to operate, prone to occasional measurement failures,
and highly limited in the number of individual vertebrae that can be measure at once.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
You will be tasked with implementing a system to supplement or replace the current MoCap technology. This
will likely be based on Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs), in particular gyroscope devices. Initial studies will
be aimed at cadaver spinal columns subjected to loads in a similar fashion to studies performed at the
Orthopaedic hospital. However, the small size, light weight, and low cost of gyroscope devices will enable
you to develop portable measurement systems to measure spinal properties during daily activities. The
resulting data will be entirely novel and critical to back research communities. The back monitoring system
may include sensor modules, wireless data transmission, an Android system interface, and advanced signal
processing and activity recognition techniques.
SYSTEMS:
3. Wireless networked sensing
TEAM MENTORS:
Bijan Mapar
Mahdi Ashktorab
33
22. SMARTCAST: INSTRUMENTED CASTS FOR MONITORING AND

INTERVENTION DURING BONE HEALING
BACKGROUND
Subsequent to bone breaks or fractures, patients are typically fitted with a cast or other supportive device.
The purpose of such a device is to stabilize the broken bone to allow proper healing to occur. Such braces are
typically fitted in such a way that they provide firm contact with the skin surrounding the break, ensuring
proper support. However, due to inflammatory responses to the injury, the tissue surrounding the break can
be quite swollen. As the swelling subsides, the cast can become too large, resulting in voids and poor support
of the healing bone. In such cases patients can suffer fracture displacement, which occurs when the broken
bone, which has been positioned appropriately by a physician, displaces from its intended positioning. In
broken radial bones, angular displacements exceeding 30 degrees are possible.
Fracture displacement can have disastrous consequences. If the displacement is detected in time, the broken
bones can be reset in the intended position. This is an exceedingly painful procedure, often requiring
anesthesia. In a much worse scenario, fracture displacement is not detected until the bones have already
begun healing in a non-ideal configuration. In this case, the bone must sometimes be broken and reset again.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
Well-fitted casts and early detection and intervention in case of fracture displacement is critical in securing
positive patient outcomes. You will be tasked with instrumenting casts with a variety of sensors and actuators
to ensure proper cast fit. Optical systems, capacitive sensors and pressure transducers can be used to
determine the state of contact between the skin and the inside of the cast. You will also be tasked with
enabling automatic cast reconfiguration in response to detected voids. You may choose to do this by inflating
or deflating air bladders. Thus, sensing and control of air pressure may be necessary. Further, you will be
asked to develop algorithms to detect fracture displacement using this suite of sensors. The long duration of a
typical cast will require an energy efficient solution exploiting low-power embedded processing techniques
and efficient sensors.
This project will include a close collaboration with the UCLA Orthopaedic Hospital.
SYSTEMS
6. Control
7. Low-power computing
TEAM MENTORS:
Henrik Borgstrom
Bijan Mapar
34
23. DEEP S YSTEM MEASUREMENT INTEGRITY
BACKGROUND:
The DEEP platforms utilize direct energy measurements for each of the important computing components
including the CPU, memory modules and secondary storage. DEEP technology can have a profound impact
on on the operation of computing platforms from mobile devices through large scale data center systems.
DEEP enables high resolution sampling of energy dissipation in computing components with measurements
that are inherently synchronized with events executing in program sequences in both user space and operating
system kernel space.
DEEP systems have and will enable optimization of code development, system operation, and system design.
Clearly, the integrity of DEEP measurements is critical.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE:
This project focuses on the development of systems directed to ensuring integrity of measurements. This
includes both time and energy measurements.
Due to assembly inaccuracies, ambient conditions (for example, temperature), and aging of devices, the
measurement instrumentation such as the current sensing resistors need to be calibrated. However, active
means for probing energy dissipation is also critical.
Finally, it will be important to develop means to infer energy dissipation for devices that are supplied with
complex power sources.
This project will emphasize a combination of hardware and software development supporting the most
important systems in embedded computing.
SYSTEMS:
Hardware Systems: Complete DEEP platforms, reference measurement(s) or device(s).
Software: Complete DEEP systems now ready for deployment including automated calibration routines that
would utilize the reference measurement or device to calibrate the energy measurement instrumentation. A
means to verify the calibrated values to determine the effectiveness of the calibration methodology.
TEAM MENTOR:
Digvijay Singh
`
35
24. DEEP: ENERGY COST OF S YSTEM STORAGE
BACKGROUND
Secondary storage provides an important and unique challenge for energy measurement. Both the operating
system and the internal processors of modern disk drives can defer and schedule disk operations (like writes)
to improve their energy efficiency and performance. In this project, the primary objective is to characterize
the cost of these deferred operations by attributing their energy cost to the processes that are responsible for
them. In the case of CPU or memory, this is straightforward and is already provided by the DEEP platforms.
For secondary storage, a more intricate methodology would be required that could consist of:
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
Development of Direct Tracking of Disk and Solid State Storage Events: tracking of operations issued to the
disk by different processes and their correlation to actual operations taking place on the disk. Multiple
possibilities exist from data tagging to explicit synchronization signals from the disks (if supported by
hardware).
Development of Magnetic Disk and Solid State Storage Energy Models: in cases where direct tracking of disk
events is impossible, modeling of the energy consumption based on operation issued by different processes
can also be employed. This model can be trained using DEEP measurements and will then estimate the
energy cost from deferred disk operations for a process based on the operations it issues to the disk.
SYSTEMS:
Hardware Systems: Complete DEEP platforms, reference measurement(s) or device(s).
TEAM MENTOR:
Digvijay Singh
36
25. GREEN ANDROID
BACKGROUND
The DEEP platforms can be utilized to measure the energy efficiency of a wide range of applications like
competing web browsers. Furthermore, it can be utilized to identify features within applications that create
the greatest demands on energy. This project deals with the identification and rectification of such
inefficiencies in Android and possibly other common applications using the DEEP platforms.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
Use of DEEP tools (like energy calipers) to track and identify the energy consumption of various features of
the applications. Replacement or modification of features with large energy consumption. An optional
verification of effectiveness of methodology on a mobile device (like a smartphone or tablet).
TEAM MENTOR:
Digvijay Singh
37
26. ROBOTIC S YSTEMS: RELIABLE, LOW COST OBSTACLE DETECTION

USING ULTRASONIC RANGING
BACKGROUND
A current research initiative is to develop low-cost obstacle detection and avoidance systems for remotely
operated vehicles. To this end, we are currently working to develop ultrasonic ranging devices at sufficiently
low cost and mass. However, there are certain unavoidable shortcomings associated with this approach. First,
ultrasonic ranging devices inherently have a very low update rate. These devices rely on acoustic time of flight
to perform ranging: An ultrasonic pulse is emitted from a transducer, which subsequently enters receive mode
and waits for a reflected pulse to arrive. The distance to the nearest obstacle can be directly computed from
the elapsed time. A problem occurs when ultrasonic pulses are emitted too frequently: A reflection from
pulse n-1 may arrive at the transducer after emission of pulse n. This reflection would be associated with the
nth pulse, causing the device to sense an obstacle as much closer than it really is. Therefore, a transducer
must wait for a sufficient period of time to guarantee that all reflected energy has dissipated before initiating
another sensing cycle. This significantly limits the sampling rate, typically to 10-15 Hz. For multidirectional
sensing, this problem is further exacerbated, as the sampling rate in each direction is this overall limit divided
by the total number of sensors. Thus, a 6-directional sensing system may have update rates of less than 2Hz.
Another shortcoming associated with low-cost ultrasonic ranging technology is its susceptibility to spurious
outliers. To decrease cost and implementation complexity, decisions on whether a reflection has been
detected are made using Boolean comparisons of an amplified incoming signal and a preset threshold voltage.
No advanced signal processing is performed to detect peaks of ultrasonic energy. Sometimes, and for no
apparent reason, reflected pulses do not strike the transducer with sufficient energy for this threshold to be
exceeded. This results in an obstacle being undetected or being sensed as further away than it really is.
Further, multipath reflections from obstacles not in a sensor’s direction might arrive at the sensor before a
true reflection. In this case, an obstacle is detected where there really is none. Both of these conditions can
occur randomly and intermittently, and strategies must be used to mitigate this effect. These strategies
typically include redundant sensing, a strategy that is ill-suited to the very low sample rate to which ultrasonic
ranging limits us.
The mobile nature of the platforms being considered presents yet another difficulty. The platforms will
typically move at low speeds, so lateral translation represents only a minor problem in ranging. However, they
may rotate quite quickly, causing the map of obstacles “seen” by the device to rotate significantly between
readings. Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) can be used to compensate for this effect.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
You will be tasked with generating algorithms for maintaining accurate and reliable maps of the region
surrounding a mobile platform using range data from a set of ultrasonic sensors. You will be asked to
consider two classes of algorithms. The first class would be implemented on highly capable CPUs with
sufficient capacity for complex algorithms. These will not be prone to real-time constraints or particularly
tight constraints on memory or processing power. Particle filters and Monte Carlo methods may be
considered here.
The second class of algorithms would be for efficient, quasi-real-time implementation on low-cost, memory-
constrained 8-bit processors such as the ATMega series used on Arduino platforms. These will of course be
lower in complexity and may potentially be prone to degraded performance relative to the first class of
38
algorithms. However, it is likely that significant improvements in reliability over naïve approaches will be
possible.
NETWORKED EMBEDDED COMPUTING EXPERIENCE;
Successful projects will likely exploit skills in the following areas:

10. Robotics and mapping
11. Inertial sensing technology
TEAM MENTORS:
Henrik Borgstrom
Mahdi Ashktorab
39

Embedded Networked Systems Design EE202C Lecture 1 Introduction

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Embedded Networked Systems Design

EE202C Lecture 1: Introduction

NETWORKED EMBEDDED SYSTEMS DESIGN

1. COURSE INFORMATION .................................................................................................................................3

16. MFIT - ENERGY HARVESTING ..................................................................................................................26

RESEARCH PROGRAMS WITH UCLA STUDENTS:

COURSE WEB SITE

WEEKLY GROUP MEETINGS AND OFFICE HOURS

2. EE202C AND STUDENT SUCCESS

• Opportunity for fundamental innovations and research advances

o 2011: Best Paper Aware at Wireless Health 2011

• Example Projects in 2011

• Methods for Success

• New Grading Plans

• New Linux and LEAP Embedded System Laboratory (demonstration grading)

• ENS: an ideal embedded computing design problem

o Experience in development of autonomous, self-organized embedded systems

• Introduction and experience with system internals

• Course Design Project

4. CRITICAL FIRST ASSIGNMENT

• Partner assignment for laboratories

• Critical to start now and avoid delay

BACKGROUND AND INTERESTS E-MAIL

3. Specific interests in research projects in these areas

• Embedded Networked Sensing Platforms Chapter 13

• Select Team Partner – URGENT

• Will require partners for assignments

• ee202C Web Page for Reporting

§ documents (presentation and reports)

§ Identify contributions for each report from each team member

5. GRADING AND RESPONSIBILITIES

1) Objective Component and Responsibilities

6. LABORATORY PROJECT WORK

1) Each student will join a group of two

2) Introduction to EE202C Projects

3) ENS Embedded Computing Platforms

5) ENS Embedded Computing Operating Systems

6) The Linux Operating System

7) ARM Embedded Computing Platforms

8) ARM Embedded Code Optimization

9) Intel Atom Architecture

10) Embedded Multicore System Optimization

11) New Linux diagnostics systems

13) Interrupt Services

15) Synchronization in the Kernel

h. Energy-efficient locking in multicore

16) Process management

17) Memory Management

18) Embedded Storage Systems

19) Boot Systems

20) Other Topics to be distributed as Appendices

8. CRITICAL RESOURCES FOR EE202C

Wireless Health Overview on Human Motion Monitoring

Android Tutorials and Laboratories: James Xu and Maxim Batalin

9. WIRELESS HEALTH PROJECTS OVERVIEW

10. ENERGY EFFICIENCY COMPUTING PROJECTS OVERVIEW

11. ADVANCED HUMAN MOTION ANALYSIS: EXPLOITING INERTIAL

12. ADVANCED HUMAN MOTION ANALYSIS: EXPLOITING INERTIAL

13. ADVANCED S YSTEM TRAINING FOR SENSOR FUSION – ANDROID

This project will integrate:

14. ADVANCED CONTEXT CLASSIFICATION EXPLOITING AMBIENT

15. SMART EXERCISE BANDS WITH ANDROID TRAINING TRACKING

16. MFIT - ENERGY HARVESTING

1. Develop energy requirements model based on usage profiles and required