Jay D. Carlson

A low-cost, reliable, high-throughput system for rodent behavioral phenotyping in a home cage environment

Inexpensive, high-throughput, low maintenance systems for precise temporal and spatial measurement of mouse home cage behavior (including movement, feeding, and drinking) are required to evaluate products from large scale pharmaceutical design and genetic lesion programs. These measurements are also required to interpret results from more focused behavioral assays. We describe the design and validation of a highly-scalable, reliable mouse home cage behavioral monitoring system modeled on a previously described, one-of-a-kind system [1]. Mouse position was determined by solving static equilibrium equations describing the force and torques acting on the system strain gauges; feeding events were detected by a photobeam across the food hopper, and drinking events were detected by a capacitive lick sensor. Validation studies show excellent agreement between mouse position and drinking events measured by the system compared with video-based observation - a gold standard in neuroscience.

Smart watch RSSI localization and refinement for behavioral classification using laser-SLAM for mapping and fingerprinting.

As a first step toward building a smart home behavioral monitoring system capable of classifying a wide variety of human behavior, a wireless sensor network (WSN) system is presented for RSSI localization. The low-cost, non-intrusive system uses a smart watch worn by the user to broadcast data to the WSN, where the strength of the radio signal is evaluated at each WSN node to localize the user. A method is presented that uses simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) for system calibration, providing automated fingerprinting associating the radio signal strength patterns to the users location within the living space. To improve the accuracy of localization, a novel refinement technique is introduced that takes into account typical movement patterns of people within their homes. Experimental results demonstrate that the system is capable of providing accurate localization results in a typical living space.

Design and implementation of a low-cost embedded Linux gateway for smart home health monitoring

Many wireless sensor network applications require a gateway device to interface with services running on the Internet. Because of the software complexity involved in this device, it is often realized using a real-time operating system running on an application processor. Most systems burden the user with developing the protocol handling and device configuration and management inside the application. In this paper, we present the Angelos Gateway - a turnkey, low-cost, Linux-powered WSN gateway that provides a socket-based environment for rapid network-enabled application development. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed device is capable of high-throughput packet I/O confirming the efficacy of the proposed implementation.

Exploring the microsoft .NET micro framework for prototyping applied Wireless Sensor Networks

Most Wireless Sensor Network platforms - such as the Mica, Iris, and Telos B families of motes - use low-power 8-bit microprocessors which have limited memory and processing capabilities, thus requiring researchers to implement communication protocols and data processing routines using low-level programming practices that are tedious and cumbersome. Rich features available in modern desktop operating systems - such as threads, memory management, and exception-handling - are largely absent. The Microsoft .NET Micro Framework implements a scaled-back .NET framework suitable for development on low-cost, low-power wireless sensors, while providing developers a rapid software development environment for prototyping embedded applications. Here, this technology is explored by comparing performance characteristics with those of traditional 8-bit platforms, as well as Sun SPOT, a popular platform that also uses a managed-language runtime. The .NET Micro Framework platform was found to offer researchers the most flexibility in terms of hardware and software prototyping.

A Four-DOF Laparo-Endoscopic Single Site Platform for Rapidly-Developing Next-Generation Surgical Robotics

Minimally-invasive laparoscopic procedures have proven efficacy for a wide range of surgical procedures, but have notable shortcomings, including limited instrument motion and reduced dexterity. Endoscopic robots, like the intuitive surgical da Vinci system, have become an effective tool for many types of surgeries; however, these tools still have fundamental limitations with manipulator access, which reduces their effectiveness for many surgical procedures, like colectomy, cholecystectomy, and gynecologic oncology. Laparo-endoscopic single-site (LESS) robots operate in vivo, and overcome many of these limitations. Here, a four-degrees of freedom (DOF) surgical robot is presented as a tool to enable refinement of the LESS platform as a surgical tool, while also looking forward to applications in telesurgery and haptic feedback.

A compact high-definition low-cost digital stereoscopic video camera for rapid robotic surgery development.

Robotic surgical platforms require vision feedback systems, which often consist of low-resolution, expensive, single-imager analog cameras. These systems are retooled for 3D display by simply doubling the cameras and outboard control units. Here, a fully-integrated digital stereoscopic video camera employing high-definition sensors and a class-compliant USB video interface is presented. This system can be used with low-cost PC hardware and consumer-level 3D displays for tele-medical surgical applications including military medical support, disaster relief, and space exploration.

Tracking of group-housed pigs using multi-ellipsoid expectation maximisation

Maintaining the health and well-being of animals is critical to the efficiency and profitability of livestock operations. However, it can be difficult to monitor the health of animals in large group-housed settings without the assistance of technology. This study presents a system that uses depth images to continuously track individual pigs in a group-housed environment. It is an alternative to traditional manual observation used by both researchers and producers for the analysis of animal activities and behaviours. The tracking method used by the system exploits the consistent shape and fixed number of the targets in the environment by applying expectation maximisation as a policy for fitting an ellipsoid to each target. Results demonstrate that the system can maintain the correct positions and orientations of 15 group-housed pigs for an average of 19.7 min between failure events.

Characterizing the RF performance of the eZ430-Chronos wrist watch

The Texas Instruments eZ430-Chronos development kit is a popular wireless platform for researchers, commercial developers, and hobbyists. Built into the form factor of a standard wrist watch, the Chronos is ideal for wireless body area networks (WBANs), indoor localization, and activity detection. Many of these applications requires knowledge of the RF performance of the platform, which has never been characterized by Texas Instruments nor any third parties. Here, we provide experimental data characterizing the RF performance of the eZ430-Chronos watch in various configurations, including when worn by a person while sitting, standing, and reaching. The RF performance of the Chronos watch is compared with an Angelos Ambient wireless mote that uses a common type of ceramic chip antenna. Our results indicate the Chronos has excellent omnidirectionality and reasonably good RF gain in all tested configurations.

Improved microcontroller-based electronic respiratory training

Respiratory training is a critical component of many rehabilitation plans, including those of stroke patients. Many current respiratory training techniques lack efficient methods for quantifying progress and updating testing parameters. A previously-developed microcontroller-based device, designed in conjunction with clinicians at the Institute for Rehabilitation Science and Engineering at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital, has demonstrated promising results. Here, a prototype of a revised device that is network connected and remoatly sends trial information is presented. The proposed device demonstrates enhanced functionality, while being smaller and using less power than the original prototype.