Joshua Adkins

The Internet of Things Has a Gateway Problem

The vision of an Internet of Things (IoT) has captured the imagination of the world and raised billions of dollars, all before we stopped to deeply consider how all these Things should connect to the Internet. The current state-of-the-art requires application-layer gateways both in software and hardware that provide application-specific connectivity to IoT devices. In much the same way that it would be difficult to imagine requiring a new web browser for each website, it is hard to imagine our current approach to IoT connectivity scaling to support the IoT vision. The IoT gateway problem exists in part because todays gateways conflate network connectivity, in-network processing, and user interface functions. We believe that disentangling these functions would improve the connectivity potential for IoT devices. To realize the broader vision, we propose an architecture that leverages the increasingly ubiquitous presence of Bluetooth Low Energy radios to connect IoT peripherals to the Internet. In much the same way that WiFi access points revolutionized laptop utility, we envision that a worldwide deployment of IoT gateways could revolutionize application-agnostic connectivity, thus breaking free from the stove-piped architectures now taking hold. In this paper, we present our proposed architecture, show example applications enabled by it, and explore research challenges in its implementation and deployment.

Ving: Bootstrapping the Desktop Area Network with a Vibratory Ping

The emergence of the Internet of Things will cause the density of wirelessly networked devices to increase significantly. As the industry and density continue to grow, enabling and managing networks of these devices in a scalable manner without constant user interaction becomes essential. Noting that information about physical context can guide interactions between devices, we introduce the desktop area network and Ving, a vibratory ping architecture that enables it. Ving is based on the wireless vibratory communications channel between a vibratory motor on one device and an accelerometer on another. Because vibratory communications is a physically-coupled, surface-constrained communications domain, Ving allows devices to bootstrap networks within their physical context, creating a literal desktop area network. Such context establishment and network creation enables a new class of applications for smartphones and embedded devices. We present several of these applications, discuss our preliminary implementation of Ving, compare Ving to alternate methods of context establishment, and suggest potential research challenges stemming from the widespread use of Ving.

The Signpost Network: Demo Abstract

The era of city-scale sensing is dawning. Supported by new sensing capabilities, the capability to detect and measure phenomena throughout a large area will allow deeper insight and understanding into how cities work. The challenge of city-scale sensing is not limited to developing new sensing applications, however. A sensor must be installed in a location. It must be provided power, storage, and communications. All these tasks stand aside from the desired sensing effort, but are necessary nevertheless. In this demo, we introduce an initial prototype for a modular, city-scale sensing platform---the signpost network. The platform, designed to be physically attached to sign posts throughout a city, reduces the burden for sensor and application developers by providing the necessary resources to modules attached to it. Power is provided by harvesting from solar panels with battery storage, with each module allocated a certain subset of the system energy. The signpost platform also provides data storage, long-range communication, data processing, module isolation, and an installation point for connected modules. The signpost acts as a modular base station for researchers, citizen scientists, and other interested parties to deploy custom sensors for applications such as pedestrian counting, air quality monitoring, and RF spectrum sensing at a city-wide scale.

Demo: PolyPoint: High-Precision Indoor Localization with UWB

We demonstrate PolyPoint, a high-fidelity RF-based indoor localization system that achieves 28~cm accuracy indoors and tracks a fast-moving quadcopter with only 56~cm average error. PolyPoint uses ultra-wideband signals to achieve high precision RF time-of-flight estimates between nodes. To further improve accuracy, PolyPoint exploits two forms of diversity: frequency diversity, which leverages several ultra-wideband channels to improve channel response, and antenna diversity, which adds three antennas at 120 degree offsets to mitigate the effects of antenna polarization and nulls. PolyPoint introduces an efficient, novel ranging protocol that maximizes these diversity sources with a minimal number of packets. Additionally, this work introduces a new hardware platform that provides ranging and localization as a service. The minimal TriPoint module integrates an ultra-wideband transceiver and microcontroller with firmware that implements the protocol. The TriTag carrier board adds Bluetooth and batteries to create a complete mobile tag, and the TriBase anchor platform integrates a TriPoint with an Intel Edison to act as anchors for the system.

The Signpost Platform for City-Scale Sensing

City-scale sensing holds the promise of enabling a deeper understanding of our urban environments. However, a city-scale deployment requires physical installation, power management, and communications all challenging tasks standing between a good idea and a realized one. This indicates the need for a platform that enables easy deployment and experimentation for applications operating at city scale. To address these challenges, we present Signpost, a modular, energy-harvesting platform for city-scale sensing. Signpost simplifies deployment by eliminating the need for connection to wired infrastructure and instead harvesting energy from an integrated solar panel. The platform furnishes the key resources necessary to support multiple, pluggable sensor modules while providing fair, safe, and reliable sharing in the face of dynamic energy constraints. We deploy Signpost with several sensor modules, showing the viability of an energy-harvesting, multi-tenant, sensing system, and evaluate its ability to support sensing applications. We believe Signpost reduces the difficulty inherent in city-scale deployments, enables new experimentation, and provides improved insights into urban health.

Demo: Michigan's IoT Toolkit

Building connected, pervasive, human-facing, and responsive applications that incorporate local sensors, smartphone interactions, device actuation, and cloud-based learning--the promised features of the Internet of Things (IoT)---requires a complete suite of tools spanning both hardware and software. We present a set of these pieces, including a gateway, four hardware building blocks, multiple sensor platforms, an indoor localization system, and software for connecting users and devices. Each piece plays an integral role towards enabling applications, from facilitating rapid development of wireless smart devices to composing data streams and services from a diverse set of components. By providing layered interoperable systems, our toolkit offers cohesive support for moving beyond single-device, cloud-centric applications---typical in todays IoT landscape--and towards richer applications that incorporate multiple data streams, human interaction, cloud processing, location awareness, multiple communication protocols, historical data, access control, and on-demand user interfaces. To show how the pieces in the toolkit cooperate, we demonstrate a location-based access control application where a users smartphone can control a rooms lighting, but only from within the room. Further, data streams from the phone and nearby sensors are used to provide a constant lighting service which attempts to maintain a user-set brightness under variable external lighting conditions.

Demo Abstract: Applications on the Signpost Platform for City-Scale Sensing

City-scale sensing holds the promise of enabling deeper insight into how our urban environments function. Applications such as observing air quality and measuring traffic flows can have powerful impacts, allowing city planners and citizen scientists alike to understand and improve their world. However, the path from conceiving applications to implementing them is fraught with difficulty. A successful city-scale deployment requires physical installation, power management, and communications-all challenging tasks standing between a good idea and a realized one. The Signpost platform, presented at IPSN 2018, has been created to address these challenges. Signpost enables easy deployment by relying on harvested, solar energy and wireless networking rather than their wired counterparts. To further lower the bar to deploying applications, the platform provides the key resources necessary to support its pluggable sensor modules in their distributed sensing tasks. In this demo, we present the Signpost hardware and several applications running on a deployment of Signposts on UC Berkeleys campus, including distributed, energy-adaptive traffic monitoring and fine grained weather reporting. Additionally we show the cloud infrastructure supporting the Signpost deployment, specifically the ability to push new applications and parameters down to existing sensors, with the goal of demonstrating that the existing deployment can serve as a future testbed.

Applications on the signpost platform for city-scale sensing: demo abstract

City-scale sensing holds the promise of enabling deeper insight into how our urban environments function. Applications such as observing air quality and measuring traffic flows can have powerful impacts, allowing city planners and citizen scientists alike to understand and improve their world. However, the path from conceiving applications to implementing them is fraught with difficulty. A successful city-scale deployment requires physical installation, power management, and communications---all challenging tasks standing between a good idea and a realized one. The Signpost platform, presented at IPSN 2018, has been created to address these challenges. Signpost enables easy deployment by relying on harvested, solar energy and wireless networking rather than their wired counterparts. To further lower the bar to deploying applications, the platform provides the key resources necessary to support its pluggable sensor modules in their distributed sensing tasks. In this demo, we present the Signpost hardware and several applications running on a deployment of Signposts on UC Berkeleys campus, including distributed, energy-adaptive traffic monitoring and fine grained weather reporting. Additionally we show the cloud infrastructure supporting the Signpost deployment, specifically the ability to push new applications and parameters down to existing sensors, with the goal of demonstrating that the existing deployment can serve as a future testbed.

Monoxalyze: Verifying Smoking Cessation with a Keychain-sized Carbon Monoxide Breathalyzer

We present Monoxalyze, a keychain-sized, Bluetooth-based, carbon monoxide breathalyzer that aims to enable mobile, scalable smoking cessation intervention programs. These intervention programs have been shown to greatly increase the rate of a quit attempt, which in turn decreases the rate of smoking, a major public health problem that still affects over one billion people around the world. Currently, intervention programs verify cessation compliance by requiring program participants to periodically visit clinics and exhale through large, expensive carbon monoxide breathalyzers---a practice that cannot scale to one billion smokers. Monoxalyze enables mobile cessation verification by working with a users smartphone to establish a ring of spatio-temporal transitive trust between the Monoxalyze device, the user, and the smartphone, a concept that can be applied to many third-party monitoring applications. In Monoxalyze, the links of this trust are represented by simultaneous exhalation verification, facial recognition, and device-to-phone visible light authentication. In our evaluation, we show that Monoxalyze lasts over 80 days between charges, and has the ability to verify a Monoxalyze user. With a small user study we show that Monoxalyze determines smoking cessation with 92% accuracy, a level comparable with commercial CO breathalyzers. Further contributions describe the design decisions behind creating a low-power BLE device.

Demo: Browsing the Web of Things with Summon

We are becoming increasingly surrounded by smart and connected devices, popularly known as the Internet of Things. The emerging user interface paradigm for many such things eschews physical buttons, knobs, and displays in favor of virtual interfaces that are downloaded from the web and rendered on remote platforms---like smartphones. However, such smartphone app-based interfaces often require tedious discovery and installation, as well as device discovery, pairing, and configuration before a user can interact with a nearby device. Requiring an explicit app install for each new device type scales poorly with device growth, and particularly hinders casual interactions with ambient devices. Instead of the high-friction, walled-garden approach now taking root, we propose name, a physical web browser that provides a seamless, scalable approach to browsing and interacting with nearby things. name leverages multiple network patterns and modern web technologies to provide users with rich device interfaces, even for devices under network or power constraints. We argue that this approach scales better and that it provides more intuitive and natural functionality for both users and developers. This demo presents the basic concept, allows others to experience our preliminary implementation, and raises several open research questions.