Mathew Laibowitz

CargoNet: a low-cost micropower sensor node exploiting quasi-passive wakeup for adaptive asychronous monitoring of exceptional events

This paper describes CargoNet, a system of low-cost, micropower active sensor tags that seeks to bridge the current gap between wireless sensor networks and radio-frequency identification (RFID). CargoNet was aimed at applications in environmental monitoring at the crate and case level for supply-chain management and asset security. Custom-designed circuits and sensors were utilized to minimize power consumption and cost in a practical prototype. The CargoNet nodes are capable of asynchronous multimodal wakeup on exceptional events at extremely low power (Quasi-Passive Wakeup) with adjustable thresholds that adapt to dynamic environments. Accordingly, CargoNet has been seen to monitor, log, and report conditions inside a typical shipping crate while consuming under 25 microwatts of average power. To demonstrate the feasibility of the prototype system, several tests and deployments were conducted in the laboratory and aboard various transport conveyances.

Parasitic mobility for pervasive sensor networks

Distributed sensor networks offer many new capabilities for contextually monitoring environments. By making such systems mobile, we increase the application-space for the distributed network mainly by providing dynamic context-dependent deployment, continual relocatability, automatic node recovery, and a larger area of coverage. In existing models, the addition of actuation to the nodes has exacerbated three of the main problems with distributed systems: power usage, node size, and node complexity. In this paper we propose a solution to these problems in the form of parasitically actuated nodes that harvest their mobility and local navigational intelligence by selectively engaging and disengaging from mobile hosts in their environment. We analyze the performance of parasitically mobile distributed networks through software simulations and design, implement, and demonstrate hardware prototypes.

Identifying and facilitating social interaction with a wearable wireless sensor network

We have designed a highly versatile badge system to facilitate a variety of interaction at large professional or social events and serve as a platform for conducting research into human dynamics. The badges are equipped with a large LED display, wireless infrared and radio frequency networking, and a host of sensors to collect data that we have used to develop features and algorithms aimed at classifying and predicting individual and group behavior. This paper overviews our badge system, describes the interactions and capabilities that it enabled for the wearers, and presents data collected over several large deployments. This data is analyzed to track and socially classify the attendees, predict their interest in other people and demonstration installations, profile the restlessness of a crowd in an auditorium, and otherwise track the evolution and dynamics of the events at which the badges were run.

Wearable Sensing for Dynamic Management of Dense Ubiquitous Media

Most visions of ubiquitous computing anticipate a world permeated by a dense sampling of sensors, many of which will be capable of capturing, analyzing, and transmitting personally relevant and potentially privacy-sensitive media, such as video, audio, and identification information. This paper describes a set of sensor platforms that we have designed to experiment with personalization, interaction, and control in such dense media capture environments.

Dynamic privacy management in pervasive sensor networks

This paper describes the design and implementation of a dynamic privacy management system aimed at enabling tangible privacy control and feedback in a pervasive sensor network. Our work began with the development of a potentially invasive sensor network (with high resolution video, audio, and motion tracking capabilities) featuring different interactive applications that created incentive for accepting this network as an extension of peoples daily social space. A user study was then conducted to evaluate several privacy management approaches - an active badge system for both online and on-site control, on/off power switches for physically disabling the hardware, and touch screen input control. Results from a user study indicated that an active badge for on-site privacy control is the most preferable method among all provided options. We present a set of results that yield insight into the privacy/benefit tradeoff from various sensing capabilities in pervasive sensor networks and how privacy settings and user behavior relate in these environments.

Multimedia content creation using societal-scale ubiquitous camera networks and human-centric wearable sensing

We present a novel approach to the creation of user-generated, documentary video using a distributed network of sensor-enabled video cameras and wearable on-body sensor devices. The wearable sensors are used to identify the subjects in view of the camera system and label the captured video with real-time human-centric social and physical behavioral information. With these labels, massive amounts of continually recorded video can be browsed, searched, and automatically stitched into cohesive multimedia content. This system enables naturally occurring human behavior to drive and control a multimedia content creation system in order to create video output that is understandable, informative, and/or enjoyable to its human audience. The collected sensor data is further utilized to enhance the created multimedia content such as by using the data to edit and/or generate audio score, determine appropriate pacing of edits, and control the length and type of audio and video transitions directly from the content of the captured media. We present the design of the platform, the design of the multimedia content creation application, and the evaluated results from several live runs of the complete system.

Experiences and challenges in deploying potentially invasive sensor systems for dynamic media applications

This paper describes a series of projects that explore a set of dynamic media applications built upon a potentially invasive sensor system — the Ubiquitous Media Portal, featuring high-resolution video and audio capture with user ID/tracking capabilities that we installed throughout our facility. In addition to sensors, the portals provide a display and loudspeaker to locally display information or manifest phenomena from virtual worlds. During an eight-month long period, we implemented four different applications to explore acceptance by our buildingwide users. Our results provide insight into how different levels of information presentation and perceived user control can influence the user acceptance and engagement with such sensor platforms in ubiquitous deployments.