Towards a Platform for Widespread Embedded Intelligence - ERCIM

taking pictures at an event to merge their
captures and provide a complete collection.
Another interesting use of collaborative
capture is to use several nodes to
increase the quality or the accuracy of a
given data, by combining their individual
data.
These applications, which can appear
simple, raised difficult issues. Context
descriptions of available resources and
on-going capture processes should be
accurate enough to allow sharing,
without overloading the local communication
medium to allow their efficient
distribution on-the-field. Obviously, pri-
Autarkic Power Generation
for Networked Systems
by Eberhard Mueller and Ulrich Hofman
vacy is a big issue. For example, you
may agree to share the pictures you are
taking at a given event with only a few of
the people present, but not the pictures
taken an hour ago in another context.
Traditional security, with authorisations,
is difficult to apply in practice in the context
of spontaneous interactions with
new and potentially unknown nodes.
Innovative approaches, based for
example on more dynamic notions such
as trust and behaviour, have to be investigated
before practical security mechanism
for these systems can be found. In
relation to trust, we must be able to rank
the quality of the contributions, which
A research project funded by the FIT-IT programme of the Austrian ministry for
traffic, innovation and technology (BMVIT) investigates the potential of different
energy sources for communication purposes, especially for out-door activities.
The economic relevance of this research
activity can easily be seen by examining
the efforts companies take to optimise
the energy consumption of embedded
devices. The use of alternative energy
supply, like Piezo-Elements or Thermo-
Elements, will thus be a great chance to
achieve this goal so as to minimise costs
and to make devices independent from
external energy supply.
Figure 1: Logical components of Unified Model.
Energy management is not only considered
in terms of minimising the energy
consumption, but also as finding additional
ways for energy to be supplied.
Furthermore, the energy-consuming
activities are bound to the current status
of energy production and the current cost
functions. For example, energy consuming
communication tasks are carried
out not continuously, but at optimal
SPECIAL THEME: Embedded Intelligence
may include poor data, or even false
data. Worse, the very notion of ubiquitous
capture can be frightening: the
potential capture activity of anyone, anywhere
may change social relations
between people. It's too late to do anything
about that, this distributed infrastructure
is already in our pockets!
Link:
http://www.irisa.fr/aces/
Please contact:
Paul Couderc, INRIA-IRISA, France
E-mail: paul.couderc@inria.fr
opportunities by episodic transmission
protocols. This principle is verified using
two very different application scenarios:
skis and bicycles.
The scientific aim of the project is to
develop an innovative integrated framework
and tool for modelling the energy
and communication processes in networked
embedded systems. Today's
modelling approaches and tools are
based on a combination of discreet modelling
of the communication processes
and an underlying model describing the
energy consumption. The modelling and
simulation of the energy processes in
sinks (sensors, actuators, physical communication)
and sources (generator, battery)
are realised by means of continuous
models.
This two-paradigm approach has its disadvantages:
• Handling two modelling approaches
and isolated tools is difficult for the
researchers/engineers and increases
the duration of the development cycle.
• Interfaces between different modelling
approaches/tools have a potential for
misinterpretation by the experts in
their respective domain.
ERCIM News No. 67, October 2006 43