Cogent has published a number of technical reports exploring various research themes (see below).
Internal Reports List: COGENT.001, COGENT.002 , COGENT.006
Ramona Rednic, John Kemp, James Brusey, Elena Gaura
Due to the large number of degrees of freedom of the human body, posture monitoring
of human during activity regimes presents many research challenges. Several
research groups world wide have engaged with the development of low-power
wireless body sensor networks that are capable of providing real-time posture
tracking for a variety of applications, such as dance and sports. The work reported
here is concerned with the development of a wireless body sensor network that, as
opposed to posture tracking, can: a) provide the identification and classification of
eight human postures (standing, kneeling, sitting, crawling, walking, laying down
on front and back, and laying on one side) in real-time and b) is able to relate this
information wirelessly to a remote monitoring point. Posture information is an essential
part of monitoring operatives in safety critical missions. The work sits within
a larger project aiming to increase general safety of operatives in bomb disposal
missions.
The goal of the posture body sensor network developed here is to identify the
eight named postures using data from nine accelerometers placed at various sites
on the human body. A prototype implementation which fulfills the goal has been
produced and evaluated and is reported.
Read the full report. Cogent Internal Report 006
Dan Goldsmith, Elena Gaura, James Brusey, James Shuttleworth, Nigel Poole
A critical aspect of modern condition-based maintenance (CBM) systems is the
provision of detailed, accurate and reliable sensing for the part, or subsystem
under observation. Existing thermocouple based flow sensing systems for gas
turbine engines deal effectively with the multipoint measurement of the high
temperatures involved, however, due to the need for low added weight, they
only provide averaged temperature data over a single heavy duty cable. The
conflicting measurement system requirements of low weight and detailed, high
rate, robust, multipoint measurement can be mitigated through the use of wireless
instrumentation. This technical report describes a prototype system that
explores the use of multiple wirelessly networked sensors to deliver detailed
spatial-temporal flow temperature information to enable CBM and enhance informational
output from engine testing.
Tessa Daniel
Regardless of the application domain and deployment scope, the ability to retrieve information
is critical to the successful functioning of any wireless sensor network (WSN)
system. In general, information extraction procedures can be categorized into three
main approaches: agent-based, query-based and macroprogramming.Of the three,
query-based systems are the most popular mainly because they provide a usable,
high level interface to the sensor network while abstracting away some of the low
level details like the network topology and radio communication. In contrast, macroprogramming
provides a more general-purpose approach to distributed computation
compared to traditional query-based approaches and focus on programming the network
as a whole rather than programming the individual devices that form the network.
The agent-based approach tailors the information extraction mechanism to the type of
information needed and the configuration of the network it needs to be extracted from.
This report surveys extensively the literature in the area of WSN information extraction,
highlights the benefits of in-network processing and proposes a novel hybrid approach
that incorporates query and macroprogramming techniques for information extraction
in large-scale, informational systems. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated
through simulation.
Read the full report. Cogent Internal Report 002
John Kemp
The goal of the project presented in the report is to develop a wearable wireless sensing
system suitable for deployment in manned bomb disposal missions. The
system will be capable of making in-network autonomous decisions related to
the actuation of the cooling system within the suit, to increase the comfort of
the wearer. In addition, it will allow an external observer to remotely monitor the
health and comfort of the operative.
Results are presented from a series of experimental runs performed using a
prototype sensing system. The need for timely application of in-suit cooling is
shown, as well as the importance of monitoring the overall health of the wearer
of the suit.
Read the full report. Cogent Internal Report 001