Girts Strazdins

Bio: Girts Strazdins is an academic researcher from Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The author has contributed to research in topics: Wireless sensor network & Key distribution in wireless sensor networks. The author has an hindex of 8, co-authored 18 publications receiving 592 citations. Previous affiliations of Girts Strazdins include University of Latvia & Aalesund University College.

Real time pothole detection using Android smartphones with accelerometers

Abstract: The importance of the road infrastructure for the society could be compared with importance of blood vessels for humans. To ensure road surface quality it should be monitored continuously and repaired as necessary. The optimal distribution of resources for road repairs is possible providing the availability of comprehensive and objective real time data about the state of the roads. Participatory sensing is a promising approach for such data collection. The paper is describing a mobile sensing system for road irregularity detection using Android OS based smart-phones. Selected data processing algorithms are discussed and their evaluation presented with true positive rate as high as 90% using real world data. The optimal parameters for the algorithms are determined as well as recommendations for their application.

LynxNet: wild animal monitoring using sensor networks

Abstract: Monitoring wild animals, especially those that are becoming endangered (for example, lynxes and wolves) is important for biology researchers. Solutions for the monitoring already exist; however, they all have drawbacks, such as limited range or lifetime, sensing modality, reporting delays, unreliability of operation. In this work we describe our experiences in designing an improved animal monitoring sensor system and low-level software for sensor node control and communication. The target animals for this particular research are wild lynxes or canines, however it can be extended to other animal species. The LynxNet system is based on tracking collars, built around TMote Mini sensor nodes, sensors, GPS and 433MHz radio, and stationary base stations, placed at the locations that are frequented by the animals. We present preliminary field results of our radio communication range tests.

Wireless Sensor Network Operating System Design Rules Based on Real-World Deployment Survey

Abstract: Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been a widely researched field since the beginning of the 21st century. The field is already maturing, and TinyOS has established itself as the de facto standard WSN Operating System (OS). However, the WSN researcher community is still active in building more flexible, efficient and user-friendly WSN operating systems. Often, WSN OS design is based either on practical requirements of a particular research project or research group's needs or on theoretical assumptions spread in the WSN community. The goal of this paper is to propose WSN OS design rules that are based on a thorough survey of 40 WSN deployments. The survey unveils trends of WSN applications and provides empirical substantiation to support widely usable and flexible WSN operating system design.

RoadMic: Road Surface Monitoring Using Vehicular Sensor Networks with Microphones

Abstract: Road surface analysis including pothole reports is an important problem for road maintainers and drivers. In this paper we propose a methodology for pothole detection using mobile vehicles equipped with off the shelf microphone and global positioning devices attached to an on-board computer. The approach is generic enough to be extended for other kind of event detection using different sensors as well. The vehicles are driving on public streets and measuring pothole induced sound signals. Our approach was tested and evaluated by real world experiments in a road segment for which we had established the ground truth beforehand. The results show pothole detection with high accuracy despite the background noise and other audio events.

MansOS: easy to use, portable and resource efficient operating system for networked embedded devices

Abstract: Often software for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is developed using a specific event based operating system (OS) such as TinyOS. However, this requires steep learning curve for the new developers. Other operating systems for embedded devices have limited support for new hardware platforms. Our goal is to provide an operating system for resource constrained devices that is easy to use for the wide range of researchers and developers familiar with C programming language and Unix operating system concepts. In addition, we provide a framework for agile portability to new hardware platforms, due to the nature of WSN systems that require specific hardware or features for the sensing tasks at hand. We propose Multiple agent netted sensor Operating System (MansOS), that demonstrates ability to execute the same application on different platforms including x86 CPU based computers for easy simulation and debugging of a single node or a whole network. The new platforms are easily added to MansOS thanks to the well defined abstraction layers. MansOS is being successfully used in real world applications, such as wild animal tracking and environmental monitoring in a fruit care research garden. It has also been used in academic environment for teaching wireless sensor networks.

Low Power Wide Area Networks: An Overview

Abstract: Low power wide area (LPWA) networks are attracting a lot of attention primarily because of their ability to offer affordable connectivity to the low-power devices distributed over very large geographical areas. In realizing the vision of the Internet of Things, LPWA technologies complement and sometimes supersede the conventional cellular and short range wireless technologies in performance for various emerging smart city and machine-to-machine applications. This review paper presents the design goals and the techniques, which different LPWA technologies exploit to offer wide-area coverage to low-power devices at the expense of low data rates. We survey several emerging LPWA technologies and the standardization activities carried out by different standards development organizations (e.g., IEEE, IETF, 3GPP, ETSI) as well as the industrial consortia built around individual LPWA technologies (e.g., LoRa Alliance, Weightless-SIG, and Dash7 alliance). We further note that LPWA technologies adopt similar approaches, thus sharing similar limitations and challenges. This paper expands on these research challenges and identifies potential directions to address them. While the proprietary LPWA technologies are already hitting the market with large nationwide roll-outs, this paper encourages an active engagement of the research community in solving problems that will shape the connectivity of tens of billions of devices in the next decade.

Real time pothole detection using Android smartphones with accelerometers

Abstract: The importance of the road infrastructure for the society could be compared with importance of blood vessels for humans. To ensure road surface quality it should be monitored continuously and repaired as necessary. The optimal distribution of resources for road repairs is possible providing the availability of comprehensive and objective real time data about the state of the roads. Participatory sensing is a promising approach for such data collection. The paper is describing a mobile sensing system for road irregularity detection using Android OS based smart-phones. Selected data processing algorithms are discussed and their evaluation presented with true positive rate as high as 90% using real world data. The optimal parameters for the algorithms are determined as well as recommendations for their application.

Wireless Sensor Network Applications: A Study in Environment Monitoring System

Abstract: Development in the technology of sensor such as Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS), wireless communications, embedded systems, distributed processing and wireless sensor applications have contributed a large transformation in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) recently. It assists and improves work performance both in the field of industry and our daily life. Wireless Sensor Network has been widely used in many areas especially for surveillance and monitoring in agriculture and habitat monitoring. Environment monitoring has become an important field of control and protection, providing real-time system and control communication with the physical world. An intelligent and smart Wireless Sensor Network system can gather and process a large amount of data from the beginning of the monitoring and manage air quality, the conditions of traffic, to weather situations. In this paper, we discuss and review wireless sensor network applications for environmental monitoring. In order to implement a good monitoring system, there are several requirements to be followed. From the studies, it has been proved to be an alternative way to replace the conventional method that uses men force to monitor the environment. It is also proven that these approaches can improve the system performance, provide a convenient and efficient method and can also fulfill functional requirements.

Age of information under energy replenishment constraints

Abstract: We consider managing the freshness of status updates sent from a source (such as a sensor) to a monitoring node. The time-varying availability of energy at the sender limits the rate of update packet transmissions. At any time, the age of information is defined as the amount of time since the most recent update was successfully received. An offline solution that minimizes not only the time average age, but also the peak age for an arbitrary energy replenishment profile is derived. The related decision problem under stochastic energy arrivals at the sender is studied through a discrete time dynamic programming formulation, and the structure of the optimal policy that minimizes the expected age is shown. It is found that tracking the expected value of the current age (which is a linear operation), together with the knowledge of the current energy level at the sender side is sufficient for generating an optimal threshold policy. An effective online heuristic, Balance Updating (BU), that achieves performance close to an omniscient (offline) policy is proposed. Simulations of the policies indicate that they can significantly improve the age over greedy approaches. An extension of the formulation to stochastically formed updates is considered.

Operating Systems for Low-End Devices in the Internet of Things: A Survey

Abstract: The Internet of Things (IoT) is projected to soon interconnect tens of billions of new devices, in large part also connected to the Internet. IoT devices include both high-end devices which can use traditional go-to operating systems (OSs) such as Linux, and low-end devices which cannot, due to stringent resource constraints, e.g., very limited memory, computational power, and power supply. However, large-scale IoT software development, deployment, and maintenance requires an appropriate OS to build upon. In this paper, we thus analyze in detail the specific requirements that an OS should satisfy to run on low-end IoT devices, and we survey applicable OSs, focusing on candidates that could become an equivalent of Linux for such devices, i.e., a one-size-fits-most, open source OS for low-end IoT devices.