IMEC together with its sister company IMEC-Nederland at the Holst Centre realized two new body-monitoring wireless sensor nodes which collect and process data from human body sensors and wirelessly transmit the data to a central monitoring system. The small size and low power consumption of both systems enables non-invasive and ambulatory monitoring of vital body parameters.

IMEC’s two-channel bio-potential wireless sensor node targets the simultaneous monitoring of two vital body signs provided by portable electrocardiogram (ECG, which monitors the heart activity), electromyogram (EMG, which monitors muscle contraction), electroencephalogram (EEG, which monitors brain waves) and electrooculogram (EOG, which monitors eye movement).

The second system is an eight-channel wireless EEG system integrated in a cube. The small size and autonomy of the systems increase the patient’s autonomy and quality of life and open up new applications for sports, entertainment, comfort monitoring, and other health and lifestyle products and services.

More info here.

Thousands of miniscule wireless sensors, or “smart dust”, could one-day be used to explore other planets, swirling across the landscape by subtly altering their shape. At least, that’s the exotic vision put forward in new computer simulations.

John Barker, an electronics researcher at the University of Glasgow in the UK decided to investigate whether a cloud of similar smart dust “motes” could navigate across the surface of Mars from one point to another, simply by modifying their shape.

The complete article here.

A U.S. earthquake engineer has successfully performed the first test of wireless sensors in the simulated structural control of a model building. Washington University Professor Shirley Dyke combined the wireless sensors with special controls called magnetorheological dampers to limit damage from a simulated earthquake load.

Dyke — the first person to test wireles sensors in simulated structural control experiments — envisions a wireless future for structural control technology. The wireless sensors, about a square inch in size, are attached to the sides of buildings to monitor the force of sway when shaking, similar to an earthquake, occurs. The data are then transmitted to a computer that translates the random units read by the sensors and sends a message to magnetorheological dampers that are within the building`s structure to dampen the effect of the swaying.

Dyke and colleagues recently published their results in the Proceedings of the 4th China-Japan-U.S. Symposium on Structural Control and Monitoring.

More info here.

While the Virginia Tech Hokies tend to rely more on dazzling special teams teams play than sheer defensive prowess, the players take a lickin’ regardless. In a presumed extension of Beamer Ball, the sparkly helmets donned by the football squad will sport internal accelerometers and wireless transmitters that beam (ahem) information about the seriousness of each blow to a Sybase database in order to tell if and when a certain player has had enough. The primary objective is to prevent any long-term injuries and detect concussions before individuals can even realize they’re hurt, and an interesting byproduct of the system has shown what types of thwacks are typically sustained at different positions. The HITS (head impact telemetry system) technology could reportedly be used in places like the battlefield as well, or moreover, rigorous rounds of Wii Boxing — but we’re sure WVU’s Punchstat system is already on top of that.

More info here.

MachineTalker, Inc., developer of smart wireless security networks and tracking systems, announces that the company will provide a product evaluation package of its Multi-Sensor Unit (MSU) which is used to service and control a variety of customer chosen sensors. The evaluation kit consists of three Talkers® and a simple to use Java-based Application Program Interface (API), allowing users to reach remote Talker units over a wireless network, set individual thresholds for the devices, log data over time and display results.

More info here.

Tenet v1.02 is now available.

This release includes following changes:
- Python library path bug in netviz is fixed.
- Change of default sampling tasklet:
- substitute SlowSample tasklet with SimpleSample tasklet.
- corresponding changes to tasking API
ex> sample(1000,1,22,5) ==> sample(22,5)
- Limit number of concurrent connections in sendstr tasklet to 1.
- Modification in TRD packet format for easier packet snooping.
- A bug in Mote routing table is fixed
- Tenet Router ignores communication among other routers if it is running with loopback address
- Age Neighbors Table for tasklet get(NEIGHBOTS)

You can download it from: http://enl.usc.edu/projects/tenet/software.html.
If you have any questions or comments please email us at:
tenet-users@enl.usc.edu.

From Moteiv blog:

The developers of Contiki have released the first version of the Contiki 2.x series. This is the first release of Contiki that supports our popular Tmote Sky modules. New features that are touted as part of the 2.0 release include:

- Dynamic run-time loading and linking of standard ELF files
- Rime, a protocol stack designed for low-power radio communication
- Cooja, a Java-based network simulator for Contiki
- A build system that makes cross-compiling for many platforms easy

Read more information about Contiki, and check out Contiki support for Tmote Sky.

A high-tech villa designed to resist earthquakes by ‘self-healing’ cracks in its own walls and monitoring vibrations through an intelligent sensor network will be built on a Greek mountainside.

The University of Leeds’ NanoManufacturing Institute (NMI) will play a crucial role in the 9.5 million European Union-funded project by developing special walls for the house that contain nano polymer particles - these will turn into a liquid when squeezed under pressure, flow into the cracks, and then harden to form a solid material.

NMI chief executive Professor Terry Wilkins said: “What we’re trying to achieve here is very exciting; we’re looking to use polymers in much tougher situations than ever before on a larger scale.”

The complete story here.

The first limited-production run of Sun SPOT Java Development Kits is now available for U.S. customers.

The Sun SPOT development kit includes everything needed to start developing applications for your Sun SPOT:
- two complete Sun SPOT devices with demo sensor boards
- a base station Sun SPOT to connect to your development machine
- software development tools
- USB cable

The development tools are compatible with Windows XP with Java runtime, PPC Mac OS X 10.4 or better and most common Linux distributions. In addition, the API specification for the initial release of the Sun SPOT libraries is available for preview.

If you have any questions or feedback, please send a message to info@SunSpotWorld.com or visit http://sunspotworld.com/products/.