Offered MS Thesis Topics for Fall 2008
     

    1) Elderly or Child Care Using Wireless Video Sensor Networks:

In the context of this project an application for elderly and child care will be developed using wireless video sensor networks. After a paper design including the type and placement of scalar and video sensor to be used, a testbed for tracking humans to be observed will be put together. The project will require both computer vision and computer networks skills. For that reason, candidates are advised to take the related departmental courses. Project will start with human presence detection and continue with the classification of movements and activities, identification of critical events such as sudden falls. We expect to obtain better performance by fusing the information collected by scalar and video sensors.

(Coadvised with Lale Akarun)

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    2) Wake-up Radio for Wireless Sensor Networks:

     

    Recent works on wireless sensor networks concentrate on configuration protocols based on sleep-scheduling. For event-driven applications,
    instead of scheduled operation, sensors may reside in deep sleep and operate only when the monitored event occurs. Wake-up radio is an enabler of this mode of operation. When an event occurs, the activated sensor wakes up the surrounding nodes, then starts communicating the decision. A typical example of event-driven WSN is the surveillance system whose duty is intrusion detection in applications such as border monitoring against penetration by hostile elements or perimeter protection. Dynamic clustering, adressing spatio-temporal correlations of detections are some typical application areas of the wake-up radio. Depending on the rate of the events, utilization of the wake-up radio may become useless. If the events occur frequently, some set of sensors have to sleep and wake up frequently. Hence, for such scenarios switching to periodic sleep scheduling is wiser. An example scenario can be the surveillance application of museums. Assume that visitors of a historic arena is to be monitored. The objective of the WSN is to detect the visitors whom are trying to enter unallowed parts of the arena. During the open hours of the museum, the rate of the events may be larger compared to the night shifts. Daytime operation of the network can be based on periodic sleep scheduling, whereas the night time operation can follow the wake-up scheme. Rigorous analysis of when to switch from wake-up scheme to sleep scheduling is required when such bi-modal operation is probable. Moreover, the effect of the wake-up radio on the reporting delay (sensor-to-sink event notification delay) must be analyzed. The MS student will survey the wake-up radio technology, simulate and evaluate the performance of the utilization of wake-up radio in sensor nodes and propose methods to reduce the effect of delay introduced by the wake-up radio.

    (Coadvised with Ilker Demirkol and Ertan Onur)

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    Notes for Scaring the Unwilling and Lazy:

    1. CmpE 475 or equivalent is a must 476/477/523/524 are strongly recommended.

    2. Performance evaluation and implementation projects will result in long working hours in NETLAB.
    3. Willingness for hard work is a must since all of these are difficult problems.