RIM Seminar - Feb. 16 - Smith on Sensor Systems
A RIM Seminar will be held on Wednesday, February 16th, 2011 at Noon. The seminar will take place in TSRB Rm. 132. The talk will focus on sensor systems and their implementation into robotic platforms.
Connecting Physical and Digital with Sensor Systems
Joshua R. Smith
University of Washington
Abstract:
<p>Sensors are the essential link between the abstract world of information, computation, and software and the physical world of human bodies, energy, and computer hardware. Sensors are the "windows" through which the physical world can affect the internal state of a digital computing system. The problem of deepening the links between computer systems and the physical world has wide-ranging applications, in areas such as robotics, ubiquitous computing, human-computer interaction, and security. Sensor Systems research seeks to create tightly coupled digital-physical systems by developing novel sensing capabilities, creating techniques to remotely power and communicate with embedded sensing platforms, and improving interpretation of sensor signals.</p>
<p>In this talk, I will illustrate my view of Sensor Systems by presenting several examples of my research in this area. FiberFingerprint adds digital security to physical paper documents by sensing the random texture of an ordinary paper surface, computing a digitally signed description, and printing this signature on the paper document to be copy protected. Electric Field Pretouch is a technique that can enable new human-computer input techniques (by sensing human hands), or provide a new way for robots to sense and manipulate objects (when built into robot hands). I will also present a robot that "feeds" itself by sensing the electric fields emitted from ordinary power outlets and plugging itself in.</p>
<p>Power is a crucial limiting factor for pervasive sensing systems today, and the remainder of the talk covers techniques for wirelessly powering sensor (and other) systems. WISP (Wireless Identification and Sensing Platform) is an embedded sensing and computing platform that is powered wirelessly by a UHF RFID reader. WREL (Wireless Resonant Energy Link) is a wireless power technique that provides much larger amounts of power than WISP (watts vs microwatts) at range longer than traditional inductive charging (meter vs millimeters)..</p>
Bio:
In 2011, Joshua R. Smith joined the University of Washington as Associate Professor in the departments of Computer Science and Engineering and Electrical Engineering. From 2004 to 2010, he was with Intel Labs Seattle, where he co-founded Intel’s Personal Robotics project, led Intel Labs' Physicality research theme, and led several projects in wireless power. In 2008, he participated in the on Personal and Service robots panel of the CCC / CRA Roadmapping for Robotics activity. His research interests include all aspects of sensor systems, including: development of novel sensor systems; power and communication for sensor systems; and algorithms for interpreting signals from novel sensor systems. His research has application in the fields of robotics, ubiquitous computing, human-computer interaction, and security. Previously he co-invented an electric field-based passenger sensing system that is used to suppress unsafe airbag deployment in all Honda cars. He holds Ph.D. and S.M. degrees from the MIT Media Lab, an M.A. in Physics from the University of Cambridge, and B.A. degrees in Computer Science and in Philosophy from Williams College.