ETAM: Next Generation Event Timer for Picosecond-Precision Time and Amplitude Measurements.

Riga Event Timers have the ability to measure the interval between events with high resolution, on the order of picoseconds. However, they have several drawbacks, such as sensitivity to environmental temperature changes and an inability to capture the amplitude of the events. In this work, we present the ETAM: a next generation Event Timer. Its innovative features include adaptive correction of measurement errors based on an internal temperature sensor, and integrated peak-detector circuit to determine the amplitude of nanosecond-duration pulses. Evaluation shows that the ETAM has high thermal stability with a root mean square error (RMSE) of <3 ps in a temperature range between 0 and +40 °C, and accurate event amplitude measurement capability, with <2.3 mV RMSE in the 100-1000 mV range. These improvements allow the ETAM to be used in satellite laser ranging, optical time-domain reflectometry, and other field applications that require temperature- and amplitude-based time correction in addition to high robustness, performance, and stability.

Wearable Sensor Clothing for Body Movement Measurement during Physical Activities in Healthcare.

This paper presents a wearable wireless system for measuring human body activities, consisting of small inertial sensor nodes and the main hub for data transmission via Bluetooth for further analysis. Unlike optical and ultrasonic technologies, the proposed solution has no movement restrictions, such as the requirement to stay in the line of sight, and it provides information on the dynamics of the human body's poses regardless of its location. The problem of the correct placement of sensors on the body is considered, a simplified architecture of the wearable clothing is described, an experimental set-up is developed and tests are performed. The system has been tested by performing several physical exercises and comparing the performance with the commercially available BTS Bioengineering SMART DX motion capture system. The results show that our solution is more suitable for complex exercises as the system based on digital cameras tends to lose some markers. The proposed wearable sensor clothing can be used as a multi-purpose data acquisition device for application-specific data analysis, thus providing an automated tool for scientists and doctors to measure patient's body movements.

A Wearable Low-Power Sensing Platform for Environmental and Health Monitoring: The Convergence Project.

The low-power sensing platform proposed by the Convergence project is foreseen as a wireless, low-power and multifunctional wearable system empowered by energy-efficient technologies. This will allow meeting the strict demands of life-style and healthcare applications in terms of autonomy for quasi-continuous collection of data for early-detection strategies. The system is compatible with different kinds of sensors, able to monitor not only health indicators of individual person (physical activity, core body temperature and biomarkers) but also the environment with chemical composition of the ambient air (NOx, COx, NHx particles) returning meaningful information on his/her exposure to dangerous (safety) or pollutant agents. In this article, we introduce the specifications and the design of the low-power sensing platform and the different sensors developed in the project, with a particular focus on pollutant sensing capabilities and specifically on NO2 sensor based on graphene and CO sensor based on polyaniline ink.

Precise realtime current consumption measurement in IoT TestBed.

Background: The Internet of Things, similar to wireless sensor networks, has been integrated into the daily life of almost everyone. These wearable, stationary, or mobile devices are in multiple locations, collecting data or monitoring and executing certain tasks. Some can monitor environmental values and interact with the environment, while others are used for data collection, entertainment, or even lifesaving. To achieve the wireless part of the system, the majority of sensor nodes are designed to be battery-powered. While battery power has become increasingly ubiquitous, it tends to increase the global carbon footprint of electronic devices. This issue can be mitigated by employing some form of energy harvesting so that batteries can be refilled and the gadget lasts longer, but this does not alter the reality that batteries are still used and eventually discarded. Methods: In this paper, the authors emphasize the significance of power consumption in battery-powered devices. To be able to monitor devices' power consumption, one of the measurable parameters is current. When users know the exact current consumption, they can decrease it by polishing the program or tweaking the duty cycle, making radio transmit fewer data or less frequently, thus decreasing overall power draw. Results: In order to simplify current consumption monitoring, the authors have developed a testbed facility that provides real-time current consumption measurements, which may be used to enhance the duty cycle and battery life of the aforementioned devices. Conclusions: While minimizing total current consumption is a great way to extend the battery life and, thus, the carbon footprint, the primary culprit in the Internet of Things is radio communications. This transmission is the primary source of current consumption. By determining the exact amount of current drawn during transmission and adjusting it, users can significantly extend battery life.

When you look at everyday life, you can see that almost everyone uses or at least comes into contact with the Internet of Things (IoT) or wireless sensor network (WSN) technologies at some point. Seeing how fast these devices are becoming more popular and how many there are, the authors decided to bring attention to the problem of the carbon footprint these devices are creating. By introducing the second version of their testbed facility, the authors talk about how important it is to measure the amount of current used in real-time for the Internet of Things and wireless sensor network devices during their development phase. When the developers know exactly how much current their product is using, they can improve their performance, make the batteries last longer, and in turn reduce their carbon footprint. In the article, the authors talk about the requirements for the new testbed facility and how they tested and chose the necessary components to find the ones that are needed.