Microteers Meeting Minutes 13/01/99

1. Linux installation
   • Lewis was able to install linux by copying all relevant RPMs to the DOS partition first
   • Wavelan alpha driver is available, and efforts to compile it are underway
   • Amit is trying to install it using the ethernet card
2. Jeremy is working on neighbour discovery
   • Satish suggested a look at the IMEP work
   • Jeremy's algorithm is similar to the work done by Satish
3. Lewis is working on Mapping
   • Starting point is a modeller that generates information to be converted into a map
   • Some assumptions made about mobility characteristics: nodes moving with some frequency, and able to transmit in a particular range
   • data of the type: x can hear a ping from y
   • different kinds of maps can be generated
   • Pavlin did a project on mapping
4. Deborah is interested in small devices that are not fixed to particular OSs... for instance the Palm Pilot and the Palm OS.
   • Itsy, being developed at Compaq WRL runs Linux
     • Not in production
   • Palm Pilots are also known to run Linux
     • Maybe get one to experiment
     • support for PCMCIA?
5. Demonstration Application
   • Jeremy generates information
   • Satish distributes it
   • Lewis generates a map of it
   • Amit explores the environment in which all of this should be done
6. Interesting things to look at
   • Ninja Project, Berkeley
   • Itsy Project, WRL
7. Amit should generate another mail about Java environment to use.

Microteers Meeting Minutes 01/06/99

• organizational note
  • try to keep notes in the web tree in an organized fashion
  • try to record pointers to web pages, etc.
• Status of wavelan driver
  • So far Lucent is not releasing specs for the cards
  • Someone working for Lucent may release a linux driver
    • Not source code
    • May not have all the wireless-specific functionality
  • optimally, a wavelan driver would follow the organizational scheme developed for the original wavelan driver (i.e. special ioctls)
  • in a week or so more will be known and perhaps letters from more influential people would help then
• For now:
  • use windows socket interface
    • ? how is ad-hoc supported ?
    • ? signal strength information ?
  • play with IR?
• Tasks update
  • ping to discover neighbors
    • can we actually make use of peer to peer using the windows driver? without peer to peer discovery is less exciting
    • alternative: two base stations, discover who is in each
  • mapping
    • try to build higher levels without underpinnings
    • use NAM (ya xu?) for display
    • experiment with ir? it appears that the standard link layer is connection-oriented, as opposed to broadcast of packets; since it is possible to modify the linux drivers, it _may_ be possible to do some interesting neighbor discovery using the IR hardware. drawbacks: directionality, short range
  • power management
    • apm is easy to install under linux
    • apm alone is not that useful, gives only a percentage of remaining battery life.
    • useful feature: gives interface to disk spindown, CPU speed, etc.
    • before we can use the battery life indicator we need to get an order of magnitude estimate of power usage relative to CPU, disk, etc.
    • it would also be useful to instrument protocols and network drivers to collect data relevant to modeling power constrained systems.
  • ad-hoc networking (satish)
    background research (manet, monarch, etc..)
  • NLP
    • signal strength detection under windows?
    • make measurements, estimate positions
    • problem: signal strength varies greatly with obstructions

Microteers Meeting Minutes 12/09/98

• Hardware status
  • 2 librettos here, remainder should be here by the end of the week; Amit took one, Lew took the other; other group members declined for lack of sufficient self-control in face of finals
  • 4 leather[ette] carrying cases here
  • still no wavelan cards, base stations
  • For installation & initial configuration - agreement that 1 shared (statistically multiplexed:-) ) PCMCIA card should be enough for us; purchase ASAP from USC bookstore if possible, or Fry's, or web
• Development environment
  • Amit reports that "JDE" is nice, integrated with Emacs, free
  • Underneath, IBM's "JIKES" Java compiler is free, and open source
  • Jikes can be used without JDE, for those who don't like JDE (such as your minutes editor :-))
  • We still need a Linux machine; Jeremy offered his that is under his desk, or we can configure one of the lab machines
  • Agreement that, for now, we need not spend money on the Java development environment
• Infrared sensors
  • Jeremy reports good news that an infrared port looks just like a normal (cabled) serial port, as long as your OS has drivers supporting it
  • Bleeding edge Linux kernels have IRDA support in beta; we'll have a better idea of how good the support is once the librettos are up and running in full swing
  • There are lots of companies that sell items (senors, remote controls, etc) with IRDA support so we can potentially talk to all of them via our IRDA pseudo-serial port
  • Other companies also sell serial-to-IRDA bridges which opens up the possibility of using any serial device as a sensor
  • Microteers web page will have pointers to some of these things when Jeremy has a chance to put together some pointers
• Applications
  • First application conservative, lets us be footloose and fancy free with our 2nd app
  • First app: insturmenting the environment with apologies to MIT; elevator, espresso machine, and in general monitoring shared resources that have the potential to make people wait for them.
  • Jeremy mentioned the comp.arch.hobbyist FAQ is a very useful source of info for semi-scrappy real-world-to-computer hardware hacks (e.g. hooking circuits up to parallel ports, using infrared ports on PCs, etc.) Pointer to this will be on microteer web page.
  • Pie in the sky second apps - putting sensors into cars?
  • John pointed out that a car app should be done first in a very controlled environment, with an initial emphasis on simulation
• Open Issues
  • Still many vagaries of WaveLAN.
    • do they work outdoors?
    • transmit range?
    • reliability?
    • can we get them to work in point-to-point mode?
    • will they simultaneously talk to a bridge and talk P2P?
  • Transmit range is important for car app, because high speeds of cars relative to each other, combined with a low transmit range relative to the inter-car-relative-speed, means very short bursts of connectivity
  • Satish mentioned the Berkeley PATH project has investigated these issues; they might have answers useful to us
• Meeting schedule
  • Deborah away next week (16 dec) and can possibly teleconf in the week after (22 dec). Others may not be here during that time (jeremy not here 19dec-25dec)

Microteers Meeting Minutes 12/02/98

1. Art doing tool that does centralized repository for micronet monitoring/annotated mapping. Using java
2. Java vs C++. Portability issues. Thinking toward heterogeneity, linux and CE. Cross compilation with java...Windows CE has a java vm.
3. Bring up lab machine with linux? or linux cross compatibility on freebsd
4. Amit generate email about recommended java environment and jdk version
5. Interesting things to buy to connect to machines:
   • $200 GPS receiver with serial
   • little cameras?
   • lego mindstorms www.legomindstorms.com
   • stamp module
   • ibutton
6. Target demos
   • run centralized, flooding, directed diffusion schemes
   • run adaptive fidelity
   • object protection in a room. tag overhead and lcd projector and a few people. sensor at door. notice if tag carried out by gagged person or not.
   • get a libretto detect an ir emitter. permiscuous mode
7. What to use as rf tag (lewis)
   • off the shelf?
   • device w/ ir ce-device
   • stamp module to ir device could be a cheap beacon. basic programmable
8. other communication modes
   • look into whether librettoo/standard IR is what we could use for beacon detection. broadcast id.
   • is there anything ultrasonic that we could use?
   • look at using a remote control
   • x10 device for controlling thing over power lines
9. Task item figure out capabilitis of Libretto IR port (Jeremy)
10. Talk to Maja's folks re. sensors