2009, October: Newsletter #5
WELCOME
|
|
EVENTS
Recent
|
Upcoming ESA Events (see website for details)
|
WELCOME
Welcome to the Third edition of the Embedded Systems Australia newsletter in 2009. Embedded Systems Australia is a horizontally aligned, project-based national industry cluster. Our members are interested in developing embedded systems technologies and marketing smart products to global supply chains. The activities span the complete product life cycle of embedded systems development and deployment. These include Design: electronics, software, computer aided design and methodologies; Manufacturing & systems integration to create competitive smart products for vertical applications; and Marketing, sales and support of embedded systems product development.
FEATURES
Sponsorship
Now is the time to sign up for ESA sponsorship! Learn more here!
A Message from the Chair
Welcome to the Third edition of the Embedded Systems Australia newsletter in 2009. During this quarter, we have focussed on events, projects and launching our outreach activities.
On July 14, we held the “ESA Means Business” event at the offices of the NSW Government in Sydney. This event was proposed, organised and facilitated by Nick Fondas of iTech as part of the iTech in-kind contribution to the operation of the ESA cluster. At this event, we had presentations by Peter Seebacher of AusEng, Chris Vonwiller of Appen, Simon Wehr of Clipsal and John Best of Thales. We also had table-top displays by Opengear, Braemac, Sage Consulting, BCS Innovations, and iTech. Also in July, I gave a presentation on ESA to headmasters and careers advisors for Sydney secondary schools at the DSRD office in Parramatta as a part of ICT Careers Week. NICTA hosted the ACoRN industry day www.acorn.net.au with speakers from Telstra, ACMA, RTA and others. At this event, I presented the future of wireless vehicle communications and the impact of 5.9GHz DSRC systems including the ESA Project on Wireless Vehicle Communications via DSRC.
On August 6th, we held a project meeting in Brisbane to discuss ESA project ideas. We discussed autonomous vehicles and the Global Cooperative Driving Challenge, systems for crane control, and load control for managing peaks in electricity demand.
The OASIS project (formerly funky kiosk) held a highly successful exhibit at the Retail 2020 section of the Retail Expo in Melbourne. The team led by Bill Horton of DirectTV, created a concept display for the OASIS platform that creates unique and innovative point of sale marketing concepts for a rich consumer experience. The display was so successful that the team were awarded a grant to develop the exhibit for next year.
ESA sponsored the inaugural Legends of Innovation event for secondary school students. Prof. Rodney Brooks, of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Founder and former Chief Technology Officer of iRobot and Founder of Heartland Robotics, gave an inspiring presentation to a few hundred secondary students. Prof. Brooks encouraged students to follow their passion and to never give up. This event coincided with the NICTA Techfest exhibition. After the talk, students were able to wander the NICTA technology displays. Thanks go to Nick Fondas of iTech for his role in leading the team that organised the Legends of Innovation event. ESA received great sponsorship exposure alongside Microsoft, Open Education Trust, Cosmos Magazine, NICTA and the Australian Industry Group.
Also in August, I presented the ESA industry cluster to the Australian Industry Research Group meeting at Parliament house (www.airg.org.au). At this event, I presented the slides on Australia’s performance in collaboration. Some of the statistics from this presentation appeared in the article on ESA in the Sydney Morning Herald.
In September, the Artemis project Reconfigurable Image Chains (RICH) was submitted to the EU Artemis Joint Undertaking. This project is described by the NICTA project leader Rami Mukhtar later in this newsletter.
On Friday 18th of September, the Engineers Australia Sydney Division, Engineering Excellence Awards were held. The “Software and Embedded Systems” category featured entries from BCS Innovations, Iomniscient, NICTA and Cochlear. Congratulations to Cochlear, who won the award for their Hybrid system. In November, ESA will host an event to celebrate the achievements of the award finalists. Finalists will be invited to present talks about their technology.
Also in August, the National Computer Science School launched it’s inaugural Embedded Systems stream. ESA is a primary sponsor of this activity. This year, we shipped 50 boards to secondary school teachers across Australia.
Please keep December 2nd free in your calendar for our end of year event for 2009. The event will feature project meetings in the afternoon prior to the main event at 5pm. We will have interesting international speakers, great technology demonstrations, updates from the ESA projects and a special meeting of the Australian microelectronics industry.
Sincerely,
Dr. Chris Nicol
Interim Cluster Chair
Embedded Systems Australia
Project Roundup
ESA has several project concepts in various stages of team formation.
Wireless Vehicle Communications via DSRC (Dedicated Short Range Communications)
While safety is one of the key long-term drivers for the uptake of WiVeC via DSRC this project has been seeking to establish an early demonstrator in other applications. There has been a lot of work behind the scenes to uncover the most valuable early application demonstrator. For example, earlier this year, The Warren Centre facilitated a workshop to explore options with Transport and Logistics companies. The strongest candidates for this project are:
- Bridge Asset Protection collaboration with the RTA to apply WiVeC to prevent over-height vehicles entering enclosed bridges (or tunnels).
- Green Vehicle Applications where WiVeC is used to communicate between infrastructure (e.g. traffic lights) and vehicles to enable reduced fuel consumption and emissions.
Contact Neil [dot] Temperley
nicta [dot] com [dot] au to learn more.
Assisted Living
The team has had a very encouraging workshop with a program leaders of a key State government Health Agency. The workshop was very well received with interest expressed to explore possible trials. The Assisted Living team is Keep in Touch Australia, HETECH/Techome, NICTA with support from HL7 Australia. May thanks to Rachel Sieff of Industry and Investment NSW for her role building linkages to potential government users/ stakeholders.
Project Goal: To apply smart ultra-ease-of-use technologies to reduce isolation and boredom and increase safety for elderly and disabled living alone or community care.
Contact: Mark Steiner (HETECH/Techome) marktechome [dot] com [dot] au
OASIS (the project formally known as Funky Kiosk)
Project coordinator Bill Horton of Directtv created a concept demonstrator "2020 Store of the Future" section of the Retail Expo last August. The significant interest created by the demonstrator has given the project a real boost. The goal is to uniquely identify customers in a store and provide them with a personalised and improved shopping experience. If you are interested in this becoming part of this project please contact Bill billdirecttv [dot] com [dot] au.
Reconfigurable Image Processing Chains (RICH)
NICTA has played a key role in the submission of an ARTEMIS project proposal for Reconfigurable Image Chains (RICH) lead by Philips Healthcare, Europe. The ARTEMIS project proposal has been submitted, a decision for funding the project is expected by mid October 2009.
NICTA is also considering an internal research project to facilitate the rapid deployment of computer vision algorithms on platforms equipped with Graphics Processing Units (GPU)s, which are commonly found in both portable and desktop devices. This project is closely aligned with the deliverables of the ARTEMIS RICH proposal. NICTA is soliciting any interest from industry and academic organizations interested in participating in the internal project. If your organization is interested in the internal NICTA project, please contact Dr Rami Mukhtar of NICTA (Rami [dot] Mukhtarnicta [dot] com [dot] au) for more information.
e-BENEFIT
Standing for "Embedded Intelligence for Boosting Energy Efficiency and Micro-Generation" the project looks at metering (and sub-metering), connection of micro-generation resources, communication with energy utilities and systems for recommending energy use options to the home or business user.
NICTA is no longer participating in the ARTEMIS e-BENEFIT project proposal and it is closed as an ESA activity. However, this activity has led directly to a new project possibility in residential power management (see Home Power Demand Control below).
New Project Ideas
Home Power Demand Control
Bob Waldie (bob [dot] waldieopengear [dot] com [dot] au) of Opengear is exploring a project to develop control units for domestic air conditioners. The units will be used by Energy Authorities to limit summer peak loading by switching off or reducing the power demand of air conditioners.
Tower Crane Collision Avoidance
Chris Bishop (chrisintellidesign [dot] com [dot] au) of Intellidesign is exploring whether a technology out of the CSIRO used for collision avoidance between mining equipment could be applied to tower cranes.
Autonomous Driverless Vehicles & Assisted Driving (Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge)
Glenn Geers of NICTA is spear-heading an Australian entry to the Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge www.gcdc.net. The leadup to the challenge has already begun, with the finals to be held in the Netherlands in 2011. The challenge will feature semi-autonomous vehicles on public roads. Glenn has been actively seeking major sponsors. To learn more email Glenn [dot] Geersnicta [dot] com [dot] au.
NICTA and ESA create new 'Robo Brain' for the NCSS Course
NICTA has launched the new NCSS embedded programming platform - NICTA ed1. Shown below, this platform was custom designed for the NCSS-embedded program. ESA member Sage Consulting did the board layout and manufacture. The board is completely compatible with the Arduino open-source software. It also contains an assortment of sensors, displays and interfaces for exciting projects. (Note the ESA logo on the board).
Features
- USB Interface for connecting to personal computer
- Optional DC power sources (USB, DC, or battery)
- 100% compatible with Arduino open-source software for embedded programming. (see http://arduino.cc for more information and resources on this open-source embedded programming interface)
- Atmel ATmega328 (datasheet) 8-bit processor with 32kB onboard FLASH RAM
- Sensors for light, temperature, accelerometer
- Input devices – potentiometer, push buttons
- Non volatile storage (EEPROM) to hold data when power is off.
- Output devices – piezo buzzer, LEDs and 2-line LCD Display with optional backlight
- Infra-red transmit & receive for wireless communications
- Serial interface that is configured for interfacing to the iRobot Create and Roomba robot platforms. (see www.irobot.com)
NCSS had now run its first on-line Embedded Challenge course that was created by ESA member NICTA. The course was designed to attract high school students to ICT related careers and raising the level of ICT skills amongst those already interested.
The new NICTA ed1 board (pictured) was used as part of the course. NICTA is now working on the residential course to be run in Jan 2010.
The courses relies on money from sponsors. If you want to contribute to this important and exciting initiative, please contact John [dot] Judgenicta [dot] com [dot] au.
ESA in the News
Having a Chair who was NSW Scientist of the Year, a Clunies Ross Award winner, and is a champion of Australia's Embedded Systems industry does have its advantages... In an article published on Tuesday 8/9/9 NICTA's Chief Technology Officer of Embedded Systems, and ESA's Chair, Chris Nicol chose to focus on ESA and its potential to benefit Australia.
The article appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, WA Today and The Brisbane Times.
"Collaboration is a path to profit, writes Chris Nicol."
"RUNNING a small business in the information and communications technology space in Australia can be incredibly rewarding but it can be frustrating, too. Research and development dollars are hard to come by and lucrative export opportunities are few and far between for small players..."
"Concerned that high-tech SMEs were missing out on commercial opportunities, a group of peak research and industry organisations got together back in 2007 to form a ''cluster'' called Embedded Systems Australia.
Two years later, success stories are starting to emerge. Last month at Melbourne's Retail Expo, for instance, an ESA project called Oasis successfully demonstrated a platform for point-of-sale marketing..."
To read the full article try one of these links:
NICTA Creates a World First!
After 4 years work NICTA has achieved something extraordinary in the field of kernels for embedded systems. NICTA has created the first formally proven micro-kernel suitable for real-world applications. 'Formally proven' means that the code is mathematically proven to be "compliant with specification" — bug free. This is no trivial affair — it took some 48 person years of work to verify the 7,500 lines of code!..
"The outcome is the result of four years’ research by Dr Klein’s team of 12 NICTA researchers, NICTA/UNSW PhD students and UNSW contributed staff. They have successfully verified 7,500 lines of C code and proved over 10,000 intermediate theorems in over 200,000 lines of formal proof. The proof is machine-checked using the interactive theorem-proving program Isabelle. It is one of the largest machine-checked proofs ever done."ESA member Open Kernel Labs is leveraging this and its related hypervisor technologies to deliver unprecedented reliability and security into 100's of millions of consumer embedded devices worldwide.
"The NICTA team has achieved a landmark result which will change the game for security- and safety-critical software,” said OK Labs’ Chief Technology Officer and Leader of NICTA’s ERTOS Group, Professor Gernot Heiser. “It provides conclusive evidence that bug-free software is possible, and in the future nothing less should be considered acceptable where critical assets are at stake. OK Labs looks forward to taking this ground-breaking research to market."Read more here http://nicta.com.au/news/home_page_content_listing/world-first_research_breakthrough_promises_safety-critical_software_of_unprecedented_reliability
What's New on the ESA Website?
Perfect Match!
Should ESA provide a dating service? We think the answer is a definite yes! But it's not a case of, "Young systems engineer seeks mechatronic designer with own soldering station. Send photo of soldering station." However, finding a partner for collaboration is like finding a suitable partner in life (and some would say just as difficult) with the same promise of joy when all works out and sorrow if it doesn't. While ESA can't guarantee 'happily ever afters', we can help match industry to R&D organisations with a similar skill set. Our successful online Industry and Research Capability Directory now has this as a new feature. Click on a company in the Directory (or on a Sponsor Logo) and scroll down to see which R&D Organisations' capability claims are a good match to those of the company.
But caveats apply — not every claim on the Internet is true — we can't guarantee that your Perfect Match will be everything you expect! A cautious date or two may be required...
If you feel like you are missing out, add an entry for your company or R&D organisation department. There is no cost. Start by registering on the ESA website here http://www.embeddedsystemsaustralia.com.au/user/register and we'll set you up.
Jobs
ESA sponsors can now post vacancies on ESA's website at no cost. The relevant link is www.embeddedsystemsaustralia.com.au/jobs. We are also experimenting with ad posting for individuals who are seeking employment. See below for and example.
Images
Do you have images that you own, that we could add to our website to give it more pizzazz! Images of Embedded Systems applications would be ideal. Please email these to adminembeddedsystemsaustralia [dot] com [dot] au.
Recent Events
NICTA Techfest
Every year NICTA conducts its Techfest in a different state. Techfest is an opportunity for industry, stakeholders, and R&D organisations to get an overview of NICTA's research activities. At these showcase events, NICTA attempts to make its R&D more understandable by focusing on applications and benefits of each of its 30 research projects. The event held in August 2009 in Sydney, was NICTA's largest yet and intentionally co-incided with the Legends of Innovation event (below).
Project posters from Techfest can be viewed here http://nicta.com.au/nicta_events/techfest2009.
Legends of Innovation
ESA organised a presentation for high school students by world renowned robotics guru Professor Rodney Brooks. The event was held at Australian Technology Park on Tuesday 11th and an audience of 350 people attended. The audience was treated to an entertaining and inspirational speech by Rodney Brooks.
Rodney Brooks was born in Adelaide and is Professor of Robotics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is Chief Technical Officer and sits on the Board of iRobot Corp. From 1 July 2003, until 30 June 2007, he was director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory; prior to that, he was director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His work in robotics, first published in 1986 and subsequently elaborated upon in a series of highly influential papers, inaugurated a fundamental shift in artificial intelligence research.
In the lead up to the event high school students were invited to enter a robotic poster competition. The task was to create a poster outlining the design of a robotics system that improves the performance, safety or productivity of a job done by a person. The idea is not to replace the job of the person, but rather to make the person more productive, safe and/or comfortable. The poster should include diagrams and detailed explanations where appropriate and should outline how the robotic system would deliver benefits to both the person doing the job and also to their employer. Major sponsorship from Microsoft Australia, Open Systems Education Trust and COSMOS magazine allowed us to offer substantial prizes for the competition winners. First prize in the competition was awarded to Anindita Sarker, Sihaam Sarder, Myra Muhammed and Sara Syed from Beverly Hills Girl’s High School for their entry “The Magic Wheelie”.
OASIS — an Optical Audio Service Interface Solution — not a kiosk!
by David Philp (Global Growth and Innovation, Directtv)
Retail 2020 - The Store of the Future was held in conjunction with the Retail Expo 2009 and the National Retail Forum on the 11th to the 13 August 2009. As part of this exciting project Directtv were asked by the organizers to design and deliver a shopping experience like no other using the year 2020 as a theme. After some consideration Directv delivered this goal to the client.
"To endeavour to project the experience of a paperless, wireless society incorporating customer recognition as the catalyst for the customisation of merchandise delivery to the public...", Bill Horton CEO.Directtv sort cooperation from various retail clients and business partners to enable us to deliver this goal. For the next eight weeks all hands on deck saw brands such as Sony, LG, NEC, Mitsubishi, Asus, and CCA; retailers such as Quiksilver, Sanofi Aventis, Caltex Start Marts, and Malouf Group; and the research institution NICTA, collaborate to deliver this project.
This first prototype used RFID to identify customers and altered its content displayed on the OASIS screen accordingly.
Over 4,195 people attended the show. Most of these were CEOs, Managing Directors, Directors and senior managers of most major Australian companies and overseas in the retail and shop fit-out. Visitors to the Retail 2020 - The Store of the Future display expressed amazement at the demonstration — even more so when they were told that it was as Australian initiative. Users of the prototype remarked on its ease of use and the seamless delivery of product that was achieved with the demonstration.
Directtv, NICTA and Caltex originally commenced work on OASIS a year ago after meeting each other at the Retail Expo 2008. Since that time they have been deep in discussion as to form and function of a new style of Kiosk to take control of the market. This culminated in the first prototype being demonstrated in the Caltex Starmart Convenience Stall within the Retail 2020 - The Store of the Future.
What's On
Wireless Vehicle Communications Short Course
Date: 16-17th November 2009
Venue: Parkview Hotel, 562 St Kilda Rd, Melbourne, VIC.
Web: http://www.nicta.com.au/business/nicta_short_courses/upcoming_courses
Long-time friend of ESA, Chris Skinner of DISplay, will present this two day course which provides a comprehensive introduction to Wireless Vehicle Communications via DSRC (Dedicated Short Range Communications). This course is suitable for vehicle manufacturers, road safety and regulatory authorities, standardisation engineers, telecommunications network architects and operators, road fleet operators, researchers, system developers, students, and technical media representatives.
Australian Institute of Physics Industry Day — NSW Medical Physics Showcase
Date: Thursday 19 November 2009
Venue: Hosted by CSIRO Laboratories, Lindfield, NSW
Web: http://physics-industry.com/
Healthcare in Australia and around the world must change. It is too expensive, it is horrendously labour intensive and access is far from equitable. Whereas new technology has improved health, it has done nothing to reduce overall cost – quite the opposite – healthcare expenditure is rising alarmingly as a percentage of GDP. Effective new medical products and therapies tend to be expensive and drive up demand. If our future health systems are going keep us healthy at a reasonable cost then we must find new delivery models.
Speakers will be invited from research, industry and government to provide their perspectives on this challenge, industry trends, new developments in the lab/clinic, as well as some local commercial successes. Go to http://physics-industry.com/ for more information.
IPv6 Summit
Date: 7-9th December 2009
Venue: Sebel Citigate Hotel, Albert Park, Melbourne, VIC.
Web: http://www.ipv6.org.au/summit/
The Australian IPv6 Summit will explore the potential cost savings, enhanced productivity, simpler networks and the smart infrastructure available via IPv6 allowing organisations to reap the benefits of the digital economy. The program includes six overseas speakers plus 14 from Australia.
The 2009 International Conference on Field-Programmable Technology (FPT'09)
Location: The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW.
FPT is the premier conference in the Asian Pacific region on field- programmable technologies including reconfigurable computing devices and systems containing such components. We welcome the participation of students, researchers, practitioners and exhibitors interested in learning about or promoting the latest research results and developments in the areas of:
- Tools and Design techniques for field-programmable technology
- Architectures for field-programmable technology
- Device technology for field-programmable logic
- Applications of field-programmable technology
Conference Workshops
- Embedded Linux on MicroBlaze, Xilinx University Program Workshop, University of New South Wales, 7-8 Dec
- Workshop on FPGA Architectures and Applications, University of Sydney, 2-6pm 8 Dec
- Enhancing Education with Altera's Technology and Teaching Materials, Altera University Program Workshop, University of New South Wales, 12 Dec.
Keynote & Invited Talks
- Prof Jürgen Teich, Co-Ordinator of the German Research Foundation's Priority Program on Reconfigurable Computing Systems
- Dr John Bunton, Australian SKA Pathfinder Project Engineer, Digital Systems
- Dr Gordon Brebner, Distinguished Engineer, Xilinx Research Labs
See website http://www.icfpt.org for more details.
CHIK Health-e-Directory
If you sell into the Health Sector this may be of interest...
Not-for-profit organisation CHIK Services is preparing to produce a new printed version of its Health Directory. A basic entry in the on-line and printed version is free. See www.health-e-directory.com.au to view the on-line directory and http://www.health-e-directory.com.au/signup.php for the pricing structure.
Jobs: Seeking Position as Embedded Software Engineer
I am a highly skilled Embedded Software Engineer, with more than 4 years of practical experience. I am looking for employment in a company that deals with interesting and challenging embedded projects where I can use my experience and apply my skills and abilities to contribute to their development.
- (Embedded/Application level) C/C++ Programming (CodeWarrior, VC++ , gcc, g++)
- Device Driver Development (Linux, LabView), BSP
- Cross-Platform Development (x86 / ARM / MIPS / PowerPC)
- Embedded Linux (Snapgear, OpenWRT, Cavium Soho uClinux)
- Toolchains (ARM Toolchain, MIPS Toolchain, Sigma designs 8622L/8634 toolchains)
- Multi-threaded Programming (Windows/Linux)
- Network Programming (TCP/IP(Unicast, Multicast, Broadcast),
- 802.3 Ethernet, 802.11 Wireless, 802.16 WiMAX
- Real-time Programming
- RTOS platforms (VxWorks, OC2000, uCos, LabView RTOS)
- GUI Development, Qt/GTK, MFC
- Script Programming (Bash/TCL)
Name: Andrii Voloshyn
Title: Embedded Software Engineer (Australian Permanent Resident)
Phone: 0422 165 886
Email: andrii [dot] voloshyngmail [dot] com
Sound Bytes
"America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week."
— Evan Esar (1899 - 1995)
Contact
| General Enquiries | adminembeddedsystemsaustralia [dot] com [dot] au |
| Dr Chris Nicol | Chris [dot] Nicolnicta [dot] com [dot] au |
| Neil Temperley (ESA Secretary & Editor) | Neil [dot] Temperleynicta [dot] com [dot] au |
ESA Sponsors
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Supporters
- Printer-friendly version
- Login or register to post comments
