Smart Phones Turned Into Universal Remote Controls by Senior Innovators

The average number of remote controls per household worldwide continues to increase. Even a basic setup with a television, cable box, and DVD player already requires three remote controls. Add an audio system, video game console, and internet-streaming box, and the number of remote controls quickly becomes overbearing. According to a recent study, 9 out of 10 Americans believe their home-entertainment experience would be more enjoyable if they could just push a single button to enjoy the content they want.

A cross-disciplinary senior design team from Stevens Institute of Technology students has developed a low-cost device that allows any mobile phone or computer to function as an advanced remote control for any number of media devices, making controlling media devices simple. Electrical Engineering majors John Martelle and Jake Thibault and Computer Engineer Salvatore Amato combined their skills and expertise to create the Total Control Remote Control, a user-friendly solution that can turn any smartphone into a universal remote control.

Essentially, a remote control is a transmitter that sends instructions to other devices. In the case of most consumer audio/visual devices, the transmitter passes instructions in the form of binary codes over infrared light.

Although there are commercially available products that allow smart phones to act as a remote control, most require an external attachment, or dongle, to connect an infrared emitter to the phone. “In addition to being an inconvenience, using a dongle also has other limitations, such as requiring line-of-sight, and requiring a specific phone model to fit properly,” says Salvatore.

The team created an innovated design that houses the infrared emitter in a base station that is placed near the electronics. Using a custom universal remote app on an Android or iOS phone, the user can connect to the base station either through WiFi or Bluetooth. The base station transmits instructions entered from the mobile app through its two infrared LEDs to the desired entertainment device.

“We’ve also added the ability to control media devices through any web browser,” says John, who worked on the web browser interface. “This increases the number of devices that can be used as a universal remote control, such as non-Android or iOS phones and tablets and computers.”

The group hopes to continue expanding the functionality of the Total Control Remote Control. “Our design can utilize the processing power of smartphones, which is far more advanced than any commercially available stand-alone remote control,” says Jake. “The extra power allows for advanced functions, such as fully programmable macros that can launch a series of instructions for devices to automate frequent tasks.”

The team was advised by Electrical and Computer Engineering professor Bruce McNair. “These seniors have designed and built a fully functional device that the general public would love to have,” says Professor McNair. “I am excited to see where this project goes in the future.”

The Total Control Remote Control will demonstrate their prototype at the Stevens Innovation Expo on April 24th from 1-4 PM alongside hundreds of other innovative technologies, products, services and businesses across a wide range of. For more information, visit www.stevens.edu/expo.

Learn more by visiting the School of Engineering and Science, or visit Undergraduate Admissions or Graduate Admissions to apply.

Stevens professor breaks down cell phone network barriers and evaluates effects of social networks

Dr. Rajarathnam Chandramouli of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology has been named a 2013-2014 Distinguished Lecturer by the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc). Nominated by IEEE Technical Committee on Cognitive Networks, Dr. Chandramouli was chosen by the ComSoc selection committee for his achievements, contributions to IEEE, and the currency and relevance of his research. IEEE chapters around the world will review the Distinguished Lecturers’ papers and host the speakers in their region.

“The topics of Dr. Chandramouli’s lectures are very timely in the context of an ongoing White House initiative to nearly double the availability of radio spectrum for mobile devices and develop a nationwide, interoperable wireless network for public safety so that crisis response teams from different cities and agencies can communicate freely in an emergency,” says Dr. Michael Bruno, Dean of the Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering and Science. “Cognitive radio is a technology poised to realize these national goals.”

For his Distinguished Lectureship, Dr. Chandramouli has proposed three topics on cognitive radio networks and one on social networks. In cognitive networks, he will expound upon the fundamental research problems in cognitive networking and the various layer protocols in the network stack, describe how to build a working cognitive radio prototype using commercially available hardware components and open-source software, and scrutinize the intersection of spectrum policies and wireless technology.

Dr. Chandramouli began his work on cognitive radio in response to reports of interoperability problems between radios used by public agencies in emergency situations, most notably as experienced by 9/11 responders. With Dr. K. P. Subbalakshmi, he received a National Institute of Justice grant for research into a system consisting of a low-cost mobile gateway with a router and intelligence in a wireless cloud. The cloud senses an emergency situation and instructs the router to reconfigure its parameters to operate on multiple bands simultaneously. Various agencies, who would previously have been working on their exclusive frequencies, could then connect to the cognitive radio router, which translates and authenticates between frequencies and bands seamlessly, in real time to provide interoperability. In an emergency situation when a service provider is experiencing problems, the "cognitive" technology senses radio channels and networks to find best combination and reconfigures the network in real time so that users can take advantage of the strongest link. According to Dr. Yu-Dong Yao, Director of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, “After Hurricane Sandy, wireless users of certain carriers in our area experienced outages, while other users were fortunate enough to have continued service. If Dr. Chandramouli’s cognitive radio technology were implemented, the public could benefit by continuity of service in emergency situations.” The Stevens collaborators have brought versatility and security to the technology, respectively, and they have started a company named Dynamic Spectrum, LLC to commercialize their innovations.

Dr. Chandramouli will also deliver a lecture on methods for collection and mathematical modeling of data from social networks. He will demonstrate how to use these methods to examine information flow between social movements. For example, the “Arab Spring”, an ongoing wave of demonstrations, protests and wars across the Arab world, began in Tunisia at least partially in response to dissatisfaction with local government and spread from country to country, forcing rulers from power in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. The movement proliferated largely due to heavy use of social media like Twitter and Facebook to disseminate information and organize protests. Dr. Chandramouli is conducting research on how to model and measure the influence of these social media tools and evaluate the impact from one movement to the next.

Professor Chandramouli is an eminent researcher in the fields of cognitive radio and social networks.  He was the Founding Chair of the IEEE COMSOC Technical Committee on Cognitive Networks, Member of the IEEE COMSOC Standards Board and serves on several journal Editoral Boards and international conference organization committees. He has given plenary and keynote talks in several major international conferences. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award.

Visit our Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, and check out the offices of Undergraduate and Graduate Admissions to enroll!

Team of engineers proposes reassessment of nuclear energy as a sustainable power source

Screenshot from the "Thorium Future" video

Technological advances in energy production create exciting benefits and opportunities for society, but they also come with problems and challenges. As part of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Online Ethics Center (OEC) Energy Ethics Video Challenge, a group of students at Stevens Institute of Technology is investigating whether nuclear power deserves renewed consideration as a sustainable energy source. Seniors Robert Truppner, Scott Reardon, and Frank Coppola, as well as junior Bryan Vianco, have created a video entitled "Thorium Future" (available for viewing and "liking" on the OEC Facebook page) exploring ethical concerns related to nuclear energy production.

“The video project is a great example of the interdisciplinary collaboration encouraged at Stevens,” says Dr. Keith Sheppard, Associate Dean of the Charles V. Schaefer School of Engineering and Science. “The group includes students from the Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering Departments, and they are advised by Professor Gregory Morgan from the College of Arts and Letters and Professor Anthony Shupenko, P.E. of the School of Engineering and Science.”

"I am proud of my HPL480 Environmental Policy students for working together as a team and presenting a potential solution to our energy and climate change challenges,” says Dr. Morgan, Professor at the Department of Philosophy. “Five minutes is not a lot of time to articulate a vision of the future, but they pulled it off admirably."

In the face of growing concerns over climate change caused by the consumption of fossil fuels, nuclear power presents a possible option for sustainable energy production. However, it also comes with safety concerns that loom large in public perception. In addition to real-life examples of nuclear power plants failing, such as the Chernobyl disaster, there are numerous cautionary tales in literature and film illustrating the dangers of imprudent application of scientific innovation.

“There is a lot of passion on both sides of the nuclear power debate, and the key to moving forward on the issue is being well-informed,” says Professor Shupenko, Associate Professor at the Engineering Design Laboratory. “Our students have put forward a well-researched and reasoned perspective.”

The students’ video considers the possibility that these examples and stories have pushed the general consensus beyond reasonable caution into excessive fear. They outline the unique advantages of nuclear energy and describe a nuclear technology, a molten salt reactor (MSR). Some key benefits to the MSR are safer production and operation than pressurized or boiling water reactors, 1% of waste generated compared to traditional reactors, and a fail-safe which completely inhibits the chances of a nuclear meltdown.  Dr. Edward Friedman, Professor Emeritus at the Howe School of Technology Management at Stevens provides an expert perspective on the benefits of MSRs.

The students’ video asserts that the greatest ethical concern for modern society is global warming, and that nuclear power presents a viable alternative to fossil fuels because it can meet society’s demand for power. Energy sources such as solar or wind energy have the advantages of renewability and sustainability, but the students argue that those sources would likely struggle to meet energy demand. The students propose that nuclear power therefore deserves greater consideration, and that people need to be educated more realistically about its pros and cons in order to develop informed opinions on the issue.

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Online Ethics Center (OEC) is sponsoring its first Ethics Video Challenge to promote consideration of ethical issues in the research and work life of scientists, engineers, and engineering students. This year the contest topic is Energy Ethics. The contest encourages students to identify an ethical issue that is important for the nation’s energy future and to produce a video that examines the ethical aspects and presents approaches to address them.

Learn more about the work of Stevens students by visiting the School of Engineering and Science or the College of Arts and Letters , or visit Undergraduate Admissions or Graduate Admissions to apply.

Mobile phones are ubiquitous in our society, and are marvels of modern technology, commonly equipped with a dazzling array of high-tech sensors: accelerometers, gyroscopes, GPS, microphones, ambient light detectors, and proximity detectors, just to name a few. In a recent survey, 33% of Americans say they cannot live without them. A smartphone can now serve as a movie theater, jukebox, video game console, and personal assistant, all in one package that fits in a pocket.

Dr. Chen (center) with Graduate Students

Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology are now making cellular phones personal health consultants as well. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Dr. Yingying Chen of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is improving consumer healthcare by leveraging the advanced sensors in mobile smart phones in novel ways to provide users with relevant health recommendations that are specifically tailored to them based on automatically collected data. This type of active monitoring and guidance on important health factors represents an important method of preventative care (i.e. healthcare concerned with prevention of disease). These measures have tremendous potential to improve a US healthcare landscape where costs continue to grow faster than the economy.

“Stevens research is always at the forefront of innovation, leveraging the latest in technology to improve and enhance our modern society,”says Dr. Michael Bruno, Dean of the Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering and Science. “As healthcare costs rise, policy-makers and researchers are increasingly looking to methods of preventative care to alleviate the burden on the economy and healthcare infrastructure. With 35% of American adults owning a smartphone, Dr. Chen’s research in mobile health could improve quality of life for millions.”

Though there are a number of mobile health applications currently available, they all rely on the user to manually enter data to properly function. Research shows it is now possible to infer in real-time a range of human behaviors, allowing users to receive feedback responses to everyday lifestyle choices and better manage their health. For vulnerable populations who may not have the capacity to take care of themselves—such as seniors and children with emotional behavior disorders (EBDs)—and the professionals charged with caring for them, automatic sensor data collection and analysis would be particularly beneficial.

Dr. Chen uses a new and advanced smartphone-enabled social and physical compass system (SENSCOPS) to collect the relevant data. SENSCOPS continuously collects measurements of daily activities. In addition to the sensors built into smartphones, external wearable sensors are used to collect specialized physiological information, such as heart rate, respiratory rate, and temperature.

In order to reduce power consumption and optimize data analysis, SENSCOPS uses a distributed architecture where some functions are performed on smartphones or sensors, and others are carried out by a remote server. The information collected by the sensors is partially pre-processed on the phone, and then wirelessly transmitted via Wifi, cellular networks, or Bluetooth. The data is comprehensively analyzed by the server to infer useful information about the user such as behavioral side effects of certain drugs, environments that trigger certain stereotypical behaviors of children with EBDs, and social interactions in which the user participates. This important information is used to provide feedback to users about further actions they can take to proactively limit activities that may lead to future illnesses or methods of adapting problematic behaviors into socially acceptable responses in the case of children with EBDs.

As modern wireless technology develops, information security continues to be a concern. “SENSCOPS maintains privacy and security by encrypting and storing data collected as secure personal health records in the server,” says Dr. Yu-Dong Yao, Director of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “Only authorized healthcare providers, such as nurses and doctors, can review the data.”

With the potential to reduce healthcare costs, SENSCOPS has insurance and marketplace potential. Medical costs in 2013 are expected to grow by 7.5%, which is more than three times the projected rate of inflation or economic growth (2.0% and 2.4%, respectively). Methods of preventative and proactive care can therefore provide tremendous value for individuals and society at large. “SENSCOPS allows users to better manage their health using personal feedback provided by mobile applications,” says Dr. Chen. “With medical costs continuing to rise, a smartphone based healthcare system which monitors users’ mental, cognitive, and physical well-being and facilitate early diagnosis of potential illnesses and taking preventive measures is of increasing interest to healthcare providers and insurance companies.”

Dr. Chen is the director of the Data Analysis and Information Security (DAISY) Lab. She is an expert on the use of machine learning techniques and data mining methods to classify and model security, system, network and healthcare related problems. Her research group develops algorithms with an emphasis on system implementation and validation in real-world scenarios. She recently developed a mobile phone application that senses a driver’s cell phone use and intervenes for safety. She and two colleagues received an “Innovator’s Award” from the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame for the safe driving application. Dr. Chen’s research is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC), Department of Defense (DoD), Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), and Google, Inc.

For more information about this research and other activities in health care at Stevens, please contact Dr. Peter Tolias.

Visit our Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, and check out the offices of Undergraduate and Graduate Admissions to enroll!

Dr. Yi Guo

The sudden release of millions of gallons of oil due to an accidental spill or leak can devastate ocean and shoreline ecosystems. The April 2010 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig leaked 205.8 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, causing $38 billion dollars in damages and clean-up costs. In addition to killing thousands of birds, sea turtles, and dolphins, leaked oil washed onto the salt marshes near the shore, killing plants and consequently accelerating shoreline erosion that is likely to be permanent.

Governments, corporations and researchers are continually making efforts to reduce the quantity and severity of these disasters and improve emergency response when they do occur. In the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon leak, local, state and federal agencies worked to clean up the oil using techniques that included confinement of the oil, skimming the oil from the water surface, and applying chemical dispersants to break the oil down. Some 16.5 million gallons were chemically dispersed, 6.2 million were skimmed, and 35 million were directly recovered from the wellhead, while 53.5 million gallons remained in the water or washed ashore.

One difficulty highlighted by the Deepwater Horizon response is that underwater oil plumes propagate in a complex manner which can be difficult to predict. Seeking to provide more intelligent technological support for agencies charged with clean-up efforts, Dr. Yi Guo of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology has won a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to provide better oil plume data by deploying heterogeneous ocean robots (including wave gliders, unmanned surface vessels, and autonomous underwater vehicles) to detect and monitor the propagation of oil plumes.

“With an estimated 1.3 million metric tons of oil annually released into the sea, oil spills and discharges are ongoing problems that require organized and efficient responses,” says Dr. Michael Bruno, Dean of the Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering and Science. “Dr. Guo’s innovative distributed robotics will establish more effective strategies to collect and disperse oil in future spills.”

When oil is spilled in the ocean, it generally propagates through two transport mechanisms. Advection is the transport of the oil due to the motion of the water, and diffusion is the oil’s motion from areas of higher concentration to areas of lower concentration. These mechanisms can be taken into account in a general advection-diffusion model, which considers parameters like probability, time, velocity and a diffusion coefficient with spatial variability.

Dr. Guo will develop distributed multi-robot deployment algorithms for the autonomous vehicles so that their movements match such a model. The robots will be able to cooperate and maneuver themselves autonomously in order to map and monitor an underwater oil plume. They can then get the real-time sensor input of the plume concentration and other important parameters so that the source of the leak is pinpointed and the oil propagation is more accurately monitored. “The vehicles will sense and identify parameters in the oil plume propagation model and adjust their position accordingly in real time. We are using an iterative process that continually revises the tracking model, making it more accurate than any currently available.”

Presently, ocean robots field deployments are limited to individual robots, and the algorithms for autonomous vehicles have generally applied 2D models. Motivated by the gap in theoretical development and field deployment for distributed robotics, Dr. Guo aims to apply the state of the art to imperative field operations. “This research represents multifaceted advancement because 3D modeling in underwater and aerospace applications is more complex than 2D modeling, and algorithms that consider group dynamics to control a team of robots are far more intricate than those that consider only the dynamics of a single robot. In going from one robot to two, for instance, the difficulty is not simply doubled, because the algorithm must also consider their interactions with each other.”

The techniques developed in the course of their research will have long-term impacts in underwater exploration such as oceanographic survey and energy production in deep water. The results potentially benefit other environmental monitoring tasks with underlying diffusion and advection processes, such as weather event tracking and climate prediction. Furthermore, Dr. Guo’s algorithms can be extended to general high-dimensional vehicle deployment, such as aerial vehicles, enabling any robot group to work out a consensus and deploy effectively as a team.

Robot Team Diagram

In addition to the algorithms and simulations in development, the project also includes an experimental aspect. Brian Bingham, Dr. Guo’s collaborator at the University of Hawaii’s Field Robotics Laboratory, will test a new wave glider prototype that will serve as the leader of the team of unmanned vehicles. The wave glider has a two-part design, with a float at the surface connected to a submarine with vertically oscillating “wings”. This architecture takes advantage of the fact that wave energy is highest at the surface and weakens with greater underwater depth. As the float climbs and falls with the waves, pulling the sub up and down, the sub’s wings pivot up and down to propel the glider forward.  The wave glider solely uses the endless power of the ocean’s waves for propulsion, making it an excellent candidate for leading and anchoring the robot team.

PhD Candidate Shuai Li with Dr. Guo

The project integrates research with education activities through robot-centric undergraduate and graduate education, robotics competition, short course and workshop development, and outreach to K-12 education. PhD candidate Shuai Li is working with Dr. Guo to relax the vehicle team’s communication topology from “all-to-all” to “neighbor-to-neighbor”, which is more reliable, efficient and robust. Because the complexity of group dynamics multiplies with each addition to the team, an algorithm which requires all-to-all communication must be revised for an expanding team. Shuai is working to necessitate only that the robots communicate with their nearest neighbors, working up to a team consensus. Instead of sending messages to every member of the group, each robot needs only to send a message to neighbors to communicate with the whole team. This establishes scalability in the algorithm, as each additional team member requires minimal extra overhead.

According to Dr. Yu-Dong Yao, Director of the Department of Electrical Engineering, “The educational component of this research gives our students a great opportunity to apply their ingenuity to an urgent international concern. The capabilities established in this research potentially allow responding agencies to more comprehensively understand where oil plumes will go and focus their efforts to respond more efficiently to a disaster. ”

Visit our Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, and check out the offices of Undergraduate and Graduate Admissions to enroll!