UWTSD Applied Computing Blog

The Faculty of Architecture, Computing and Engineering which includes the School of Applied Computing was actively involved in the UWTSD Graduate Summer school programme for 2015 at Lampeter. We had Guest Keynote speaker Ian Stewart from Arqiva speaking to us on the Internet of Things (IoT).

Here are highlights of the activities from our School and Faculty:

Thursday 2nd July 2015: Computing students present their research work and build a robot to climb unto a chair.

Thursday evening Formal Dinner at the Lloyd Thomas Dining Room:

Friday 3rd, July 2015, Engineering Conference speakers highlights:

Session 1: IoT – Mr Ian Stewart

* Concept of IoT was outlined. “Connecting Digital lives and Services together”
* The vision (movement) was considered from multiple angles (i.e. economic, medicine, agriculture and etc.)
* One of the main points considered was the marketing aspect.
* Increase in use of sensor networks was outlined. By 2020 over 40% of Internet traffic will be generated by sensors.
* General information was provided about Arqiva and the nature of work they are involved with. (i.e. UK National television and radio broadcast, GSM infrastructure deployments and etc.)
* Involvement of Mr Stewart with multiple telecommunication companies across Europe in deployment and marketing aspects of their infrastructures.
* It was highlighted that “WE” (as individuals, academic institutions and corporate organizations) should have a strategy for surviving in the age of IoT (2020 – onwards).
* The scope of activities affected by IoT is vast and applications of such infrastructure are limitless.
* Mr Stewart also elaborated how in this day and age, we don’t necessarily need a significant amount of money to start a successful enterprise. It was highlighted that all the pieces are there, we just have to be clever in putting them together (i.e. Facebook).
* After the speech, possible research collaboration opportunities were discussed in brief. And such activities are to be scheduled for near future.

Session 2: FACE Research – Dr Caerwyn Ash

* Speech was focused on Medical devices and their applications. A number of (Ideas/Developments) were outlined:
* Continuous improvement of some tools was discussed:

o Hearing aids: Electronics improvements
o Evolution of pacemakers

* iPhone as a medical device. (i.e. Monitoring health when running!)
* Particularly applicable to rural locations with lack of/limited access to healthcare systems.
* Monitoring patients via wristbands. Sensors to collect health data (i.e. heartbeat, blood pressure and …) to be analysed by healthcare professionals.
* Ideas as simple as pressing a button on a pill case to ensure elderly are taking their pills regularly.
* Asthma inhalers (regulated): monitoring usage to ensure proper administration of spray.
* Digital Stethoscopes to monitor patients better in harsh environments (i.e. WarZones)
* Ongoing research in muscular dystrophy. (aid of 3d printing)
* Ultraviolet blankets
* Skin Care products in general. (Skin Cancer detection from colour changes)
* Use of light to cure wounds which are not healing (i.e. in case of diabetic patients)

Session 3: Motorsport Research – Dr. Owen Williams

* Involvement of FACE in motorsport research was outlined.
* A number of problems were identified such as:

o Difficulty in prediction of motorbike behaviour due to complex gyroscope physics.
o Lack of motorbike simulators.

* Use of sensors to collect data for each ride.
* Considerable differences were highlighted between motorbikes and other motor vehicles.
* Materials used in MotoGP was discussed.

A number of potential interdisciplinary research projects were identified:

o 100 channel logger at 1KHz.
o Fibre Optics for chassis parameter sensing.
o Built-in Eye-Tracker for bike helmets.
o Use of AI for simulator parameters identification.