Dr. Ashit Talukder's Home Page and MUSIC Project Description
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Introduction

Dr. Ashit Talukder is a Associate Professor at the University of Southern California. He is also a Senior Researcher  and Technical Project Manager at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles/Univ. of Southern California and a Senior Researcher (Category A) at the Jet  Propulsion Laboratory/NASA, California Institute of Technology, located in  Pasadena, CA, USA. He has a PhD from the Dept.  of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University where he worked with Prof. David Casasent.  He obtained a M.S. at Iowa State University where he worked with Dr. Jennifer  Davidson . He leads and works on several  projects funded by DARPA, NASA, commercial organizations, and the NIH, in a  variety of areas ranging from computer vision, pattern recognition, and image  processing, to intelligent sensor networks, sensor fusion, data mining, and system optimization and control.

 
 

  He has more than 40 publications in journals and conference  proceedings. He is a member of the technical organizing committee of the Optical  Pattern Recognition Conference in the Annual SPIE Defense and Security Symposium  (formerly known as the Annual SPIE  AeroSense Conference), held in Orlando, FL every year during  April. He has chaired several conference sessions (including sessions on  " Active  vision in robotics " at Photonics East,  Intelligent Robotics and Computer Vision XVII), and is a reviewer on several  journals (IEEE Trans. Image Processing, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing,  IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics-B, Applied Optics,  Neurocomputing, Neural Networks, and Optical Engineering).

 

MUSIC Project Description

The sensor networks group at CHLA is led by Dr. Ashit Talukder ( talukder@usc.edu or Ashit.Talukder@jpl.nasa.gov). Our group builds complete hardware and software technologies for an end to end mobile monitoring system that will autonomously detect and reactively (adaptively) respond to events under extremely constrained bandwidth and power conditions. Towards this goal, we have built a wireless heterogeneous distributed sensor network with autonomous event detection and sensor processing capabilities, real-time multisensor control and resource (power, bandwidth, and storage) management. In MUSIC (Multi-modality Sensor network for Integrated event detection, C ontrol optimization and resource management), we address all issues encountered in mobile autonomous monitoring, including advanced algorithms for event and signal classification from multiple sensors, and adaptive power, bandwidth and storage management in mobile systems with limited resources.

One of the applications that MUSIC is specifically being used for is mobile telehealth, where the health of individuals is autonomously monitored and reported in real-time using various physiological and metabolic measurements as the individual carries on his/her normal daily activities. One specific goal is to use MUSIC for mobile alcohol sensing monitoring and reporting for extended periods of time. The numeruous issues (and corresponding solutions) that we address in MUSIC for mobile telehealth is shown in the figure below.

Autonomous on-board sensing vs. Data Transmission: Why current Sensor Networks are not enough.

Current sensor networks are designed for observing and capturing environmental data via sensory observations and transmitting such data back to a central location for manual analysis. However, data transmission is a power-hungry operation. In our tests, we have found that data transmission consumes about 6-10 times more power than data processing. In addition, autonomous processing paves the way for autonomous sensing systems where events can be detected "in-situ " without having a person to look at the data. This reduces bandwidth usage, increases sensor network lifetime, and reduces the need for manual intervention. It also raises the possibility of autonomous "bold"-reactive systems, where the system can autonomously take corrective action when it detects an event. This could be useful in:

  1. Health monitoring, for example, where insulin levels could be autonomously controlled in diabetic patients,
  2. Biochemical agents in the field could be autonomously neutralized in the battlefield after detection,
  3. Crop growth could be optimally controlled by managing injection of water, CO2, heating, light, etc. based on external environmental effects, and
  4. Smart structures could be built to tolerate unexpected stress/strain by controlling micro-actuators on the structure.

MUSIC IN ACTION

We have designed a generic wireless sensor network system using Motes RF nodes with interfaces to COTS and specialized sensors, in a three-layered structure that allows for breakdown at any node without creating a catastrophic failure in other layers and nodes. Each node is equipped with autonomous processing capability and adaptive resource management algorithms that allow autonomous operation during communication link failures. The figure below shows an individual wearing the MUSIC sensor network system and a screenshot of a wireless pulse oximeter sensor node.

  

Adaptive Resource Management

Since power and data storage management and autonomous event detection in real-time are critical design issues, the power and storage on the body sensors (including Motes) and the mid-level platform (cellphone or PDA) should be efficiently managed for extended operation. Radio transmission is the largest consumer of battery power and typically consumes more power than data processing in the microcontroller. Therefore, intelligent processing and detection of critical events within a sensor node will help in minimize radio transmissions.

Contact Information

For further information, please contact the principal investigator and technical project manager, Dr. Ashit Talukder, at 818 354 1000, or email him at talukder@usc.edu or Ashit.Talukder@jpl.nasa.gov 

Sponsor

"MUltimodality in-situ alcohol SensIng and Quantitation system (MUSIQ)"

NIH / NIAAA - June 2003 to June 2008

Collaborating Institutes

bulletSpectRx Inc.
bulletBoston University

     

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This site was last updated 12/09/2004