EMMA Project Objectives

The Challenge

The Information Society is becoming the Networked Society, where not only people, but also increasingly smarter devices are sharing information, knowledge and services anytime anywhere. Embedded systems are at the centre of this move, since networks are not any longer linking just people but also smart objects – i.e. smart devices incorporating embedded software.
This is posing serious challenges, particularly in applications which are mission critical or even life critical.
Transport is a good example of this since existing infrastructure will need to be operated up to (and sometimes beyond) its design margins in order to cope with the additional capacity that the society demands. However, while doing so, safety and security standards must not only be maintained at current levels, but increased. In this context, stand-alone Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are not any longer the solution. Instead, Co-operative Transport Systems (CTS) are the most promising option. In this paradigm, analogous to that of the Ambient Intelligence, the different actors involved in ITS –humans and machines- will interact among each other in order to meet their individual goals while at the same time maximizing the safety and efficiency of the overall system.

As we can see in the transport example, systems which can cooperate and deliver smarter services are needed. However, in order to achieve these smarter systems, better input data is required.
In other words, smarter systems demand smarter sensors; cooperative systems require cooperative sensors.

Project Objectives

Further to the context described in the previous section, EMMA has one strategic goal:
To open new prospects in the field of embedded middleware for cooperating wireless objects in order to hide the complexity of the underlying infrastructure while providing open interfaces to third parties. The application domain of transport will be taken as a pilot example, swhere EMMA will foster cost-efficient ambient intelligence systems with optimal performance, high confidence, reduced time to market and faster deployment.
This strategic goal will be achieved by means of a number of specific objectives, namely:

Building of a middleware platform – i.e. a collection of application independent services which can provide runtime support to the application level- and a development environment which facilitates the design and implementation of embedded software for cooperative sensing objects. These are cooperating objects – in the definition by Embedded Wisents - which common goal is a
improved perception of their environment.

To lab test this middleware on a number of sensors – made available to EMMA project- to be used as pilot wireless cooperative objects (wicos).

The inclusion of other cooperating objects as part of the definition of a cooperating object itself, so that it is shown how these objects can combine their sensors in a hierarchical way and are, therefore, able to create arbitrarily complex structures. EMMA will demonstrate its flexibility and granularity by making use of three hierarchical levels of wicos:

• Within an automotive subsystem:
• At a car level
• At the supra-car level

To validate EMMA wicos in the context of a number of applications. These applications, although innovative, are not breakthrough research – EMMA core innovation is in the embedded middleware and the wicos. Instead, these applications serve as test beds for the project embedded middleware and wicos. The applications are:

• Predictive maintenance based in improved perception of engine status.
• Speed warning/inhibiting based in the wireless cooperation between the ‘radar wico’ and the ‘engine wico’.
• Wireless cooperation between cars and the infrastructure to broadcast warnings or incidences -e.g. schools road works, tight bends-, based on the cars as sensing wicos and the smart dust in the infrastructure.

To feed the project results into the relevant standards, particularly in those of the automotive industry.

To facilitate the access of SME,s to the market of cooperative sensing systems, by means of EMMA specific middleware and targeted dissemination and awareness actions.
In this point it is noteworthy mentioning that EMMA wicos exchange data, not actions. Wicos cooperate by exchanging information in order to improve their perception of their environment. Any control or management action taken on the basis of this improved perception is left to the application level, as opposed to the wicos themselves.

EMMA will deliver:

• A middleware platform and a development environment.
• Prototypes of wireless cooperating sensors incorporating EMMA embedded software.
• Validation pilots.
• The business model making possible the deployment of results.