Energy Efficient Optical Network

As the demand for new Internet services, such as 3-D online gaming, video conferencing and learning, video telephony and downloading, and high-definition video-on-demand, becomes more widespread, the amount of electricity used by servers, communication devices, and Internet infrastructure continue to be a major concern. Various studies show that in 2005 the total energy used by data centers (including their associated infrastructure) was about 1.5% of the total U.S. electricity consumption. This is equivalent to the electricity consumed by six million homes or about three billion dollars and eight million tons of CO2emission. It is estimated that the annual IP traffic in 2012 will be about eight times larger than its level in 2005, surging the total energy cost to about 24 billion dollars.

The objective of this research is to examine and compare the power consumption between optical cross-connect equipment based on electrical and photonic matrix switching. We also like to study modular optical node architecture that is capable of offering energy-awareness in QoS-enabled traffic grooming.

Status: Ongoing
Collaborators: University of Texas at Dallas, and Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy
Publications: Click here...

Design and Development of a Solar Power Monitoring System

The purpose of this project is to retrofit an existing off grid Solar System Power system with a wireless interface that will track system performance and provide historical performance data to better manage the utilization and future growth of power resources at the Fairfield Osborn. This is a continuing project and requires knowledge of wireless and micro-controllers. Our focus in this phase of the project is to add educational components to the monitoring system.

Here are a few things that we will specifically be focusing on:
- Making the pulling cycle changeable from the program
- Making the report time variable using a switch
- The LabView graphs should show the exact time
- Upload the data/email using modem
- Add the oil sensor
- Add email features
- Check the maintenance mode
- Add UPS
- When the system is in catch-up mode a software light should be blinking
- When the system in maintenance mode, the state must be shown in the archived data
- Create a two way communication between LabView and Zigbee
- Establish a larger wireless network.

 Status: Phase I is completed
Sponsered: Sonoma Preserve

SMS Based Sensor Monitoring

The field of research is continuing to grow with each new area and discovery. Every discovery brings researchers a new item or area to look at. With environmental studies there are still findings made daily and the more tools that are available to researchers, the more often these breakthroughs will occur. One of the challenges that are faced by researchers when doing studies in the wilderness is the remoteness of the investigation sight.
The goal of this project is to develop a sensor platform that will utilize SMS technology to transfer the values of the sensors to an off-site server. This server will then store and display the data over the internet. It is the goal to provide a platform that is flexible enough to work with a wide selection of environmental sensors and can be used at many sites such as the Fairfield Osborn preserve. An open protocol will be developed to facilitate the messages passed between the field system and the server and will have the necessary flexibility to be used for any sensor system utilizing text messaging.
We have already developed the SMS Based Sensor Monitoring platform. However, more work is required to complete this project. Contact for more information.

 Status: Phase I is completed.
Sponsered: Sonoma State University Preserve

General Purpose Data Logger with GPS

The purpose of this hand-held device is to record GPS position as well as readings from attached sensors. The device can later be connected to a PC and download all information. Google map can be utilized to map display the information.

track moving objects where installing a GPS is not practical. This device will be ideal for applications such as tracking birds, fish, small animals, learn about animals and their habitats, keeping track of moving bicycles, etc. Click on the figure for more information.