Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC)

Project Coordinator

CTTC is Located in Barcelona-Spain, it is a non-profit R&D center with substantial funding support from the autonomous government (Generalitat de Catalunya) along with research and development partnerships with industry. The CTTC council is constituted by the main technical universities in Catalunya, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and Universitat Ramon Llull (URL), as well as the Department for Universities, Research, and Information Society (DURSI) of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Research expertise is mainly focused on technologies related to the lower layers of communication systems, being that activity organized into five areas, namely IP technologies, "SWAP" Communication subsystems, Radio communications, Access technologies, and Optical networking. Two advisory bodies, Scientific and Business, supervise the activities of CTTC. Since its creation in November 2001, CTTC has participated in the following projects: SCOI (EADS/CASA contract), IST-ANWIRE, IST-WINNER, IST-WINNERII, IST-NEWCOM, WIP, WISQUAS, PROMISE, LOOP (MEDEA+/CELTIC), PLANETS, MIMOWA (EUREKA MEDEA+ program), IST-COOPCOM, DYNAMO (COST 295), RFCSET (COST IC0803) and EMPIRICO, PERSEO, GIRAFA, NARRA (funded by MCYT, Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology). Moreover, CTTC has collaborated with the Telecomunications Research Center of Viena (FTW), University Mohammed V Agdal (Morocco) and the Universität Stuttgart (Germany) in the context of Integrated Actions. CTTC has also produced several technical reports upon request of ESA staff members on topics such as cross-layer designs for satellite systems or multi-beam systems. CTTC staff members have been involved in a number of research projects in the field of satellite communications, namely, SICRAL, IRMA, SIRMA, EODIS. CTTC has an engineering unit to support the different areas of research, which creates a critical mass of scientific-technical staff with R&D and engineering profiles with capacity for developing test-beds. In 2002-2003, CTTC carried out an investment of about 1.410.000 EUR in equipment of laboratory and software packets to equip its laboratories of radio/wireless, microwaves, technologies IP and optical networks. CTTC offers a training environment in R&D activities in telecommunications highly reputed both in science and technology, both at graduate and undergraduate levels. Measurement equipment and an RF channel emulator (Elektrobit Propsim C8) can be used for wireless experimentation and prototyping. The channel emulator allows the emulation of a custom wireless propagation environment and can be used with off-the-shelf transceivers. Finally, CTTC has an anechoic chamber (ETS-Lindgren, 700 MHz-18GHz,) and microwave testing equipment (50 GHz, spectrum analyzer, 2-port and 4-port network analyzers up to 60 GHz, RF sources) to characterize RF components developed in the project.

Role in the project: CTTC will be involved in all work packages, with a central role in WP0 being the project coordinator and a considerable activity both in WP2 and WP3. CTTC will contribute in WP1 in the definition of the specification and requirements and the reference state of the art related mostly to the energy harvesting solutions and also on communication protocol aspects (MAC and routing layers). In WP2, CTTC will contribute to the investigation on the energy harvesting modules and to the energy accumulation blocks of the new sensor board. In WP3, CTTC will perform thorough prototyping validation the feasibility of the developed building blocks. CTTC also plans to assist the implementation phase performed in WP4 in order to get knowledge on hardware implementation and contribute with the experience acquired in WP3. CTTC may also host the final test phase thanks to its facilities.

World Sensing (WS)

is a spin-off company from members of different Spanish Universities. The company was born in June of 2008 in Barcelona. WorldSensing aims at providing solutions based on wireless sensor networks for broad range of applications. Its expertise in systems and software SWAP design provides low cost, highly integrated wireless solutions with a focus on the IEEE802.15.4 standard and 6lowpan. The company's products include state-of-the-art low power wireless sensors solutions oriented to environmental and structural monitoring applications. The R&D team of WorldSensing is leaded by Ph.D. researchers and engineers specialized in Telecommunications, IT, electronics, physics and industrial design. The main R&D lines include: i) Optimized and application-specific embedded wireless systems, ii) Energy efficient communication protocols, iii) Context Aware solutions based on Wireless networks. Worldsensing is member of RedSens working group in the framework the Association of Electronics and ICT Companies of Spain, formed by the leading companies in the electronics and ICT sector. Worldsensing Headquarters are in the scientific park of Barcelona, in a strategic position between Polytechnic and Physics Universities. In the main office, the company designs and develops their prototypes. Apart of the R&D office, WorldSensing possess a complete electronics lab for hardware quick prototyping. This lab includes modern measurement and test devices as well as rapid prototyping tools. In order to save structural costs large production is externalized to third party companies. Recent developments carried out by WorldSensing include a high performance monitoring systems for rowing applications, and a vertical system to measure stee l ropes tension wirelessly. Worldsensing is a company focused on WSN hardware development and software integration. The company is currently developing a high performance low cost wireless node to be used in the regional seismic network. The expertise of the group members is on Hardware development, data acquisition, low level software development, communication protocols and system integration.

Role in the project: WS contributes in all work packages of the project with an emphasis in the combined implementation of the final outcomes of the project. In WP1, WS will coordinate the market survey and has the task of providing the state of the art in the hardware that is involved in the project including diverse energy harvesting methods and wireless nodes design. In WP2, WS will participate on WSN node hardware and energy harvesting module design. Moreover WS will be responsible of the integration of the different developments obtained by the different partners. In WP3, WS will participate in the implementation of the Energy harvesting module and lead the integration phase of the work package. Finally, WS plays an important role in WP4 and WP5, where it will coordinate the implementation efforts of the sensor board and product Standardization which facilitates interoperability of technologies and ensures a quicker market penetration.

Consorzio Ferrara Ricerche (CFR)

CFR is a non-profit organization that pursues specific research objectives (including health, the environment, biotechnology, technological innovation, training, etc.), in collaboration with a number of Italian Universities. In the past decade, CFR managed around 1000 research contracts with public and private subjects. It has participated in many EU-funded activities (including FP5, FP6 and FP7 IST projects) and has managed resources within the European Regional Development Fund, Objective 2. CFR’s key persons’ background on sensor networks comprehend expertise on both EyesIFX and TmoteSky sensor nodes; they have been involved in the European IPs SENSEI, e-SENSE, which for five years have been two of the reference projects on sensor networks, EYES, an early EU-funded effort in sensor networks, WiSeNts (Cooperating Embedded Systems for Exploitation and Control featuring Wireless Sensor Networks), as well as a number of other EU projects (e.g., Ambient Networks – Phases 1 and 2, NEWCOM, Simplicity, and several ITEA projects).

Role in the project: CFR will be involved in all work packages, with a particular interest in both WP2 and WP3. More specifically, in WP1 CFR will contribute to the definition of the specification and requirements and the reference state of the art related to the communication protocol aspects (MAC and routing layer).In WP2, CFR will contribute in the development of the building blocks of the new sensor board. In particular CFR will provide high efficient communication modules, capable of exploiting time-varying energy resources, such as solar light or vibrations. In WP3, CFR will perform thorough simulation campaign in order to demonstrate the feasibility of the developed building blocks. Also, CFR can implement WP2 solutions on actual test-beds. Even though CFR will not be actively participating in WP4, it will give its support to other partners in order to exploit the results provided during the simulation and experimental campaigns to drive the implementation task. Finally, the final device interoperability can be tested in CFR facilities.

Patavina Technologies (PT)

is an Italian spin-off of the university of Padova. PT has been set up in 2009 combining the expertise provided within the two groups of electronics for telecommunications and information engineering. PT business scheme is that of providing high level design services for companies trying to renovate their business idea exploiting the potentiality of wireless communication and embedded systems. Given its tight relation with the University of Padova, PT can also use the two wireless sensor test-bed deployed in the building of the university. PT key persons have a solid background in telecommunications systems, wireless sensor networks and embedded system: their expertise encompasses hardware design and analysis, firmware design and simulation and software development. PT management capabilities allow them to drive commercial project from the market analysis, to the design of the products, to the prototyping of the solution and up to the commercial production.

Role in the project: PT will participate in all the phases of the project, with a particular interest in hardware analysis, simulation, prototyping and testing. For WP1, PT will perform a market analysis focused on sensor nodes with harvesting capabilities. This analysis will lead to the definition of possible use cases and hardware and software requirements and specifications. In WP2, PT will contribute to the design of light-weight protocols for sensor networks, with a particular interest in the end-to-end networking functionalities. PT will also contribute to the development of networking devices such as bridges, routers and gateways. In WP3, PT will concentrate on the simulation and the experimental validation of the network behavior. PT will also contribute in the integration phase of the work package. In WP4, PT will cooperate to obtain the prototype version of the sensor board, will conduct a thorough experimental campaign on it in order to acquire the needed information to develop the final version of the sensor board.