Press Releases
European consortium develops system to improve peoples living conditions
Kick-off meeting of the ARTEMIS EMMON R&D project takes place on the 25th March in Portugal
25 Mar 2009
Critical Software heads the consortium undertaking the EMMON project (EMbedded MONitoring), launched by the ARTEMIS Joint Undertaking (7th Framework Programme of the European Commission). EMMON's main objective is the development of a functional prototype for the real-time monitoring of specific natural scenarios (related to the quality of urban life, forest environment, civil protection etc) using Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) devices. The goal of the project is to develop the technology to effectively monitor and control an area of 50 square km - this will involve the deployment of thousands of wireless sensor nodes which will be a massive advance on the current state-of-the-art.
"Herschel and Planck are probably the most complex missions ever developed by the European Space Agency. Critical Software was called in at a difficult stage of the developments, and to perform a complex task, as the available computer resources were found not to be enough to support the all operating system. Critical was able to refurbish the system so it would fit the constraints and do so in a very tight schedule. This task highlighted Critical Software capabilities and know-how on Mission Critical systems.", states Bruno Carvalho, Industry Specialist for the Space market.
EMMON will evolve through a partnership between Critical and eight other organisations, both corporate and academic. This consortium (Critical Software, Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, Intesys, Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Tecnicas de Gipuzkoa, Critical Software Technologies, Trinity College Dublin, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, SESM S.c.a.r.l., Akting Ingeniaritza S.L.) will perform technological research in order to devise more efficient, low power consumption communication protocols. It will also involve the development of embedded software with better overall energy efficiency, security, reliability and fault tolerance.
The results from this R&D project may in future be used in any city in the world, as an important aid to improving the living conditions of their populations. "Detailed information about our environment is essential to increased awareness and understanding of the events around us, whether our focus be on pollution, noise, a river basin or a tropical rain forest. The theoretical knowledge and simulation models about such surroundings are useful to understand past events and be able to forecast the future. Frequent detailed monitoring is vital if we are to have a clear picture of the evolving environment, particularly in the context of global climate change. EMMON will rise to the challenge, researching and advancing the state of the art in Wireless Sensor Networks until the technology for large scale monitoring becomes a practical reality.", states Délio Almeida, EMMON Project Manager.
EMMON has strong end-user involvement in terms of requirements definition, problems and needs. These inputs will be taken into account during technical reviews and field tests. End-users will come from several areas, including, civil protection (pollution and fire hazards), energy production, monitoring of water consumption, monitoring of natural environments.
ABOUT EMMON
The EMMON project aims to allow the monitoring of extensive geographical areas using Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) devices - small communicating & cooperative sensor nodes. In order to achieve this ambition, EMMON will perform technological research at the level of devices, in new, efficient, and low power consumption communication protocols, embedded software with better overall energy efficiency, secure, fault-tolerant and reliable middleware for large scale monitoring and remote command & control systems for end-users. The objective is to enable embedded devices to be placed in the environment to perform continuous monitoring and situation analysis, targeted at specific scenarios (water pipelines, urban quality of life, forest and marine environments, civil protection) detecting abnormal variations and rapidly broadcasting alarms and alerts. EMMON has strong end-user involvement to ensure relevance and maximise long term project impact.
