CSR-CPS: Smart Sticks

作为人类发现的最古老的工具之一，棍棒有不同的形状和大小，用于自卫、狩猎、行走或仅仅是为了好玩。这个智能手杖项目旨在为手杖增加传感和计算能力，用于广泛的应用：行走辅助（跌倒警报），障碍物检测（视力受损的指南），位置报告和查询（地形导航）。它还探讨了网络物理系统（CPS）设计的新接口技术。三种不同类型的手杖（四轴手杖和简单手杖，导盲棒和助行器）将被用作我们研究的物理平台。微型陀螺仪和压力传感器将用于生成行人运动传感的原始数据。并且将开发数字滤波器，使用低功耗FPGA或微控制器来建模和监测速度状态。这项研究将推进如何为CPS构建块设计即插即用架构的知识。该项目的广泛影响包括：在无处不在的物理平台上创造新的技术能力；帮助依赖手杖的使用者提高生活质量；提供一个有意义的场景，让本科生探索他们的设计能力。

As one of the oldest tools discovered by human, sticks come in different shapes and sizes to serve such purposes as self-defense, hunting, walking, or simply for fun. This smart stick project aims to add sensing and computing capabilities to sticks for a broad range of applications: walking assistance (fall alert), barrier detection (guides for the vision-impaired), location reporting and inquiry (terrain navigation). It also explores new interface techniques for cyber physical system (CPS) designs. Three different types of sticks (quad and simple walking sticks, guide sticks and walkers) will be used as the physical platforms for our study. Mini-gyro and pressure sensors will be used to generate raw data for pedestrian motion sensing. And digital filters will be developed to model and monitor pace states using low power FPGA or microcontrollers. This research will advance knowledge in how to design plug-and-play architectures for CPS building blocks. The broad impacts of this project consist of: creating new technological capabilities on a ubiquitous physical platform; assisting users who rely on sticks to improve their quality of life; providing a meaningful scenario for undergraduate students to explore their design abilities.