Research
The high-level theme of my research is "embedded systems". In particular, I focus on enabling technology for low-power, pervasive systems with an emphasis on the deployability and maintenance of large, long-term networks.
Raw data is included in the source tarballs for each project. If
you have further questions or need assistance, please do not hesitate to
contact me.
M3
The goal of the Michigan Micro Mote (M3) project is to finally realize the Smart Dust vision: networks of integrated, autonomous, energy-harvesting nodes that can sense the environment and deliver their data over a wireless mesh network. The concrete goal of the project is to: (1) create sensor nodes that are cubic-mm in size, (2) draw ~10 nW, and (3) deliver data every few minutes over a multihop network. This requires advances in every layer of the system stack – circuits to memory to processor to timers to radios to interconnects to packaging to software to protocols to programming models. If successful, this represents a 1,000-10,000 fold improvement over the state-of-the-art in size and power.
Abstract lifted from Prabal Dutta
M3 is an ambitious project, composed of a team of four faculty ( Dennis Sylvester, David Blaauw, David Wentzloff, and Prabal Dutta ) and over a dozen graduate students. My primary contribution is the software development environment for the M3 system. This includes a hardware/software emulation system and a supporting software library for this M3. I also work on system architecture design.
M-ulator
A highly extensible {ARM} {e,si}mulator. It is capable of both simple simulation of various ARM cores (currently M0, M3) or in-circuit emulation (currently the Michigan Micro Mote platform)
In addition, this project is used as a teaching tool for embedded systems courses (currently at University of Michigan and University of Utah), both to understand internal core design and higher-level MCU usage.
Low-Power I2C
An I2C variant designed by Yoonmyung Lee for the M3, this demo paper briefly explores the ultra-low power bus design space. Its focus is on the design challenges of interfacing conventional commercial systems with hyper-power concious systems, and the tradeoffs made to achieve nano-Watt power budgets.
This work was presented at IPSN'12 in Beijing
Pat Pannuto, Yoonmyung Lee, Ben Kempke, Dennis Sylvester, David Blaauw, and Prabal Dutta. Ultra-constrained sensor platform interfacing. In Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks, IPSN ’12, pages 147–148, New York, NY, USA, 2012. ACM
µSDR
Collaborative work with Ye-Sheng Kuo, supporting the final steps of his µSDR platform. µSDR is a 10x improvement in the price, power, and portability of SDR platforms. It trades the modularity of the RF frontends and some amount of processing power for these advantages. Several low-power protocols (A-MAC, Glossy) have been implemented in µSDR already.
For up-to-date information on µSDR, please visit the project website.
Ye-Sheng Kuo, Pat Pannuto, Thomas Schmid, and Prabal Dutta. Reconfiguring the software radio to improve power, price, and portability. In Proceedings of the 10th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems, SenSys ’12, New York, NY, USA, 2012. ACM
Powerline Communications (PLC)
My introduction to research as an undergraduate, this work sought to explore the feasibility of using Powerline Communications (PLC) in a commercial building. In a home, a PLC deployment is easy as the same line and neutral wires run to every outlet. This is untrue in a commercial building, which is parcelled off into electrically isolated regions by transformers.
The work was an exploration of the connectivity graph of the Computer Science building at the University of Michigan, seeking to characterize it and then attempt an explanation of the observed characteristics.
Pat Pannuto and Prabal Dutta. Exploring powerline networking for the smart building. In Extending the Internet to Low power and Lossy Networks, IP+SN ’11, April 2011