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Former Member

The WASP project 

WASP is a European founded research project that started in September 2006. The project targets – like the full name “Wirelessly Accessible Sensor Populations” already states – applications using wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Main goal of the project is to narrow the mismatch between research at the application level and the node and network level. WASP wants to construct highly optimized applications on a network of generic and flexible sensor nodes. WASP aims to provide theory, methods, hardware and software to ease the implementation process of WSN applications.

 

19 partners from academic and industrial research are involved in the WASP project. Research activities span from hardware development over software development up to the integration into Enterprise systems. Based on the developed processors with low power consumption and high processing power, WASP will deliver a development platform that eases the implementation of novel WSN applications. A set of developed services will allow integrating the networked application within its environment. Prototypes from different application domains will be implemented on top of the WASP framework to proof the generality and flexibility of the WASP approach

 

SAP Research has two major tasks in the WASP project. The first task is to ensure security in WSN applications. WSNs in general are highly vulnerable due to the wireless channel and their dynamic topology together with resource restrictions. The SAP Research team will concentrate on securing the application level while applying standard security mechanisms  (encryption, access control) and developing new security protocols and schemas (mutual authentication via secret handshake, context-aware access control, etc.).

The second goal is to provide an Enterprise Integration Component (EIC) that allows the secure integration of WSNs into existing business applications running in Enterprise systems.

 

Besides applications in the area of herd control and road transport, WASP has identified elderly care as main applications area. Remote Monitoring for older people and patients who require regular supervision is one of the trends in e-health. Remote Monitoring observes the health and mental status of the patient around the clock while the patients are free to continue their daily activities.

 

WASP has identified the following use cases suitable for prototyping. In all scenarios elderly people are monitored by wearable body sensor networks (BSN) and ambient sensors, installed in the buildings where the people live.

  • Detection of activities of daily living: Monitoring Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) is widely used in medicine for assessing the elderly and those with chronic diseases or mental illness. ADL indices include: mobility, communication, breathing, eating and drinking, quality of sleeping and much more. Deviations from regular patterns of activity can indicate whether or not the person being monitored is experiencing deterioration in health and/or wellbeing.
  • Monitoring social interaction: social interaction monitoring can be useful for indicating cases of depression, which is prevalent in the elderly population particularly among those living alone. Deviations from regular behavioral patterns or an extreme decline in social activity can provide signs of the general health and mental status of the elderly.
  • Monitoring chronic diseases: Chronic Disease Management (CDM) is fundamental to the reduction of healthcare costs and improves quality of life of individuals with chronic conditions through preventative measures and capture early signs of potential deterioration. Potential benefits to patient include sensing under normal living conditions and early detection of the onset of any deterioration before it is critical or life threatening. For healthcare providers, this allows well informed care activities and improved disease management.

The first use case (Detection of ADLs) was elected as prototype that will be implemented in the WASP project within the next year. SAP Research will actively support the implementation and integrate the prototype into the SAP Healthcare products, like the connection package for collaboration health networks (CHN).

 

In my next blog, I will elaborate more the technical details of the WASP healthcare scenario.