There is a need for middleware that blends personal and ambient sensor systems. The objective is for applications, running on a user's personal/wearable devices, to take advantage of the enhanced sensing capabilities of sensor networks installed in the environments that people typically move through. This cooperative sensing has the ability to greatly enhance personal systems while allowing users to retain control of privacy-sensitive information. Moreover, cooperation can enhance the computational capabilities and lessen the power requirements of applications by asking the ambient systems to do more of the work of elaborating the sensor data. This work is guided by practical applications and the concepts will be validated using personal health sensing and measurement as the initial application area. For example, the motivating application is a personal activity measurement system that not only measures a person's activities and level of exertion from measuring forces on their body but can also interface to equipment in a fitness center and gain further data from setting and sensors (e.g., heart rate monitors) on exercise equipment. The software artifacts will be middleware to make building these kinds of new applications more efficient and the applications themselves more robust to the availability of sensing and computational resources. The scientific results will be techniques to correlate sensing systems as well as methods for coordinating computations in a highly dynamic environment where users come and go. The middleware will be exercised in product-design courses at the University of Washington where students will build and evaluate hybrid wearable and ambient sensors systems.
