Christopher James Conway
Focussed on courses in Computer Networking, Distributed Computing, Software Development, Databases, Security, Operating Systems, and Programming Languages.
Honours Project: “Real Time Hybrid Simulation of Wireless Sensor Networks”.
Parallelisation of the SpeckSim network simulator to achieve real-time performance when simulating large networks; integration of SpeckSim with a small wireless sensor network of physically deployed devices to allow accurate validation of a large-number of simulated results.
– Advanced Higher: Computing (A).
– Highers: Computing (A), Mathematics (B), English (B), Music (B), Physics (C).
An active partner in the HOBNET European FP7 Project. Research addressed algorithmic, networking and application development aspects of Future Internet systems of tiny embedded devices to provide an all IPv6/6LoWPAN infrastructure for Smart Buildings.
An active partner in the PLANET European FP7 Project. Research provided an integrated planning and maintenance platform that enables the deployment, operation and maintenance of heterogeneous networked Cooperating Objects in an efficient way.
Developed a data centric software framework for data storage and control of Wireless Sensor Networks. The framework provided a suite of data-centric applications for the collection, archiving and processing of Wireless Sensor Network information. Used successfully in various deployments, both internally for testing and on-site with the Scottish Agricultural College and Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, and demonstrated in ENS: An Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensor Network Platform.
Developed algorithms to perform localisation and tracking of a person / object within a Wireless Sensor Network in an Energy Neutral manner, both in simulation and firmware. Successfully demonstrated at the 8th Workshop in Speckled Computing.
Developed simulations of IEEE 802.15.4 networks and protocols in the SpeckSim network simulator, using the findings to develop firmware for Energy Neutral embedded devices.
Teaching Assistant on the System Level Integration Project (SLIP) course for final year honours students. Teaching covered all aspects of design, analysis and implementation of embedded systems.
Held weekly tutorial groups with students to discuss their projects and provide them with technical guidance, particularly related to IP Networking, Wireless Sensor Networks and the Future Internet.
Developed a networked application architecture and software for use with a Wireless Sensor Network. The architecture provided a client-server mechanism for communication between subsystems to collect data from the network, process and store it, and manipulate and visualise it. (Java, Python).
Performed testing and quality assurance of the MotionViewer software application for motion tracking using Orient on-body inertial Wireless Sensor Network devices. (Java, C#).
- Solely developed and tested an automated deployment application to install and build all necessary software, libraries and configuration required to run a server farm of GE’s power-grid management software. This software was successfully used to deploy servers at a power network facility in Russia. (Bash shell script and Perl).
- Created a virtualised environment for testing and deployment of GE’s power-grid management software using VMWare virtualisation technology. Successfully used in-house for both demonstration to potential customers and training.
- Due to the success of my first internship, I was invited back to work with GE again for a second summer.
Award for the best team during the Informatics System Design Project. Responsible for both project management and technical integration of the project: a football playing robot. Our robot won the football league and we impressed industry representatives with our “professional approach” to the project and our robust final product.
Computational Methods and Clinical Applications in Musculoskeletal Imaging
The recommended exam for assessing chest trauma is a computed tomography (CT) chest scan. Using multi-planar reconstructions to evaluate a CT volume to assess the ribcage is a tedious and time-consuming task. We have designed an application that provides an automatically rendered unfolded unobstructed view of the entire ribcage using an unfolded cylindrical projection. This paper describes the underlying algorithm which has two main steps: ribcage segmentation and ribcage unfolding. The unfolding technique we developed preserves the relative size and location of the ribs and surrounding tissue, providing a natural anatomical reference for the reader. It also demonstrated usefulness to identify other musculoskeletal conditions such us scoliosis, calcified cartilage, bone tumours. To evaluate the usefulness of the application, we evaluated it on 70 representative CT chest scans. The evaluation was performed by a clinical expert who graded the specialized unfolded cylindrical projection view on a 5 point Likert scale according to the level of diagnostic confidence. Results showed that 84% of the studies were clinically useful (above grade 3). The algorithm is fully automatic and it runs in an average time of 24s. The evaluation described in this paper gives positive initial feedback on the usefulness of the application. A recent multi-reader clinical study showed that using the specialized unfolded cylindrical projection view obtains similar diagnostic accuracy to conventional multi-planar reconstructions while reducing the reading time.
IEEE Workshop on Holistic Building Intelligence through Sensing Systems (HOBSENSE)
This paper presents initial results and future directions for data description and payload encodings for heterogeneous networks in IP based building intelligence systems. The efficiency of several open standards for sensor data representation are evaluated along with a consideration of the complexity of implementation and suitability for use in development of 6lowPAN based intelligent building systems. A combination of a simplified generic XML schema for data description combined with Google Protobuffer encoding is suggested as the basis for further development of the architecture as this combines simple, platform independent implementation for developers with efficient compression and payload encoding for limited bandwidth 6lowPAN networks. Download as PDF.
The Fifth International Conference on Systems and Networks Communications (ICSNC)
We present the design and implementation of an energy harvesting wireless sensor network platform, the Energy Neutral Speck (ENS). The design and implementation of the photo-voltaic and battery powered platform is described including the hardware, firmware and operating system and the architecture and implementation of software for interfacing with the network and visualisation and storage of sensor data. Download as PDF..