X-Sense

Lothar Thiele, Jan Beutel Stephan Gruber Alain Geiger Tazio Strozzi Hugo Raetzo ETH Zurich, Embedded/Wireless University Zurich, Physical Geography ETH Zurich, Geodesy and Photogrammetry GAMMA SA, SAR Remote Sensing BAFU/FOEN

What drives us?

Societal Applications
Gurtnellen, Uri, 5.6.2012 1 fatality, rail track closed for over 1 month Eiger Unterer Grindelwaldgletscher

Felbertauern 14.5. 2013

We do not understand the underlying geophysical processes. We can not provide reliable early 3 warning systems.

The X-Sense System

Before X-Sense
Traditionally geo-scientists operate with
Manual field-campaigns: Few measurement points in time [Lambiel] or space [van de Wal], often short duration Expensive, heavy weight infrastructure: Inclinometer measurements in boreholes [Arenson], [Haeberli] Applied industrial wireless networking: alpEWAS [Singer, TUM]

Wireless Sensor Networks

Short lived: SensorScope [Vetterli], Volcanoes [Welsh] Unreliable: Redwoods [Culler], Potatoes [Langendoen] Low data quality: Great Duck Island [Szewczyk] Theory: Driven by Smart Dust

X-Sense Hypothesis
Anticipation of future environmental states and risk benefits from
environmental sensing at diverse modalities and scales, process modeling

Wireless Sensor Network Technology

allows to quantify mountain phenomena, can be used for safety critical applications in an hostile environment
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The Spatial Pipeline

Our Sensor Developments

GPS Logger

Wireless GPS Sensor

Large-scale, early access data

Fully integrated, low-power

GPS CoreStation

Experimentation, variable use

Deployment Matter Valley

Field Site Inventory
10 GPS on composite landslides 10 GPS on rock glaciers 5 GPS as position reference stations 5 simple temperature loggers per GPS station 2 Meteo stations 3 Cameras 2 High-resolution cameras 1 High-resolution camera robot Installation started August 2010, full operability from August 2011
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The Functional Pipeline

raw sensor data preprocessing formal system models weather & atmosphere models models & simulation understanding processes data cleaning; system health location extraction geophysical processes predictions
530.000.000 raw data points 117.4 GB 2010 individual publications joint publications presentations (talks/posters)
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communication

2010-2011 38 6 43

2011-2012 32 7 53

1 0 2

Research Highlights
Computer Engineering and Networks

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WSN Design and Development Methods

Threats to predictability
non-deterministic environment (energy harvesting, availability of communication) working close to resource limits (energy, memory, bandwidth) makes systems extremely fragile.

formal methods
verification correct by construction

testing
increase observability distributed and scalable different modalities
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FlockLab Testbed

Observer

Target
Roman Lim, Federico Ferrari, Marco Zimmerling, Christoph Walser, Philipp Sommer and Jan Beutel: FlockLab: A Testbed for Distributed, Synchronized Tracing and Profiling of Wireless Embedded Systems, IPSN 2013.
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Wired and wireless observation layer Fast, distributed tracing and actuation of logic Synchronized power tracing Sensor stimuli and references Time synchronization to ~ s

WSN Communication (before X-Sense)

Unreliable wireless channel leads to
frequent network updates high power consumption low end-to-end success rate

More nodes and mobility make the system more fragile This holds for all known protocols, e.g. CTP+{CSMA, LPL, A-MAC}, Dozer, BCP,

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The Crazy Idea: Wireless Bus

Federico Ferrari et al: Low-Power Wireless Bus. In SenSys 2012. Federico Ferrari et al.: Efficient Network Flooding and Time Synchronization with Glossy. IPSN 2011 (BPA).

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Before X-Sense
Example: Matterhorn Deployment

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Approach: Model-based Validation

Artifacts observed
Packet duplicates, packet loss, wrong ordering Variations in received vs. expected packet rates

Necessitates further data analysis/cleaning/validation

health status

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Missing Global Network State

? ?

Packet stream

Along which path did the yellow packet travel? Where did the red packet stay for the longest time? Why was the purple packet traveling slower than the red packet?

Transmitting required information in-band would be too expensive How can we efficiently retrieve missing network state ?
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Basic Approach
Per-packet information Source node address First-hop receiver address Packet generation time (imprecise) Arrival time at the sink Generation sequence at source
Source

First-hop receiver

Offline Analysis: While traversing the network, topology, timing and ordering information of forwarded packets is inferred from locally generated packets.
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Sink

Tested on X-Sense Deployments

10-40 TinyNode nodes running Dozer Tested on several installations: Matterhorn, 2008, >78 million received packets Jungfraujoch, 2009, >48 million received packets Dirruhorn, 2010, >20 million received packets Aiguille du Midi, 2012
Matthias Keller, Jan Beutel, Lothar Thiele: The Problem Bit, DCOSS 2013 (BPA). Matthias Keller, Jan Beutel, Lothar Thiele: Uncovering Routing Dynamics in Deployed Sensor Networks with Multi-hop Network Tomography, SenSys 2012. Matthias Keller, Lothar Thiele, Jan Beutel: Reconstruction of the Correct Temporal Order of Sensor Network Data, IPSN 2011.

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Research Highlights
Geodesy and Photogrammetry

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Before X-Sense
Pictures are used for qualitative interpretation. No precise geometric information available.

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With X-Sense Infrastructure and Fusion

Pictures are used for quantitative interpretation. Precise geometric information retrievable.
Camera perspective, using extrinsic camera calibration on 9 GPS targets

Neyer, F., A. Geiger: Visualizing vector data: Clustering noisy displacement fields. Swiss Geoscience Meeting 2012.
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Fusion: From Image to Displacements

Before

X-sense GPS stations

4.58 pixel

18 days, Oct 2012

Fabian Neyer, GGL, 2013

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Fusion: From Image to Displacements

After

X-sense GPS stations

14 cm

18 days, Oct 2012

Fabian Neyer, GGL, 2013

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Before X-Sense
Episodic solutions Episodic obs
GPS data

post processing

Episodic coordinates
Linear deformation model

Displacement East Displacement North Displacement Height

1.Obs

2.Obs

Very low temporal resolution: in this example 10 month High spatial accuracy: 2~3 mm
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Velocity East Velocity North Velocity Height

X-Sense High Spatial Resolution

Daily solutions Database
GPS data

post processing

daily coordinates

Low temporal resolution: one position per day

High spatial accuracy: 2~3 mm

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X-Sense High Temporal Resolution

Real-time epoch-wise solutions
GPS receivers on-line data stream real-time processing epoch-wise solutions

Positions in real time: 1 per 30s Decreased spatial accuracy: < 1cm
Su Z. Geiger A.; Limpach P.. Investigation on the performance of lowcost single-frequency GPS, International Conf. on Machine Control and Guidance, 2012.
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X-Sense Error Mitigation

Antenna Pattern: Estimation of Antenna Phase Center Variation Multipath Identification
East

Identify errors multipath effects

North

Model errors create multipath template

Up

Correction applied remove multipath errors

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Research Highlights
Geoscience

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Before X-Sense
Limited availability of evidence Vast, heterogeneous terrain; diversity Dominantly manual data collection Coarse temporal/spatial granularity Models for interpretation are rudimentary, e.g. sinusoidal

Models cannot be applied to other scenarios, e.g. at large scale

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Changing Opportunities with X-Sense

X-Sense delivers data at unprecedented levels of detail
Spatial scale 25 GPS stations Temporal scale 30 sec intervals High accuracy cm to mm scale

Mean annual velocity 0.1 m/year 2 m/year

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Changing Opportunities with X-Sense

X-Sense delivers data at unprecedented levels of detail
Spatial scale 25 GPS stations Temporal scale 5 sec intervals High accuracy cm to mm scale

Mean annual velocity 0.1 m/year 2 m/year

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Large Variability Requires Filtering

Large scale of variability & noise found in velocity signals computed from GPS positions
To distinguish signal from noise, simple methods (splines) do not work Parameterization is problematic where strong changes in behavior occur

Monte-Carlo simulation allows estimating noise as basis for variable-support smoothing Method performs well in noisy data with variable velocity
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Detailed Interpretation of Terrain Motion

20 15 10 GST [deg C] 5 0 5 GST hor vel

warming and zero-curtain warming without zero-curtain

fast acceleration, before complete 0.035 snow melt

velocity [m/d] (SNR: 30) 0.030 0.025 0.020 0.015 0.010 0.005

Smooth change of velocity 10 to temperature phase-lagged

11.09.01 11.11.01 12.01.01 12.03.01 12.05.01

fast but 12.07.01

Marc-Olivier Schmid, Stefanie Gubler, Joel Fiddes and Stephan Gruber: Inferring snow pack ripening and melt out from distributed ground surface temperature measurements, The Cryosphere, 6, 11271139, 2012.35

weak acceleration

Observations Lead to Simulations

GEOtop simulator
Atmosphere interaction Multi-layer snow pack Lateral drainage Frozen soil Water budget: saturated and unsaturated Topography Can be driven by global climate data
Temperature of soil and snow cover

Liquid water content of soil and snow cover

acceleration detected before snow pack has melted

deep percolation only several days after melt

Simulation experiments point to need for dual porosity model

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Stefanie Gubler, Stefano Endrizzi, Stephan Gruber and Ross Purves: Sensitivity and uncertainty of modeled ground temperatures and related variables in mountain environments, Geosci. Model Dev. Discuss., 6, 791-840, 2013

Outreach

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Ecosystem of X-Sense
Collaborations and Partner Activities Snow and Permafrost, Marcia Philips (SLF Davos) EDYTEM, Philip Deline, Ludovic Ravanel (Universite de Savoie, Chambery, France) LGIT, David Amitrano (Universite Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France) Physical Geography H2K, Philipp Schneider, Jan Seibert (University of Zurich) CCES COGEAR project, Jeff Moore, Simon Loew (ETH Zurich) CCES APUNCH project, Maurizio Savina, Paolo Burlando (ETH Zurich) CCES RECORD project, Philipp Schneider, Mario Schirmer (EAWAG) VAW, Andreas Bauder, Martin Funk (ETH Zurich) OpenSense project, Olga Saukh (ETH Zurich) Volcanology, Thomas Walter (GFZ Potsdam, Germany) Alpine Cryosphere and Geomorphology, Reynald Delaloye (University of Fribourg)
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Dissemination to OpenSense
Mobile deployment in the context of OpenSense
10 stations (O3, CO, and PM & UFP sensors) on public transportation > 1 year of measurements and 30 Mio data points Use of X-Sense CoreStation and X-Sense Data Pipeline

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What did we learn?

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Lessons Learned
Establishing a dependable complete physical pipeline and virtual data pipeline is a challenge: organization, people, cultures, engineering, science

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Lessons Learned
Establishing a dependable complete physical pipeline and virtual data pipeline is a challenge: organization, people, cultures, engineering, science Interesting scientific questions arise from serious applications. But serious applications involve tremendous effort in
understanding environment and constraints related science

but it is fun (most of the times)

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Foreigners trash our Matterhorn

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Acknowledgement
People:

VideoPermasense.mov

Lothar Thiele, Jan Beutel, Stephan Gruber, Alain Geiger, Tazio Strozzi, Hugo Raetzo, Philippe Limpach Bernhard Buchli, Stefano Endrizzi, Federico Ferrari, Tonio Gsell, Matthias Keller, Roman Lim, Fabian Neyer, Zhengzhong Su, Felix Sutton, Samuel Weber, Christoph Walser, Vanessa Wirz, Mustafa Yuecel, Marco Zimmerling, .

Funding and Support:

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