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Home > About Us > News Room > infini.t.: the TRLabs e-newsletter > August-October 2005 August-October 2005
August-October 2005 In This Issue...
Five students and 7 professors and staff at TRLabs Calgary, Regina, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg are involved in advancing Managed Home Gateway technology. A Home Gateway is a command and control mechanism that will manage human interaction with home networks - and is considered central to the extension of network capabilities and services into homes in a user-friendly fashion. Phase I of the project, expected to last until the end of the year, is organized around 5 conceptual service tiers that may exist within the home:
The potential benefits OSGi may offer are: reduced memory requirements by virtue of sharing a single JVM (beneficial to embedded PC platforms); and dynamic installation and updating of 'bundles', which may represent services available to the user. TRLabs has developed a content distribution system (CDS) that can deliver and make available content such as MPEG2 and MP3 files to the home gateway, on demand. A program has also been created to graphically illustrate the CDS while it is in operation. Research activity has also focused on implementation-specific questions about the gateway device itself. How is it managed? How do users interact with it? How does the OSGi bundle framework benefit a home gateway? To address these questions, a remote gateway management system (bundle) has been developed that partially implements the dslforum.org's technical report TR-069 entitled "CPE WAN Management Protocol" - which allows the gateway to dynamically install, update and remove services determined remotely by a potential gateway service provider. With this system in place, how a gateway is deployed in a 'real' environment is now being evaluated - incorporating aspects of content management, remote management, consumer premise equipment, and home automation. The idea is to provide a user interface to the gateway via a Pocket PC/PDA style device. The Pocket PC will initially simulate a 'wireless remote' (IP-addressable). The remote will be used to select content on demand and play it on a Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) enabled TV, with potential for audio playback on UPnP speakers. A service has been created to provide a web-based interface to the gateway. Phase I will wrap up with the development of a demo. Future work may concentrate on implementing a gateway on specific hardware such as embedded PC platforms with custom Linux installations and Java profiles.
Security is an important challenge in wireless environments that are inherently challenging - but are key to consumer adoption of new wireless technologies.
Wireless Edge contacted NEWT to test the capabilities of their SecFiTM network security product, which gives network administrators and carriers the ability to keep network security under their control and takes the burden off users. One particular feature of SecFi is the ability to scan a live network stream and identify and remove harmful entities such as viruses without requiring device side software. The next logical step for SecFi is to extend this technology to scan and remove harmful messages sent to cell phones. NEWT's live-air test gear (MMS and WAP Gateways, and use of Agilent 8960 wireless test set to create the cellular radio link) was used to support end-to-end message delivery from a gateway to a phone within its lab. Virus-free and virus-laden messages were sent to the phone via NEWT-constructed MMS messages. Using both a baseline system and the SecFi system, testing confirmed that all messages were received using the SecFi system, and that the SecFi system was able to analyze the appropriate packets removing virus-laden messages and delivering legitimate messages. "Testing demonstrated that SecFi works well in cell phone networks, efficiently detecting and removing infected messages," says Wireless Edge CEO Dr. Husam Kinawi. "Our work with NEWT allowed us to demonstrate true end to end functionality to potential customers, which is critical to market validation of our product. NEWT's testing facilities has provided us with a critical function which we will continue to use to be more effective in future product development." About Wireless Edge www.wirelessedge.ca
Four new Associates have joined TRLabs to pursue R&D activity:
David Milne (TRLabs Saskatoon) has been elected President of the Saskatchewan Advanced Technology Association. SATA is a not-for-profit corporation aimed at bringing together Saskatchewan-based technology companies and organizations to develop and enhance the advanced technology sector in the province. Dr. Guenther Ruhe, iCORE Professor and holder of the Industrial Research Chair in Software Engineering at the University of Calgary, has joined TRLabs as an Adjunct Scientist. As leader of the Software Engineering Decision Support Laboratory, Dr. Ruhe brings a successful history of industrial collaboration to his relationship with TRLabs. Dr. Ron Johnston, one of TRLabs Calgary's founding adjunct scientists, has announced his retirement from the University of Calgary and TRLabs. Ron joined TRLabs in 1991, and has made a major contribution to the success of TRLabs in the areas of RF circuits and antenna design. Dr. Jim Haslett (TRLabs Calgary), TRLabs/iCORE/NSERC Senior Industrial Research Chair in Broadband Wireless RFIC Design, has been elected a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (June, 2005). Dr. Haslett also presented a short course on RFIC design for wireless applications at the IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference in San Jose, California on September 17.
TRLabs M.Sc. candidate Travis Stevens (TRLabs Edmonton) has joined TELUS as a Business Analyst in the Technology Operations group. TRLabs Scientists Dr. Ray DeCorby and Dr. Chris Haugen (TRLabs Edmonton), in cooperation with Dr. Al Meldrum and Dr. Mark Freeman of the U of A, have been awarded a $250,000, three-year NSERC Strategic Grant for "Silicon Nanocluster Glasses for Microphotonics". Dr. Wayne Grover, Chief Scientist, Network Systems (TRLabs Edmonton), was invited to give two presentations during the last quarter: Recent Advances in p-Cycles: Efficient, Flexible, and Simple Architectures for Optical and MPLS Survivability and Dynamic Multiple Quality of Protection Services, - IEEE Bandwidth Management Workshop XI, Whistler, B.C., October 3-6; Path-Protecting p-Cycles and the Protected Working Capacity Envelope Concept: How they Address the Needs of Dynamic Transparent Optical Networks. - Proceedings SPIE's Photonics North, Toronto, September 12-14. Ph.D. candidate Nakeeran Ponnampalam (TRLabs Edmonton) was recently awarded an Incubic Milton Chang Grant from the Optical Society of America. The award of US $1000 is to offset costs associated with travel to the OSA Annual Meeting in October. Nakeeran is giving an oral presentation at a special symposium on organic films for photonics. Since the recent success of the Data S p a c e d project (page 18 - 2005 Annual Report), Kim Morgan (TRLabs Artist in Residence - Regina) has successfully applied and received funding from the Centre For Sustainable Communities to pursue another interdisciplinary art project in a public space. The project will incorporate aspects of TRLabs Regina's research, and will combine the talents of engineers, scientists, and artists. The project includes a public art exhibition that will showcase the research effort. The University of Regina's Centre for Sustainable Communities (CSC) is a consortium of university faculty, staff and research communities. Building on a foundation which links social policy with environmental infrastructure, this partnership incorporates public and social policy development for the creation of competitive cities and healthy communities.
Two patents have been recently issued to TRLabs:
Since 1986, 77 patents have been issued to TRLabs, with a further 80 active filings. Five patents were filed by, and 9 patents issued to, TRLabs in fiscal year 2004/2005. Patent Portfolio (including Abstracts)
TRLabs Manitoba ICT Symposium - "Technology in the Home"
September 21 News Release - New Subscribed Research Program to Accelerate Innovation September 19 News Release - TRLabs Appoints New Chairman August 24 News Release - Edmonton Lab Has New Director
The 2005-2006 season of Technical Presentations began Thursday, October 20 and will run weekly on Thursdays to June 15, 2006. These presentations provide regular updates on research activity. All labs are connected via SMART Board. TRLabs members are encouraged to participate by visiting the labs to participate in presentations of interest, or by taking a look at Powerpoint presentations posted on the TRLabs web site. 2005-2006 Presentation Schedule (Members Only)
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