I have been working on an independent study to revamp the telecom lab here at RIT.  The telecom labs has lots of cool equipment such as Cisco ONS optical transport gear, Fiber to the home PON equipment, T1/T3 multiplexers, hybrid fiber coax equipment, and class 5 central office switches.  Most of the lab hardware is time division multiplexed (TDM) based, but in today telecom environment everything is going IP.  The lab’s TDM based hardware does a great job of emulation a central office network, but the IP network in the lab is more like a home network than an ISP.  For my independent study I am changing this by re-designing the lab IP network to implement BGP and MPLS.

A great tool for working with Cisco IP based networks is GSN3.  GNS3 is a GUI based Cisco router emulation tool.  Designing and building networks in emulation is far easier and a massive time saver.  Instead of ripping the lab apart and running new cables all over the place, all I have to do is build a virtual lab.  Once I build a virtual lab and configure all the routers successfully, I can copy the configurations over to the real routers in the lab and know that the network will work correctly.  There is minimal downtime since I can keep the existing network up and only deploy the new network once I have verified everything is working.  GNS3 is also great for studying for Cisco certifications since you can configure and setup a network in a fraction compared with the actual hardware.  To learn more about GNS3 visit the official website: http://www.gns3.net/

In the past month my friend David Brenner and I have made a great deal of progress with the wind turbine remote Arduino power meter.  The idea behind the project is to log the amount of power generated from the wind turbine and have the data automatically be uploaded online where it can graphed.  There are similar products on the market, but they are designed for much larger turbine and solar arrays, and thus are expensive.  We wanted to utilize the Arduino micro-controller as it versatile and inexpensive.  With all the parts the costs is around $80, which is a fraction of the cost of other solutions.

The power meter works by reading the current flowing from the turbine.  We are using a Hall Effect current sensor as it is very efficient and can handle up 30 Amps.  Based on the amount of current, the sensor outputs a voltage which can then be read by the Arduino’s analog to digital input.  An issue with the Arduino’s ADC is that it is limited to only 1024 values ranging from 0-5 volts.  This means that the Arduino is not very accurate and can only sense a 4.8mV change.  The issue we had was that the current sensor’s output voltage changes by a very small amount and the change couldn’t be read by the Arduino.  To correct this, we fed the current sensor into an amplifier stage to increase the output voltage so the Arduino could read smaller current changes.  The current sensor outputs 1.5v with no current, so to ensure that we weren’t amplifying the voltage when there was no current we needed to implement a 1.5v offset.

The Arduino microcontroller reads the data from the ADC input and then sends the data through the Internet to a server.  We are utilizing the wireless repeater portion of the wind turbine to transport the data through the Internet.  The server then reads the data and stores it in a mysql data base so graphs can be created.  The Arduino sends a new power reading every one second, so the graphs can be extremely accurate if we wish.  The remote power meter is currently in field trials to ensure the basic functionally works correctly.

To receive my master’s degree from RIT, I must either complete a project or a thesis.  I have decided to go the project route as this will allow me some extra credit hours to work on an independent study implementing a MPLS backbone in the lab.  After careful consideration of a variety of topics that I find interesting, I have decided to investigate the issue of limited spectrum for the wireless telecommunications industry.  Specifically I will be researching and writing about the use of femtocells in expanding the coverage, capacity, and speed of wireless provider’s networks.  Femtocells are miniature cell sites targeted for homes and small businesses where existing cellular coverage is lacking.  These devices could drastically change how wireless providers operate their networks and this is what I will be investigating in my master’s project.

Femtocell Project Outline & Proposal

It has been over three years since Apple released the iPhone.  Back in 2006, I was impressed with the iPhone but I didn’t think it was such a game changer especially given its high price.  Looking back I was wrong, since it has taken three years for another competitor to emerge than can actually compete with the iPhone.  After numerous of devices claiming to be iPhone killers, only one actually provides the ease of use and features than made the iPhone so popular.  Palm surprised the world at CES 2009 with the announcement of the Palm Pre.  Reviews have praised the phone, especially its WebOS operating system.  Sales of the Pre haven’t been steller, but I believe this will change as the device is released worldwide and people learn more about the phone and its capabilities.  The important aspect is that Palm is doing all the right things as it reintroduces itself in the Smartphone arena.   Palm has both a CDMA and GSM version of the phone which allows the phone to be marketed to almost all cell phone users worldwide.  In the US, CDMA is extremely popular with both Verizon Wireless and Sprint supporting the technology.   When Sprint’s exclusivity contract expires, Verizon Wireless will at last have a phone to rival that of the iPhone.   This is huge since Verizon Wireless is the largest wireless provider in the US and can increase customer awareness of the Palm Pre far better than Sprint.  Additionally Palm is coming up with a cheaper version of the Pre called the Pixie.  This is important since there is huge demand for Smartphone’s at low prices.  Currently Smartphone are hovering in the $100 to $200 range, but once a Smartphone can break under $100, their popularity will explode.  Few companies have tried going after the lower end Smartphone market, and Palm’s approach could provide it with crucial gains in market share.  While Palm might be late to the game compared to the competition, it has shown that it has the right stuff to make a large impact in the market, just like it did with its Palm Pilot.