HECOMON - HEterogeneous COgnitive MONitoring system for sensor networks

The aim of the HECOMON project is to build a solution for the deployment and monitoring of sensor networks used for the surveillance of large-scale and open ended real world environments.

The HECOMON solution to be built

* includes support for heterogeneous large-scale systems
* has intelligence and cognitive abilities
* combines sensor networks and autonomous robots with virtual reality techniques

Deploying and running a large-scale sensor network e.g. for monitoring and surveillance purposes is a major undertaking in open-ended and frequently changing real-world environments. Costs can easily be prohibitive for most system architects designing, evaluating, and constructing those sensor networks. HECOMON will address this challenge by providing a scalable solution for monitoring, operation control, and intelligent data visualization in large-scale sensor networks.

The Sensor Network with its stationary nodes placed in well-known locations will sample relevant data from the environment and report to the virtual environment and the autonomous robots. Its nodes will collaborate and communicate with each other, with the robots and with the virtual environment.

The tasks for the group of autonomous robots are manifold:

- As mobile sensor platforms they accumulate the necessary dynamic information to augment the world model of virtual reality module.
- They communicate and collaborate with the stationary sensor nodes, with the other mobile robots, and with the VR command center in order to
achieve optimal surveillance, state monitoring, and command options.
- Assist the deployment and re-arrangement of sensor nodes for instance by detecting areas where the density number of sensor nodes is suboptimal.

The purpose of the virtual environment is two-fold:

- Allow an intelligent abstract visualization of the data stream available from components of the system.
- Assist human operators as well as the cooperating robots in the management and control of robots and sensor nodes by providing partial or global models that can be used for specific purposes in the system.

HECOMON will concentrate on the monitoring and surveillance of buildings in which a pre-screening and model-building has already been performed. For this reason, the virtual environment already contains information such as the location model, the rooms in the building, etc., which is used in the guidance of the autonomous robots.

The results of the HECOMON project will be

• an intelligent and cognitive robot swarm being able to monitor and survey large-scale indoor facilities
• a VR-based visualization center with multi-model interaces
• a scalable and self-healing sensor network with full coverage

sensor networks
autonomous robots
cognitive systems
machine learning
intelligent agents
virtual reality technology
multimodal interfaces
visual analytics

The HECOMON consortium with companies/organisations from Germany, France, and Spain has 2 vacancies. We are looking for

• a security company and/or facility operator to provide the environment for demonstrations and tests during the lifetime of the project (end user).
  
• a commercial technology provider with a proven record  being interested to bring the technology behind HECOMON to the market and being responsible for dissemination and exploitation during the lifetime of the project (marketer).
  

see above

Facility Operator
SME

No