Flood detection and monitoring have made a leap forward with the Flood Frog, a new device developed by University of Missouri-Rolla researchers.

Most monitoring solutions are expensive and face major challenges, such as maintenance costs, inconsistency and power requirements. UMR researchers hopped to develop a solution and created a novel monitoring system that is less costly, more dependable, and more flexible than what is currently available.

The Flood Frog is an autonomous system that's based on a wireless network and inexpensive sensor nodes. The "frog" provides a dramatic reduction in equipment and installation costs because a variety of embedded sensors can monitor everything from temperature to water tilt. The device then communicates using the GSM/GPRS mobile phone network and can send to a number of recipients through text messages, email, and FTP file.

Inside a waterproof case, the frog is powered by a battery that has a typical, unattended lifespan of three to four years. The battery can last a tad longer with a little fine tuning, too.

** No animals were harmed in the making of these puns (although the groans probably sound a little croakey).

Via the University Transportation Center at UMR (PDF).

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After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the National Science Foundation began accepting proposals for small-scale, exploratory, high-risk research. The idea was to support novel projects whose results could help the nation better "mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from catastrophic events."

Jagannathan Sarangapani, professor of electrical and computer engineering at UMR, received one of these grants to create a new, truly mobile communication system. The system uses a network of tiny, wireless devices and a dynamic programming-based protocol to provide first responders with the communication tools they need to plan a coordinated, effective response.

The devices, called motes, are installed with wireless communications and use sensors to detect a myriad of variables from the environment. Developed to be deployed on emergency vehicles, the motes then pass this limited information to other nearby UMR motes in a high-tech version of a children’s telephone game, except the original and final messages are identical.

More about the project here.

Posted by Mindy Limback at 04:19 PM | Permalink | add to del.icio.us| Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Blogworld has been buzzing about ImThere, an innovative mobile social networking service. Now the service has caught the attention of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, snagging a spotlight in a recent Random Play feature.

UMR student-entrepreneur Benjamin Roodman is CEO of this new networking service that connects subscribers to information about events -- such as concerts, CD launch parties or indie film festivals -- via text messages over their cell phones.

Here's how it works: Users log on to the website and create profiles based on their musical tastes and other interests. Users can post photos in real time taken with cell phones from concerts, write reviews of events and get a text message with a list of events happening in the area, based on their interests.

It's a handy little service to use when you're in the St. Louis area but I'm looking forward to early April, which is when Ben tells me Ramped Media will launch ImThere nationwide. When that happens, I'm so there.

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While the so-called old media has been slow to pick up on our recent news item about student-entrepreneur Benjamin Roodman's cool mobile social networking service (ImThere), the blogosphere is all over it. Which should come as no surprise, since it involves techie gadgety and connects Internet and cell phone technology. That's the sort of thing bloggers jump on. The mainstream media? Not so much, apparently. Or not as quickly. We think they're missing out on a great story. ImThere could be the next YouTube.

Here's a roundup of blog coverage from the past couple of days:

• A MySpace for the mobile generation, from Smart Mobs, the blog of Virtual Community author Howard Rheingold.

• Tracking friends around music venues, from Wired's blog for music fans, Listening Post.

• Missouri student goes mobile..., from Textually.org.

• One of Ypulse's two mobile social networks to watch. We think it's really the only one to watch, but we admit a slight bias.

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Years ago, those groovy mod rockers the Who sang about "going mobile." These days, UMR student Ben Roodman is putting a new spin on the idea with the launch of ImThere, a social networking service that integrates the Internet with cellular telephone technology.

Roodman, a senior computer engineering major from Chesterfield, Mo., is the the CEO of ImThere, which could become the MySpace of the mobile world. It's a social networking
service that connects subscribers to information about events -- such as concerts, CD launch parties or indie film festivals -- via text messages over their cell phones.

ImThere is the first service launched by Ramped Media, a company Roodman co-founded in 2006. He describes ImThere as "a user-driven site that allows people to find things to do, by using either their cell phone or the website."

"We want to be on the forefront of mobile Internet technology,” Roodman says. “Text messaging is the medium that’s going to allow us to get to that point.”

Roodman and company -- which includes some fellow UMR students and one recent grad -- are piloting ImThere in St. Louis with plans to expand it to other markets later this year. Keep tabs on how things progress for this budding entrepreneur at the Ramped Media blog.

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UMR engineering students are benefiting this fall from a donation by Texas Instruments. The donation, valued at roughly $7,500, is giving undergraduate students the opportunity to conduct hands-on experiments using real-time digital signal processing platforms (DSP). (DSP is a flexible technique of processing analog signals in digital form, which is fundamental to the technology industries two fastest growing markets - wireless and multimedia).

Sounds good to me.

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Working in UMR's Electromagnetic Compatibility Lab, David Pommerenke and two Ph.D. students have created a new scanning system that can identify areas on printed circuit boards and integrated circuits that are susceptible to electromagnetic interference. The system uses four components: a three-dimensional positioner; high-voltage pulse generators; electrostatic discharge pulse injection probes; and feedback and control software.

The researchers discovered that electrostatic discharge-induced electromagnetic interference can affect a system even on signal lines that carry slow digital signals such as status lines. Printed circuit board designers usually use short traces to carry high-frequency signals such as clocks and serial data streams, but they may use longer runs for slowly changing signals. Unfortunately, the longer the trace, the better it acts as a receiving antenna for stray electromagnetic interference.

From Test & Measurement World.

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