Computer Society International Design Competition

Computer Society International Design Competition (CSIDC) was the most prestigious student design competitions during 2000-2006. Under IEEE's - Computer Society wing, the contest was sponsored and judged by the most important companies in the IT world: AMD, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Motorola, Microsoft, Lucent, NSF, Sun, SAIC, Caldera, QNX, Pervasive Software, General Software, VersaLogic. In the judging team there were people from the sponsors, as well as academia (Carnegie Mellon, Virginia Tech) and USDoD.
The contest had several stages, and took aprox 6 months of development, at each stage the team was judged based on the progress of the work, and technical inovativity.
The world finals were held in Washington DC, and put face to face for 2 days, the best 10 teams from all over the world.

Romanian teams that participated in the contest:

2002 - 1st place - BE Secure: Building Surveillance Equipment ( PowerPoint Presentation) ( Project Report)(BE Secure: The Movie)
Team: Vlad Panait, Mihai Mircea, Tiberius Parcalabu
Mentor: Nicolae Tapus

2003 - 2nd place - Eyes Only ( PowerPoint Presentation) ( Project Report)
Team: Tiberius Parcalabu, Andrei Hagiescu
Mentor: Nicolae Tapus, Vlad Panait

2004 - 2nd place - eXpress! Help ( Project Report)
Team: Andrei Hagiescu, Marian Mihailescu, Cristina Toma
Mentor: Nicolae Tapus, Vlad Panait

2005 - 3rd place - NOMAD Positioning System (Presentation) (Project Report)
Team: Doru Arfire, Catalin Ioana, Bogdan Lucaciu, Marius Muresan
Mentor: Nicolae Tapus, Vlad Panait

2006 - 3rd place - Synairgy ( Project Report)
Team: Maximilian Machedon, Iulian Moraru, Bogdan Marius Tudor, Dan Ştefan Tudose
Mentor: Nicolae Tapus, Vlad Panait


For the official contest web-site, follow the link.

Synairgy - 3rd place @ CSIDC 2006

Project name: Synairgy
Contest: CSIDC 2006
Award: 3rd
Team: Maximilian Machedon, Iulian Moraru, Bogdan Marius Tudor, Dan Ştefan Tudose
Mentor: Nicolae Tapus, Vlad Panait

(report)

In the news:

Revista VIP

RoEmbus

9am

IEEE

Abstract:

One of the major environmental concerns of our time is air pollution. Apart from severely degrading the natural environment, air pollution directly affects our health. Short term and long term effects range from light allergic reactions – irritation of the nose, throat and eyes – to serious conditions like bronchitis, pneumonia, aggravated asthma, lung and heart diseases. Air pollution is also the cause for many premature deaths (50,000 to 100,000 deaths per year in the U.S. alone, 300,000 in the EU and over 3,000,000 worldwide [1] and [2]).

Damage done to the environment by air pollution includes acid rain, climate change – shifting from a four temperate seasons to two seasons – and global warming. Economic losses from acid rain surpass 13 billion USD annually only for the eastern part of the United States [3], and 13.3 billion USD in China [4]. With the current trend holding, by 2060 predictions indicate costs up to 220 – 330 billion USD per year in the U.S. alone [5]. The cost of global warming was, as of 2001, 0.5% of the combined GNP of the entire world [6]. Synairgy is a solution for both the health and the environmental problems.

People suffering from heart diseases or chronic respiratory diseases like asthma and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) would benefit from being warned about high concentrations of car exhaust gasses like nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and the smog associated (as these could cause an aggravation of their condition). Joggers and bikers would want to know if the air they inhale is clean on their usual trails. Parents would want to be assured that their children breathe fresh air on their playgrounds. People moving to a new city would like to choose their new home based among other things on information about the air quality.

The solution offered by Synairgy to all these people relies on a small portable device that will warn the person carrying it when it detects an abnormally high concentration of an air pollutant. If the user has a Bluetooth enabled smart-phone or PDA, he can connect to the device and obtain details. The device records the measured data along with location coordinates and can later transfer it to a computer running the Synairgy application. With the user’s acceptance, the application can share the data with the Synairgy Internet server. As a result, the system’s user – and the entire community – can benefit from a potentially wide information-gathering network. The Synairgy application displays maps with the data measured by the device and the statistics received from the server. The feedback loop completes with the device receiving information from the application about the polluted areas, so that it can caution the users as soon as they enter one.

Probably the best approach to solving the environmental problems caused by air pollution is to make people aware of it and of their actions that possibly favor it. Synairgy does just that by gathering and publishing meaningful and up-to-date information. This is the result of people using Synairgy devices and sharing the measured data. Synairgy is innovative in offering a customizable mobile device (the user can select which sensors to plug in) that helps protect the people with respiratory illnesses or people concerned about the air they breathe, relying not only on the data it gathers but also on the data measured by other Synairgy devices. Furthermore, the sharing of air pollution information between the users is original in its own.

NOMAD Positioning System - 3rd place @ CSIDC 2005

Project name: NOMAD Positioning System
Contest: CSIDC 2005
Award: 3rd
Team: Doru Arfire, Catalin Ioana, Bogdan Lucaciu, Marius Muresan
Mentor: Nicolae Tapus, Vlad Panait

(raport)

In the news:

9am

Curierul National

Abstract:

In the past few years we have entrusted our orientation needs to the Global Positioning System. Although the GPS is an effective method to determine a person's location, it has its limitations – it only works in open environments and it has limited accuracy.

The NOMAD positioning system was designed and developed to go beyond the boundaries imposed by conventional positioning systems, providing navigation and orientation facilities when and where they are needed. It is inexpensive, completely mobile, it doesn't depend on any external systems like satellites, and it works in almost any environment, including underground locations, large buildings or busy cities with skyscrapers.

NOMAD is an user-centric system that was designed to provide position information by tracking, recording and analyzing the human movement. This is accomplished by the use of a Motion Tracking Unit (MTU) - a small device carried by the user that collects data from high-accuracy sensors (digital accelerometers, compass and accelerometer), processes the information and sends it over a wireless connection to the NOMAD Guide software that runs on a mobile platform.

The NOMAD Guide computes the traveled path in real-time and instantly reports visual mapping information to the user. It can be used for creating dynamic maps of unknown locations, based solely on the paths traveled by the user, or for guided navigation on existing maps.

Mine engineers, military, speleologists are often doing their jobs in the underground, and are subjected to all the specific perils of such activities. Tourists often venture in caves or other underground locations without proper maps, equipment or experience. Almost all large cities have vast underground sewage systems, where technicians perform daily maintenance activities on the various systems running in the underground. Even with a map, these are confusing whereabouts where conventional positioning systems do not work.

NOMAD gives an enriched orientation experience, being not only a navigation guide for the users, but also a mean to include additional information to the map for future analysis. Users can create multimedia maps by adding images, voice or text notes to key points on the location, turning their experience into an expedition journal. Although the NOMAD system is designed to be completely mobile and independent to other systems, it can also be used in a distributed network, where collaborative users cover distinct areas of an underground system. The NOMAD Guide Software allows users exploring the same territory to periodically synchronize their NOMAD maps, sharing the team experience and observations.

Another aspect of the NOMAD System are the on-line communities, meeting grounds for possible underground explorers. This feature is accomplished by the Online Repository, a web-based application that allows users to publish, download and review maps directly from the NOMAD Guide, or from a normal web browser on their desktop computer.

eXpress! Help - 2nd place @ CSIDC 2004

Project name: eXpress! Help
Contest: CSIDC 2004
Award: 2nd
Team: Andrei Hagiescu, Marian Mihailescu, Cristina Toma
Mentor: Nicolae Tapus, Vlad Panait

(raport)

In the news:

Euractiv






Abstract:

The reason people have organized themselves into communities is to help each other. Special services are in charge of providing safety and security but sometimes their effort is wasted on events handled more efficiently by the family or by the community itself. Unfortunately, it is difficult for some people to ask for help when they have a problem: you may think of children, elder relatives or people with disabilities (called DEARS in this report). A solution for them is provided by eXpress! Help (X!Help), a system that combines an improved method for demanding help with the de facto community membership.

In the past ten years, mobile technology has evolved and now provides enhanced services. Enforced with today’s achievements, mobile phones do more than sending your voice over the network. Transformed into powerful computers, they are suited to run X!Help. Its aim is to make the world a safer place by adding a more efficient and faster method for helping the weak members of the communities.

The whole system represents an enhancement for the emergency services and not a replacement. Using a 911 emergency call in a classical way, it may be a challenge for a DEAR to specify his exact location. It takes time to explain the nature of his problem and even more time until someone actually arrives to provide help. X!Help can notify the family and the emergency services and simultaneously ask for help from those around, being able to lead them to the DEAR in need. The process of locating/asking for help will become more intuitive and efficient.

X!Help adds to the users’ mobile phones localization capabilities (provided by the network or from an attached GPS) and a peer-to-peer low-range communication system (using a Bluetooth module). A packet of services is developed to be used with these new capabilities. It includes data transfer, route recording, pathfinder, watch area, vocal guidance and restricted remote access to position information.

By allowing a help message to be diffused to those around, an alternative is provided to the time-consuming stages in emergency call situations because it allows more people from the neighborhood to know about an incident and it provides means for a faster and more efficient intervention.

Whether assistance is offered by specialized services or by those around, the caller’s phone is able to provide the user’s coordinates and, with a differential representation of locations (on a map), guidance is provided for those offering help.

X!Help is a distributed modular system; it is scalable, inexpensive (as an add-on for existing mobile phones) and intended to be used for a large range of scenarios. Need for help is unpredictable, but think of people with memory problems1, a weakened old man in difficulty or a child lost on the streets2. In such cases X!Help proves to be a valuable asset.

Eyes Only - 2nd place @ CSIDC 2003

Project name: Eyes Only
Contest: CSIDC 2003
Award: 2nd
Team: Tiberius Parcalabu, Andrei Hagiescu
Mentor: Nicolae Tapus, Vlad Panait
(raport)

In the news:
Adevarul



Abstract:

This paper describes a low cost, added value solution which transforms the computer into a safer system, able to prevent unauthorized access to confidential information. EyesOnly is a hardware device designed for personal computers to protect the keyboard input and the text information displayed on the screen. It is physically installed on the cables linking the computer with the keyboard and the monitor. This is a new approach to security, which makes impossible unauthorized access to user’s private information from software pests inside the computer. Pests are generally uninvited programs that take up residence by stealth, like parasites or viruses on an information system, avoiding different protection methods, by exploiting security leaks in operating systems or user’s actions. They can gain access to whatever happens into computer’s memory, including input of credit card information, email, instant messaging and other sensitive information. For example, even if we are connected to a web server through SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), which encrypts all the communication with the browser, when we type in our credit card information, each pressed key is first handled by the keyboard driver from the operating system. This is a software layer and may be compromised by undesired software, which can intercept all the keys or simply read them from the internal memory buffer and then transmit this data to unauthorized third parties on the web.

To avoid this problem, EyesOnly has an innovative design that makes sure confidential data involved never travels unencrypted through the computer, which becomes a simple dispatcher for secured information. On one hand information sent from the keyboard is encrypted before entering the computer and on the other hand text information meant to be displayed on the screen is decrypted after exit from the computer and then superimposed over the image on the monitor. When the user enters data from the keyboard, the device provides visual feedback on the screen, so that he is able see what is typing, without actually sending keys to the computer. Security of the encrypted information is ensured by the AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) algorithm used in combination with 128-bit keys, kept on a smartcard. The exchange of all encrypted information between the computer and the device is done through a separate USB connection. The entire process is transparent to the user, who can concentrate on his work, instead of worrying about security, even if the computer cannot be fully trusted.

The services that can be secured using EyesOnly include any operations that need to input from the keyboard or to display on the monitor text-based, confidential information, like credit card information (e-shopping), banking account details (e-banking) or private discussions (instant messaging, email). It was designed with simplicity in mind, being very easy to install and use by average computer user, without need of special skills. The device can be attached to any IBM compatible computer with a free USB port, so you can use this system from your friends’ computers or even at work. It has a single switch, with three states for keyboard input protection mode: On (all keyboard input is encrypted), Off (no encryption at all) and Auto (the software application decides when encryption is activated). The rest of the settings are accessible through a simple menu activated from the application that is using the device.

By using EyesOnly, any parasite applications are made inoffensive, because they never have access to clear data. Even if someone takes physical control over the computer, he cannot access any confidential information, without the keys from user’s personal smartcard. It is easier to keep safe the smartcard than trying to keep continuously up to date the operating system or software antivirus applications.

BE Secure - 1st place @ CSIDC 2002

Project name: BE Secure - Building Surveillance Equipment
Contest: CSIDC 2002
Award: 1st place
Team: Vlad Panait, Mihai Mircea, Tiberius Parcalabu
Mentor: Nicolae TapusLinks: (PowerPoint Presentation) ( Project Report)(BE Secure: The Movie)

In the news:
IEEE Xplore article
Chip.ro article

Abstract:

After the September 11th attack in New York City, people started considering whether there are ways to help and inform people in case of disasters, such that quick intervention at the affected area is possible with maximum effects. The proposed system is intended to operate for structures visited by a large number of people. We developed a low-priced wireless distributed system that collects data from different sensors and informs both the people inside (they are directed on the shortest safest exit paths) and the outside parties (police or firemen service that can use the information for better rescue operations). In case of a catastrophe (fire, earthquake, terrorist attack, etc.), even if a part of the proposed system is destroyed, the rest uses existing information to guide rescue operations. Moreover, lack of information (possibly together with other information like “temperature was very high before communication was interrupted”) may be interpreted as “seriously damaged area”, leading to calculating safe-exit paths around it.

The system consists of a distributed LAPE (Local Acquisition and Processing Element) network that has as main function the monitoring of the parameters in a large building. The data collected by one of the LAPEs is shared in the whole system via Bluetooth devices. Each individual LAPE calculates the best exit path based on the status of the building. The system also communicates the state of the whole building to the outside parties for surveillance tasks.

The intervention teams can create good and realistic emergency plans based on the information collected by the system. They can also direct people to a new evacuation mean available (an intervention helicopter, for example). In case of emergency, it is feasible to envision that human experts override the directions by new ones, in case they have other information not available to the system. The system is designed as an Open Interface, implying it easily supports the addition of sensors and functionality to the structure.