1. DEUS
Deployment and Ease Use of wireless Services
Deus: Design and Easy Use of
wireless Services
Main challenges
In order to ensure the creation of real added value through wireless services, the DEUS
project implements a multi disciplinary design process involving both user study groups
and technology developers. Three potential application areas are studied in the project:
Cultural events: Support of multiple events taking
place at the same location, while settings may change
from day-to-day. Location-aware and profile-based
services in a dynamic wireless environment, such as:
virtual museum (story and information based on
location and profile of visitor) and tracking/guiding of
persons.
Guiding of persons in and around public areas:
Cheap indoor wireless technology and applications
for indoor guiding of persons in public areas (in
combination with outdoor guiding based on GPS).
Senior mobility support: Tracking and identification
of persons (e.g. follow up of people with dementia);
Portable device with emergency button and voice
connectivity (identical low cost solution in and
outside the house).
To collect data and information, sensors are deployed in the DEUS solutions. These
sensors can collect massive amount of data (such as information on location,
temperature, movement etc) in a minimum of time. The challenge is to collect all these
data in an efficient way and to combine it with other data from other resources (such as
personal profile information). Fast and effective mechanisms in order to turn all these
data into the appropriate actions for real service delivery are a major challenge.
Intelligent software based on reasoning and subsequent notification actions and
interfacing tasks are studied and developed in the project. The developed general
software mechanisms result in solutions that are adaptive to new needs and situations.

2. DEUS
Deployment and Ease Use of wireless Services
Several wireless building blocks (hardware and software)
have been studied within the DEUS project. Both wireless
sensor networks (ZigBee) and mesh (WLAN) networks have
been envisaged. In order to design solutions with real
market potential, “plug and play” methodologies for service
and network deployment and management are essential.
The DEUS solutions enable the service delivery in an
intuitive user friendly way. To evaluate these concepts real
life PoC (proof of concept) test platforms are developed for
user tests and feedback.
Deus approach
The goal of this project is to make large progress in several wireless fields and related
services, with a strong emphasis on ease of deployment and ease of use. The included
fields are Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), WSN-based Indoor Positioning, Wireless
Mesh Networks (WMN) and Services which take advantage of these wireless
technologies. We have divided this work accordingly in different work packages, each of
them addressing specific aspects of the project.
Network architecture:
Current infrastructures in buildings and public areas are predominantly based on wired
network technologies. Although wired infrastructures have proven to be very reliable,
once they have been properly installed, wired solutions are not desired in dynamic
environments, where the setting may change from day-to-day.
These dynamic environments demand for a specific approach. Where wired networks can
survive with a onetime install and a minimum of management, constantly changing
networks could be an administrative nightmare. DEUS will prove the opposite by
providing a easy configurable, self healing and easy manageable, flexible wireless
network.
Wireless Network architecture:
One of the major research areas in the DEUS project is the development of new solutions
for wireless sensor networks. Current state of the art solutions fail to meet all the
objectives as stated in the DEUS project proposal. They are mostly optimized for a
specific USE-CASE or are not able to meet QoS (Quality of Service) – requirements for
any given service. Another major shortcoming is the lack of support for different device
capabilities.

3. DEUS
Deployment and Ease Use of wireless Services
The main challenge in the DEUS project is to include all advantages of previous
developed architectures without including the drawbacks. This means that our focus lies
on supporting heterogeneity and flexibility at any level. We want to support all kinds of
devices. Therefore our solution has to work both on always powered high capable
devices as on energy harvesting low capable devices.
Propagation Prediction Tool:
The characterization of path loss in indoor environments has been the subject of
extensive research and many models have been proposed to make accurate predictions.
The WHIPP (WiCa Heuristic Indoor Propagation Prediction) tool is developed for
predicting the wireless coverage for a given set of access points on a certain floor level of
a building, based on the building’s geometry and the used materials. The tool also allows
to automatically position wireless access points in order to meet a given coverage
requirement in the different rooms of the building.
Wireless Mesh Networking:
Wireless network are omnipresent in modern society, providing ubiquitous computing for
everyone. Enterprises and communities wishing to provide these services typically lack
the necessary expertise to deploy such networks. As a consequence, they are confronted
with two main challenges. The first challenge is to deploy a wireless enterprise grade
network. The second challenge is to maintain the network after deployment in order to
cope with changing demands and requirements.
Pervasive reasoning Platform for WSMN:
Deus targets a service platform capable of dealing with geographically dispersed systems
connected through a Wireless Sensor and Mesh Network. The platform uses a variety of
devices and delivers services that cross device, platform and system administration
boundaries.
Efficient handling and quality-aware processing of the enormous amount of data coming
from a wireless sensor network (WSN) is extremely difficult: data samples are often lost
during transmission, many irregular and faulty measurements are produced, and sensor
nodes are frequently unavailable. Given the unpredictable and unreliable nature of WSNs,
the application must specify and enforce quality requirements: (1) the maximum period
between consecutive samples, (2) the minimum coverage (#samples/#available nodes)
per room, or (3) the maximum deviation from previous samples from the same sensor.

4. DEUS
Deployment and Ease Use of wireless Services
Positioning:
Knowledge of the current location of an object or moving person is very useful for several
applications. In the use cases of DEUS, we want to guide a person through an exposition
in a museum or in a historical building. The person receives some sort of PDA when he
arrives at the museum, which then provides him with information based on his current
location (e.g. information on a specific painting, historical background of a room). It
could also guide someone to a specific part of the exposition, based on the interests of
the user. The main challenge in DEUS is to provide an easy-to-use and easy-to-deploy
indoor positioning solution which achieves room-level accuracy based on cheap, off-the-
shelf wireless sensor nodes.
User experience:
A user-centred design philosophy was followed throughout the DEUS research project.
This included several methods for designing, developing and evaluating user-friendly ICT-
applications.
The first step in this process was to research the generic user requirements for the
different application domains. Therefore a user and task analysis was conducted. In a
second phase, a conceptual model was developed. This was a translation of the user and
task analysis into a specific design and corresponding information structure. In the third
phase, storyboards and paper prototypes were developed and tested with end users in
order to get feedback on the DEUS solutions’ concepts and user interfaces that were
made.
Proof-of-concept realization and use cases
The results of the different work packages are combined in a Proof of Concept test and 2
use cases.
Proof of concept testing:
A White book describes the requirements of a generic test platform for the Proof-of-
Concept demonstrations. A number of integration sessions are organised to build up the
generic test platform, to test the integration of the different work packages and to test
the performance issues. This test platform enables the emulation of different possible use
cases of the developed technology, within a controlled environment (at the IBBT iLab-t
testlab).

5. DEUS
Deployment and Ease Use of wireless Services
Supporting senior Mobility:
The specific use case studied by the DEUS project is the one of tracking and tracing of
people based on location and identification of individuals, combined with an emergency
call button. Although several solutions exist for partial support (GPS trackers on mobile
phones for outdoor use, Personal Alarm Systems for indoor use), DEUS studied an
integrated solution for the support of the senior who wants to stay mobile (in- and out-
door) but needs augmented attention and follow-up.
Guided tour in Arts Centre Vooruit:
Arts Centre Vooruit is located in an historical complex monument with more than 300
different areas; in season, over 2000 activities are organised, spread throughout the
entire building.
Amongst these activities are a great deal of guided tours throughout the monument, and
also a number of festivals which show different installations or performances in different
areas spread all over the building. Because of security reasons and distribution of
information, conducted tours are only possible in group, accompanied by a guide.
The DEUS project provides a different solution: at the counter in the entrance hall, each
visitor is provided with a wireless device. This will guide the visitor through the
monument, and will, in several places, show text, pictures and film clips about the past.
Since the device always knows its location within the building, the visitor can never get
lost and location-based information can be provided where necessary.

6. DEUS
Deployment and Ease Use of wireless Services
Project partners
In cooperation with
IBBT research groups
UGent - IBCN http://www.ibcn.intec.ugent.be
UGent - WiCa http://www.wica.intec.ugent.be
UA - PATS
http.www.pats.ua.ac.be
KU Leuven – DistriNet
http.www.distrinet.cs.kuleuven.be
KU Leuven – CUO
http://ww.soc.kuleuven.be/com/mediac/cuo
UHasselt - EDM
http://www.edm.uhasselt.be/