April 2, 2011
School of Engineering, Amritapuri
 

Collaboration in the areas of information and communication technologies is increasingly important in a time of globalization and inter-connectedness, especially between the two world leaders in this area, United States and India.
 

Around 80 researchers from US and Indian universities recently came together to learn about each others’ research and initiate collaborative efforts at the Indo-US Workshop on Developing a Research Agenda in Pervasive Communications and Computing Collaboration (PC3).
 

The first of many such workshops planned, this was conducted during March 9-11, 2011 in New Delhi, India. It was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Information Technology of the Government of India and co-organized by the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
 

From Amrita, Dr. Venkat Rangan, Vice Chancellor, Dr. Maneesha Ramesh, Head of Amrita Center of Wireless Networks & Applications (AWNA) and Dr. Vivek Menon, Assistant Professor, Information Systems, were invited to attend.
 

At the workshop, Dr. Maneesha made a presentation, outlining the disaster management and healthcare objectives of AWNA.
 

“Concentrating on preparedness, our methodology in disaster management is a three-phase approach that adds the extra dimension of utilizing wireless technology prior to, during and after the disaster,” she stated.
 

Currently ongoing disaster management projects at the Center focus on the development of an Ad hoc Overlay Communications Network to be used in a disaster scenario when usual communication networks fail and Rescue Operation Support for locating and enabling communication between first responders in a disaster.
 

Outlining the healthcare applications, Dr. Maneesha added, “Wireless sensor networks can potentially remove unnecessary logistics from healthcare systems, reducing a healthcare professional’s activity to the essential and increase patient’s accessibility and ability to remain at home and in normal active life as much as possible.”
 

The linkages between Wireless Body Area Sensor Networks and WSN Robotics, which are being investigated by AWNA researchers, and the Amrita Healthcare Informatics Suite are other promising initiatives in the healthcare area, she explained.
 

The topic of pervasive computing and communications includes cyber-physical systems like sensor networks, embedded systems, smart environments and sensor network application areas. Other presenters spoke about topics such as smart grid, environmental monitoring, home monitoring or personalized as well as smart health care technologies that make important contributions to the areas of sustainability and health-care.
 

Dr. Vivek Menon presented his work in developing a tracking framework that integrates recognition, reasoning and information retrieval.    Read More »
 

In the summer of 2011, participants of this first workshop will have the opportunity to attend a second workshop in Washington DC, USA.