Three FCT projects approved at UTM

Three FCT projects approved at UTM

Three project applications by INESC TEC’s Telecommunications and Multimedia Unit (UTM) have recently been approved by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) in the areas of data transmission, localisation based on sensors and health.

25th January 2013

The first project is entitled CREaTION – Cognitive Radio Transceiver Design for Energy Efficient Data Transmission and UTM’s participation is coordinated by João Canas Ferreira. Nuno Borges Carvalho at the IT/Aveiro is responsible for the general coordination of the project. The aim is to develop adaptable transceivers using digital transmitters and receivers for multi-carrier and multi-standard radio in order to respond to the needs of the next generation of wireless communication devices, which should be capable of transmitting Gigabits of data per second, with low energy consumptions.

The UTM team will be responsible for developing the radiofrequency analogic front-end (José Machado da Silva, also from UTM), the reconfigurable processor for spectrum aggregation, and the flexible digital transmitter based on FPGA (João Canas Ferreira). Other project partners are the Telecommunications Institute (clusters of the University of Aveiro (UA), of the Lisbon Institute of Engineering (ISEL), and the University of Beira Interior (UBI) and the Institute of Electronics and Telematics Engineering of Aveiro (IEETA).

The secondo project, entitled PCSA – Place characterization from sensing and acting, aims at characterising places using data from virtual sensors.  The aim is to define a set of representations and metrics of locations generated automatically using the information on the presence of people in certain locations and on their interactions with the services at those locations. The project is led by the University of Minho and UTM’s participation will be led by Ricardo Morla. The UTM team will focus on defining the metrics to characterise the locations. 

Finally, the third project is entitled Portable Integrated System for Cardiovascular Monitoring (SIVIC). As the name indicates, the project will develop a coronary and cardiac monitoring wearable device which will focus specifically on stent-grafts after patients undergo EVAR (Endovascular aneurysm repair) procedures. The project is led by José Machado da Silva.

Other than the wearable device to capture ECGs, project results also include a set of pressure sensors (CPS) integrated in the stent-graft, as well as an electronic reading system that collects the signals from the ECG and the CPS (by radiofrequency) and sends the combined information to an external unit that will be processing the medical data. INESC TEC will be responsible for the electronic reading unit, the University of Beira-Interior will be developing the wearable support and the University of Minho will develop the pressure sensors. The project will also be supervised and supported by a cardiologist and technicians from the cardiology centre of the Cova da Beira Hospital and from the Center for Silicon System Implementation at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

UTM/INESC TEC, January 2013