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ITC/USA 2013 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Ninth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 21-24, 2013 / Bally's Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV / This paper describes the design and implementation of an autonomous robot to navigate indoors to a specified target using an inexpensive commercial off the shelf USB camera and processor running an imbedded Linux system. The robot identifies waypoints to aid in navigation, which in our case consists of a series of quick response (QR) codes. Using a 1080p USB camera, the robot could successfully identify waypoints at a distance of over 4 meters, and navigate at a rate of 50 cm/sec.

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Philosophy

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Viruses cause 60% of human infections and are probably the most common cause of infectious disease acquired indoors. Rapid spread of viral illness in indoor establishments facilitates disease morbidity and mortality. The goal of this dissertation is to clarify the role of fomites in the viral infection cycle. Research methods include investigation of published literature, and the use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for viral detection. The Appendix A study reviewed published literature to assess the significance of fomites in the transmission of ten common respiratory and enteric viruses (rhinovirus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza A, parainfluenza 1 (HPIV1), coronavirus, rotavirus, calicivirus, hepatitis A virus (HAV), astrovirus and adenovirus). Results suggest that fomites play an important role in the transmission of common viral pathogens, and the use of disinfectants may limit the spread of viral disease. The Appendix B study examined PCR primer detection limits by determining the time length viruses can be isolated on fomites. Results indicated that poliovirus 1 and hepatitis A virus could be detected for up to 60 days. Parainfluenza 1 virus isolation yielded detection at 30 days and 50 days. Norovirus isolation yielded detection at 20 days and 30 days. Influenza virus isolation results were inconsistent, yielding no initial detection and detection up to 20 days. Appendix C assessed the occurrence of human parainfluenza 1 virus (HPIV1) on surfaces in office settings. HPIV1 was detected on 37% of fomites. HPIV1 was detected most on desktops (47%), and least on light switches (19%). Study results indicated a statistically significant difference between positive fomites in different buildings (Chi-square p < 0.011), and between building cubicles and conference room fomites (Chi-square p < 0.011). Appendix D evaluated the prevalence of influenza A virus on surfaces in day care and home settings. Influenza A was isolated on 23% of fall day care fomites and 53% of spring day care fomites. Influenza was isolated on 59% of home fomites sampled during March, and no influenza was detected on home fomites sampled during the summer. Overall, Influenza A virus was isolated on over 50% of fomites in homes and day care centers.

The current options for wireless signal prediction in indoor scenarios generally either lack precision or require immense computational resources. Thus, a new method is proposed that attempts to consolidate the desired accuracy with an easy to implement and time efficient scheme. This work identifies and takes advantage of dominant physical qualities of indoor environments to solve indoor channel problems using a hybrid of numerical and analytical approaches. Specifically, the guiding effect of hallway structures is investigated as they allow electromagnetic fields to propagate with relatively low attenuation. Combining waveguide mode analysis and rigorous numerical techniques, the proposed prediction model computes the hallway fields in a large building floorplan both quickly and with good accuracy in comparison to full finite-difference simulations. Signal measurement data will also be used to verify the applicability of the model.

This thesis presents an investigation of the impact of indoor small-cells. It is expected that small-cells will be able to increase the throughput and capacity for the existing networks. A deployment algorithm is presented with focus on offloading traffic from the macro layer. The performance of the deployments created with the proposed algorithm, is compared with a reference deployment. The different deployments are then simulated in a real network simulator, which performs static simulations in 3 dimension using the theory of multiple knife-edge diffraction. The small-cells increased the throughput and capacity remarkably and additional gains were obtained with the proposed algorithm. The thesis also includes strategies for small-cell deployment.

This thesis proposes a destination restaurant, near Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, Canada, that serves as an informative showcase of common food plants grown indoors, and allows visitors to experience the food cycle of growing, processing, cooking, eating, and composting, from soil to table. Throughout the building, the line between architecture and agriculture is blurred, as program areas incorporate food plants. The environmentally-conscious design, built primarily of re-used wood and locally sourced sandstone, inspires visitors to start growing food at home by being a living example of a variety of growing methods, most of which could be adopted at home on a smaller scale.

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The demand of Indoor Location Based Services LBS has increased over the past years as smart phone market expands. As a result, there's a growing interest in developing efficient and reliable indoor positioning systems for mobile devices. Wi-Fi signal strength fingerprint-based approaches attract more and more attention due to the wide deployment of Wi-Fi access points. Indoor positioning problem using Wi-Fi signal fingerprints can be viewed as a machine learning task to be solved mathematically. This thesis proposes an efficient and reliable Wi-Fi real-time indoor positioning system using machine learning algorithms. The proposed positioning system, together with a location server equipped with the same algorithms, are tested and evaluated in several indoor scenarios. Simulation and testing results show that the proposed system is a feasible LBS solution.