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Human Space Computing
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Human Space Computing shifts the focus from the corporation to the individual in relation to computing technologies. These include:

  • Bluetooth, mobile computing and digital pens
  • Wireless technologies (VoIP, Wi-Fi, IRDA, RFID, GSM, GPRS, 3G .)
  • Software solutions & interfaces (Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm, J2ME, XML, multi-agents)
  • Telecommunication convergence using wireless devices (video, voice, data)
  • Wireless devices in the resource industry and manufacturing automation
  • Sensor networks and track-and-trace solutions
  • Talking emails and mobile conferences
  • Personal space security and privacy
  • Convergence technologiesHuman Space Computing
  • Extreme interfaces, including the design of Haptic displays and controls
  • Sensory Substitution.
  • Personal sensor configurations

The studies of these technologies are primarily for industries, logistics and manufacturers.

Human Space Computing is defined as the use of technology in our spaces, our environmental space, our work space, our living space, our social space, our society, our business environment, our industrial and manufacturing environment, etc. It is about technology changing within the space in which we live.
 

Telecommunication Convergence

Dr Alex Talevski, Professor Elizabeth Chang, Professor Tharam Dillon
Organisational alliances are rapidly being formed as a means of effective cooperation with a common goal within a targeted value chain. The combination of such communication, coordination and cooperation leads to new organisational forms and scenarios within the Digital Ecosystem space that require technological support. Convergence refers to the move towards the use of a single united interaction medium and media. Such a solution enables telecommunication services that are concurrently coupled with enterprise and internet data. However, such converged telecommunications and data services have been largely restricted to static environments where fixed Personal Computers (PC) and network connections are used in conjunction with customised software tools that simulate pseudo converged sessions. Generally, data presented on the internet and in enterprise applications is not available in a mobile wireless environment. The diverse nature of this environment demands a feature-rich, flexible and widely accessible solution.

Barcode Watermarking

Dr Vidyasagar Potdar, Dr Song Han, Mr Christopher Jones
Many digital watermarking algorithms are proposed in the literature. Broadly, these watermarking algorithms can be classified into two main categories. The first category of algorithms uses a Pseudo Random Gaussian Sequence (PRGS) watermark, whereas the second category of algorithms uses a binary logo as a watermark. The main advantage of the PRGS-based watermarking scheme is its ability to detect the presence of a watermark without manual intervention. However, the main drawback is the calculation of a reliable threshold value. In a similar manner, the main advantage of binary logo watermarking is that there is no need to calculate a threshold value, but it requires manual intervention to detect the presence of a watermark. The advantage and disadvantage of either approach is quite clear and it would be a good idea to design a watermarking scheme which incorporates the advantages of both of these approaches. In this project, we worked on one such approach called bar-code watermarking. The proposed scheme offers a means of objective as well as subjective detection. A PRGS sequence watermark is represented as a bar-code on a binary logo and embedded in the host image. Watermark detection can be done either subjectively or objectively.
Key Technologies – Digital Watermarking, Information Hiding

Self-healing Key Distribution for Wireless Networks

Dr Song Han, Professor Tharam Dillon
In wireless network communications, packet transmission needs a robust key distribution scheme to ensure that the packet is received by a target node / user. Self-healing key distribution schemes enable a group user to recover session keys from two broadcast messages received before and after those sessions, even if the broadcast messages for the middle sessions are lost due to network failures. These schemes are quite suitable for supporting secure communication over unreliable networks such as sensor networks and ad hoc networks. This project will design an efficient, self-healing, key distribution scheme. The scheme will be based on the concept of access polynomial and self-healing key distribution model. The new scheme greatly reduces communication and computation overheads, while still retaining the constant storage overhead.

ID-based Key Distribution for Wireless Networks

Dr Song Han, Professor Tharam Dillon, Professor Elizabeth Chang
An identity-based method in information and network security protocols can reduce the certificate management workloads. This is imperative for nodes in wireless networks as there are limited power and resources available for wireless communications. Self-healing mechanisms are quite suitable for establishing group keys over an unreliable network. This project aims to design an identity-based, self-healing key distribution scheme that is collusion-free for any coalition of non-authorised nodes. The scheme can achieve a constant storage overhead for each node. The private key for each non-revoked node can be reused as long as it is not disclosed. The scheme does not need a central authority which is responsible for managing certificates for all group nodes / users.