1. Supporting the implementation of a healthy, safe and secure, and energy-saving society

In what manner is your research progressing?

KawaguchiOur research on sensor networks is targeting "ubiquitous information society." We thought the valuable services in that society should be oriented context-aware services depending on " the right time, the right place, and the right person" in addition to "Anytime, Anyplace and Anyone". From that viewpoint, we studied a research of an energy-saving management system via home-network by controlling home appliances, especially white goods. We adopted ECHONET as a communication protocol of the system. After that, we developed the "μWirelessWeb (Micro wireless web)" technology for low-cost Machine-to-Machine communication. And we commercialized a Bluetooth wireless module enhanced by adopting that technology.

Now, the next stage begins, right?

KawaguchiThat's right. The important theme of our current research is how to use the information gathered by sensor networks. We considered that these sensor information should be using for a healthy, safety, secure and energy-saving society. So, we developed a sensor information web service named "Collectlo®", which collects and manages sensor information gathered via the Internet, in cooperate with Technology Alliance Group Inc. We are trying to use Collectlo® for health care and nursing care services to decrease incidence rate with the lifestyle-related diseases such as metabolic syndrome.

Figure 1: Aims of research on sensor networks

Figure 2: Progression of research on application of sensor networks