Florida Space Grant Video Project

Project description

This project addressed open problems in increasing the use of video for improving Florida Spaceport operations safety, effectiveness, and security. Specifically, two problems were addressed:

The feasibility of equipping spaceport technicians with wearable video cameras and wireless links to enable live remote consultation and recording of procedures.
The need for new network technologies to support 100's to 1000's of video cameras in a small area (e.g., within a hanger or along a runway).

This grant funded two students (one graduate and one undergraduate) for one year and part of a course release for the principal investigator. See the people page. The objectives were:

Objective for prototyping a video-enabled technician:

Objective for New protocols for low-cost video transport: Existing networks technologies cannot support 100's to 1000's of high-bandwidth attached devices in a small geographic area. For example, to network a cluster of thousands of cameras within an aircraft hanger would require far greater cost in cabling and connectors than in cameras. The objective was to investigate new shared-medium network protocols that will enable high-bandwidth devices to be economically direct-wired (i.e., daisy chained) to a central point. High performance, reliability, and low cost are important attributes.

Two deliverables were committed in the proposal. They were:

A demonstration of a prototype wearable computer with video camera. The prototype will demonstrate the ability to adaptively transmit video when a transmission link is usable and store video locally when no link is available.
A report on possible future technology development for network technologies better suited for supporting large-scale video infrastructures. A conference paper and a technical disclosure will be submitted.

This material is based upon work supported by the Florida Space Research and Education Grant Program. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author.

Last updated by Ken Christensen on AUGUST 29, 2002