Shimmer, Cooja and Contiki: A new toolset for the simulation of on-node signal processing algorithms

Abstract

Wearable sensors are widely used for data collection in many applications. Ssensor nodes have also been applied for real-time applications, e.g. for ECG analysis or activity and fall detection. Processing of the sensor data is either done on an external device or on the node itself. While on-node processing reduces data rate and increases battery life, development and testing can be time-consuming. To allow faster implementation of such algorithms, we propose a simulation framework for the Shimmer platform using the Cooja simulator, MSPSim and the Contiki operating system. We provide the simulator and example applications compatible with the ShimmerConnect protocol, allowing streaming of raw and pre-processed sensor data to MATLAB, LabView and Android. Additionally, a simple activity and fall detection algorithm was implemented on the sensor node and evaluated using both the simulator and real hardware. In the future this will allow rapid development and testing of on-node pre-processing algorithms.