Web APIs for Instruments and Devices

Title: Web APIs for Instruments and Devices (tentative)

Mentor: Francesco Lelli 

Workflow Support for Volunteer Computing

" data-orig-size="500,350" sizes="(max-width: 258px) 100vw, 258px" aperture="aperture" />Web APIs for Instruments and Devices

In the coming 10 years not only computers will be connected to the Internet but also small and heterogeneous devices will be part of the web too. These devices will support people in carrying their everyday life activities. This trends is known as Internet of Things.
Toward this idea in this project the candidate will design and implement a generic controller for an embedded device i.e he/she will produce Web APIs for Instruments and Devices. Moreover this control system should expose its APIs in the web in order to allow remote access to the resource. The device that will be targeted in this project is the Lego Mindstorm robot [1] and at the end of the project a working prototype is expected.

In the past year libraries and framework have been proposed for the control of the Lego chip. The purpose of this work is to evaluate the status of the art of these developments proposing new architecture and design guidelines. In addition the candidate will contribute to existing open source project in order to improve the present tools. 
The candidate will use: 

• A Lego Mindstorm [1]
• The Lejos [2] library in order to access and control of the robot using java APIs.
• The Instrument Element [3] tools for exposing Web Service APIs.
• Any tool that she knows for the realization of a user interface.

The candidate can choose any configuration of the robot that she prefer such as car, arm, walking robot etc. She also will choose the User Interface according to the selected configuration. 
In this video an example of prototype is presented: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8VvTENzPGI 
This is just an example; the candidate is encouraged to propose a different prototype. 

Knowledge and Skills:

Web Programming, Java Programming and basic knowledge of Distribute Applications and Embedded Devices. 

References:

[1] Lego Mindstorm NXT: https://shop.lego.com/en-US/category/mindstorms
[2] Lejos Project: http://lejos.sourceforge.net/ 
[3] Instrument Element Project: http://instrumentelem.sourceforge.net/