BEAT: Bio-Environmental Android Tracking

Team Members

Michael Mitchell and Frank Sposaro

Our Android Development Sites

MitchTech Android Development Michael's Android Site
Mobile Programming Frank's Android Site

Overview

The popularity of wireless devices has been pushing the envelope for medical applications. These devices, paired with a personal health monitoring framework can enable early detection and increased quality of life of citizen of developed nations. These devices are helping supplement the available disease detection and treatment techniques, as well as increasing the quality of life of the users of the system. BEAT (Bio-Environmental Android Tracking) provides methods for collecting, processing, and archiving ones daily vital and spatiotemporal statistics using commercially available biologic and environmental sensors. The device analyzes the data and attempts to classify the behavior by using context information from accelerometers, GPS, previous behavior, and user feedback. Algorithms are executed to calculate statistics (e.g. heartbeat variance, time above/below certain thresholds, and flag abnormal readings). Options are available for adjusting thresholds used to issue user and third party alerts automatically. In addition, statistics, previous records, and real- time data, can be displayed to the user or transmitted to a medical professional for analysis. Integration of additional bio-sensors including blood pressure, glucose, and weight will enable the BEAT framework to be a complete personal health monitoring system.

Research Paper Submission

BEAT was submitted for publication at the 2011 IEEE Radio Wireless Symposium. If accepted, it will be exhibited at the BioWireleSS topical conference.

Complete Text

Android Kernel Components

Quick-wakeup
EHCI-USB (USB Host driver)

Quick-wakeup Overview

Sidestep traditional Power Management stack
Emerge from suspend state
Check condition of pre-registered QuickWakeup device:
If condition is false, re-enter suspend state
If condition is true, execute registered callback function

Quick-wakeup Files

EHCI-USB Overview

Re-compile Android kernel 2.6.29 enabling use of EHCI (Enhanced Host Controller Interface)
Boot kernel, open a terminal emulator and connect to local
insmod drivers/usb/core/usbcore.ko
insmod drivers/usb/host/ehci-hcd.ko
Current limitations:
USB cable plugin not automatically recognized
EHCI-USB forces loss of Gadget-USB (unable to use adb for debugging)

A more thourough walkthough of patching, compiling, and flashing of the modified kernel here

EHCI-USB Files

The most robust kernel we created was for the HTC Droid Incredible using kernel version 2.6.29

EHCI-USB Enablable Drivers

Below are some of modules that can now be dynamically loaded into the modified kernel. The complete archive of modules compiled against the kernel above above included in usbhost-modules.tgz

USB serial (FTDI) *
HID input devices *
USB storage *
Ethernet
External displays
Audio/MIDI devices
TV Receivers

* denotes that we have suceeded in making these drivers work in some degree

A more thourough walkthough of loading modules into the modified kernel here

Android Kernel Scripts

install_deps.sh Auto install dependencies for Android kernel development
extractkernmods.sh Extract kernel modules from running phone in adb
fsrw Re-mount Android system partition as RW
adb-restart.sh Kill & Restart Android Debug Bridge as root
zipbuild.sh Create a signed, flashable OTA zip image