The course “Beyond the Desktop” introduces the recent concepts of wearable computing, which breaks up with the standard paradigms of personal computing that have been valid for decades. The ongoing miniaturization enables wearable devices that are worn close or even attached to the human body. However, their small dimensions are accompanied by resource constraints that require new and more efficient strategies for processing the data from their on-board sensors. In recent years, wearables have turned into companions in everyday life and enable various novel applications that, for example, provide us with feedback on activities performed and our health status.
After the introduction to wearable computing, the course will discuss the technical issues of miniaturization, connectivity, resource constraints, power management, and data (pre-)processing. Furthermore, it will cover the related topics of activity recognition, vital sign monitoring, wearable actuators, wearability, and situational context. In the end, we venture a glance into the future.
The various topics are further explored in five practical exercises that are based on a wearable platform around the powerful yet energy-efficient ESP32 microcontroller. The programming exercises are implemented in Python and C/C++ for the ESP-IDF, then handed in via TUWEL.
Lecture, tutorials, exercises, group work, idea pitch
Lecture “Foundations of Ubiquitous Computing and IoT” or equivalent courses in design thinking, prototyping, and programming.
