Project
List
User Interface for
Automatic Code Generation System
Medusa - The
next
generation computational biology workbench
3-D Neural Activity Mapping in
Small Animals
Corpus
Callosum Segmentation Tool
Software for mining genomes with mass
spectrometry data
BabelFile
HTTP Agents for
Enforceable Contracting About Consumer Privacy in Web Transactions
Facebook Application
to Track Computer Activities
Nourish International
Facebook Application
Flickr for doctors,
radiologists, and researchers
ibiblio's Osprey:
BitTorrent system
MindTouch
Sonecast Engagement Metrics
Amazing
Grace Tracking System
Amazing
Grace Web Site
OWASA
Web
Site
Horizon
Research Electronic Time Sheet
IQWST Study
Administration Database
Move
to Music
Wiimote and
Rocking Horse Game
Audio
Sports Game with Wiimote
New Voices
Wireless
Mesh Network Management Software
User Interface for
Automatic Code Generation System
Contact:
John Smith, Computer Science (jbs@cs.unc.edu)
Context
To understand the proposed course
project, you must have a basic understanding of the overall project for
which it is a part.
The overall project is
concerned with auto-generating the Java code for J2EE Web
applications. A set of templates and code generators have been
developed. They are used within an Eclipse/WebSphere Studio
plugin and are driven by a pair of XML files. The XML files
describe two independent aspects of the target application to be
generated: 1) the system infrastructure, consisting of the
required layers (e.g., view, control, model, session, domain, entity,
dbms, and data transfer objects (databeans) in various combinations);
and 2) the requirements of the application, such as DataObjects (i.e.,
variables and methods), relations among DataObjects, types of users,
and interactions between users and DataObjects.
Project
Description
The course project will focus on the
XML descriptions. It will produce a thick client, in the form of
Java Applet(s) or application(s). The client will provide tools
for eliciting the system infrastructure requirements which are then
used to derive an implementation XML description. A second set of
tools will enable the user to describe the various DataObjects, User
Types, and the relations and interactions among them. The client
must support the creation, editing, and storing of the descriptions, as
well as importing and exporting them. An additional part of the
project will be function to allow users to combine XML descriptions to
define more extensive, "composed" applications. The client will
interact with a remote management system to store and retrieve these
descriptions within a larger project structure. A basic
management system exists; the team may be able to use it as-is,
modify it as needed, or replace it, depending on their judgment as to
its suitability.
If any team members have background
in Eclipse plugin programming or are particularly interested in this
area, the project could be structured to allow this.
Medusa - The
next
generation computational biology workbench
Contact: Nikolay Dokholyan,
Biochemistry & Biophysics (dokh@med.unc.edu)
The
complexity of existing software often
overwhelms biologists in using computation and automation effectively
in
scientific research. The goal of this project is to create a modular
and
scalable workbench for biologists, wherein the semantics of common
research
operations, such as load a Protein DataBank file, performing a
biomolecular
simulation, storing an output are understood and these tasks are
modularized.
Logical inter-connections of these research "tasks" result in a
larger yet still modular "project". The naive biologist only needs to
tweak a few input parameters in the graphical interface to pursue a
project,
while the skilled biologist may use the task modules and the workflow
environment to design novel projects. Examples of similar engineering
and
scientific workbench environment include iSightFD (http://www.engineous.com), Apache
Maven (http://maven.apache.org),
Taverna (http://taverna.sourceforge.net)
and
the Kepler Project (http://kepler-project.org).
Notably, the tasks in existing open-source workflow environment are
atomic and
cannot be subdivided, thereby limiting reusability of existing
components,
while iSightFD may cost several thousand dollars, rendering it beyond
the reach
of most academic research environments. A minimalist design using an
XML-based
schema for modularizing tasks in the back-end and a graphical
user-interface in
the front-end will be adequate to demonstrate the usability of this
project and
will attract significant attention in the research community. The
software
resulting from this project will be published in a scientific journal,
such as Nature Biotechnology, Bioinformatics,
as done with the
previous software engineering project iFold (http://ifold.dokhlab.org).
3-D Neural
Activity Mapping in Small Animals
Contact: Sabrina Burmeister,
Department of Biology (sburmeister@unc.edu)
The
most common method for 3-dimensional analysis of neural activity
(functional MRI) cannot be applied to small animals because of the
resolution of the images. As a result, many neurobiologists measure
neural activity in 2-dimensional slices. However, recent advances in
image manipulation should enable the 3-D reconstruction of brain
activity maps from 2-D images. There are several published reports
of
methods that create 3-D maps from 2-D images, and at least one of these
uses publicly available software.
In
our lab, we use a neural activity markers to study auditory processing
in small frogs. Our goal is to develop a method for creating 3-D
activity maps from our brain images. This would enable us to study
brain-wide neural activity patterns. If successful, the technique could
revolutionize our understanding of auditory processing in frogs and, as
a consequence, the evolution of the brain.
Corpus
Callosum Segmentation Tool
Contact: Martin
Styner, Computer Science (martin_styner@ieee.org)
The goal of the
project is to develop an open source tool for the
extraction or segmentation of the corpus callosum (part of the brain)
from 2D MRI images.
The segmentation of the Corpus Callosum is of high importance in
neuroanatomical studies of brain development, e.g. in Autism studies
where the corpus callosum exhibits reduced size in autistic children.
The segmentation can be run either semi-automatically with a need of a
guided user-interaction, as well as fully automatically. Its
methodology is based on an extension of the classic Active Shape Model
based segmentation to 2D fourier harmonics. Source code in for the
segmentation methodology already exists (mostly written in C), although
in an antiquated interactive framework called AVS (Advanced
Visualization Systems). The project
consists of
two parts: porting the segmentation code from C and the AVS framework
to C++
using the ITK toolkit and developing a user-interface for interactive
segmentation.
Presentation
Clip
Software
for mining genomes with mass spectrometry data
Contact: Morgan Giddings, Microbiology
and Immunology (giddings@unc.edu)
The Microbiology and Immunology Lab has a number of projects that they
are interested in. These are all active, ongoing projects with
staff
member involvement.
Therefore, it would give a good opportunity for regular
interaction
within the context of an important and timely set of problems.
The three projects are independent.
1. Our Genome
Fingerprint Scanning (GFS) software is a large, complex project with
many
different modes of operation (written in Objective C, presently managed
via CVS, but we are
moving to Subversion). We would like to redesign this application
as a
cluster
of smaller programs, each of which has a more specific function, to
avoid feature bloat. This will take some significant thought
about
what the input and output for each component should be and how to
divide it up.
2.
For the same program mentioned above, we are very interested in the
development of a GUI interface. The software is presently command
line
only, plus we have a simple web interface. Jameson Miller has
developed a very simplified Java-based GUI (simply to set parameters)
but this has no visualization component. I can think of many
ideas to
make this much more interactive and interesting for the end user for
presenting results.
3.
We have a project going to re-annotate the human genome using
proteomics data. Specifically, this work is going from the mass
spectra created from proteins and working backwards through the GFS
software to try to find out which DNA sequences are responsible for
protein creation. We are building a rather complex pipeline to
use
distributed computing on our cluster for the analysis, then recombine
the results and store them in our database. There are a number of
components of this project where a team could become involved.
BabelFile
Contact: Russ Taylor, Computer Science
(taylorr@cs.unc.edu)
BabelFile
will address a major problem for
scientists: translation of data file formats.
It will consist of two separate parts: an underlying
conversion
engine
that relies on conversion descriptions to go to and from various file
formats
through an intermediate format (XML) and a GUI-based program that
scientists
can use to create these conversion descriptions.
Believe
it or not, one of the frequently insurmountable barriers to scientific
progress is the simple translation of data file formats. This
problem has largely been solved for the case of image files by the
advent of the ImageMagick toolkit and programs derived from it.
However, it is still very much a barrier for other data files.
Here's
the problem: Scientist Jane has a simulation program that outputs
results she would like to visualize. Her SuperSim program exports
three file formats: A, B, and C. But the WhizViz program accepts
only file formats D, E, and F. If Jane were a computer scientist,
she'd whip out her Perl script (or awk, or sed, or Python, or even C)
and write a converter from A to D and be done with it. But Jane
is not a computer scientist, so Jane is stuck.
If Jane were a
chemist, only and wanted to convert from one chemical file format to
another, she could use "Open Babel" from SourceForge or BEDLAM; but she
wants to export to a visualization program. If she and her
colleagues each had $50, they could all buy ParseRat and hope that it
supported the formats and features she wanted to use.
BabelFile
will solve her and her colleagues' problems of file conversion, and
provide a way for vendors to write conversion descriptions for their
own products (or let one user in a user group post one for others to
use). Like the color format conversion used to enable any scanner
or camera to be used with any printer, it will include input and output
descriptions. Like modern compilers and languages, it will have
an intermediate format (XML) that enables users to write only 2*N
converters for N file formats, rather than the N2 converters needed if
every conversion path were implemented.
BabelFile will
consist of two separate parts: an underlying conversion engine that
relies on conversion descriptions to go to and from various file
formats and a GUI-based program that actual scientists can use to
create these conversion descriptions by dragging and dropping elements
from one file into the other, performing mathematical operations on
them as needed.
BabelFile could
do to science what the spreadsheet did to accounting.
HTTP Agents for
Enforceable Contracting About Consumer Privacy in Web Transactions
Contact: Andrew Chin, Law School
(chin@unc.edu)
Consumers
conducting e-commerce and other Web transactions usually face "take it
or leave it" privacy policies drafted by corporate legal departments,
and do not have a fair opportunity to negotiate at arm's length for
greater restrictions on the use of their personal information (e.g.,
ensuring that the consumer is protected from the release of such
information to governmental authorities to the full extent guaranteed
by the Fourth Amendment). Even the ongoing development of the
Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) projects does not address this
imbalance in bargaining power. This project is to develop two
elements of a prototype system as a proof of concept to demonstrate
that currently available agent technology can support bargaining and
enforceable contracting regarding the use of consumer information in
connection with an e-commerce transaction: a Web browser plug-in
and a Web server process. The Web browser plug-in would restrict
the sending of personal information to sites that accepted the specific
set of policies set by the user. The Web server process would
detect the presence of the plug-in and, if the policies were acceptable
to the Web site owner, would allow the transaction to go forward in a
manner that manifested the owner's assent in a legally enforceable
manner.
Facebook Application to Track
Computer Activities
Contact: Prasun Dewan,
Computer Science (dewan@cs.unc.edu)
The basic idea is to create a Facebook application that
shows
information about my computer activities. This means we need the app to
have two parts: one that ececutes within the facebook environment and
another that runs on the desktop (Windows, Apple, Linux). The desktop
app would get the necessary information by polling the task
manager.
It could be a standalone app or a browser plug-in assuming the
latter
can in fact look at the task manager.
At the very
least, I would want the app to provide a remote
finger ability, telling someone who long have I have been on for
example. Assuming I have given the necessary rights for it do so, it
could even tell me which apps I am currently running and which one is
actually active. So an important part of the app would be an access
control and filtering mechanism letting me determine which
parts of the
task data are exported. It could provide interesting historical
displays of my login time and app useage also.
The most exciting
part would be to somehow infer something of
interest to others. Such as I am in class right now or in a meeting. Or
when I am expected to return to my desktop. It could interact with
google apps such as gmail and google calendar to do so. Even without
doing so, it could look at patterns in my behavior. Ideally, it would
not require me to explicitly set my status message, doing so implicitly
for me.
The app could be
used in a pull and push mode. In the latter, it
would set my status message. In the former someone could go to my
profile and look at my current detailed status.
Presentation
Nourish International
Facebook Application
Contact: Joel Thomas, Nourish
International (joel@nourishinternational.org)
Nourish International is building a Facebook application which will
help existing Nourish chapters on multiple campuses by enabling Nourish
members and supporters to express how they are supporting Nourish
through their profile. Each user will sign up for a chapter, and
chapter administrators will set events for those chapters. The
information, along with a graphic for each event of the semester will
appear on the application in each user's profile. This will
facilitate
chapter marketing and build group cohesiveness. That concludes
the
first phase of development and a milestone for the project. We
have a
recent grad who is working on this portion of the project and now we
have an opening for a team to work on phases II and III.
Phase II: Develop Chapter Pages and
Project Pages: The
second phase creates a platform to help Nourish chapters work more
effectively. The application will enable students to build chapter
pages that allow people to join on the level that suits them, whether
as a team member, supporter or donor. This will help Nourish know how
many members it has, who is committed, and facilitate the chapter's
communication. The chapter page will also be capable of embedding the
chapter's Google Calendar, making it the central hub for students to go
when they need to find out what's happening next with Nourish. The
chapter pages will also be able to designate the positions and officers
of each member and display the skills each member provides to the team.
Phase III: Incorporate Partners:
For
every project we do in impoverished communities, we have a partner that
is based in the
community where we are working. These partners are
grassroots community based organizations that
rarely have the capability of building and maintaining
their own websites. When they do, their websites are often disconnected
from the outside world. We aim to bring these organizations into the
Facebook community, thus making them accessible for people across the
globe. This will expand the monetary as well as in-kind support for
Nourish's partners on the ground, and give more voice to impoverished
communities. We believe this could be a systems changing project.
The application could be spun off to help other organizations on
Facebook, especially chapter model networks. It will be written
in php
and MYSQL within the Facebook Platform. All mockups will be
created by our graphic designer, so you
do not need to worry about any graphics. If we make enough
progress,
we will apply for capital through the Facebook Fund to fully develop
the application.
Flickr for doctors,
radiologists, and researchers
Contact: Patrick
Reynolds,
Kitware and COMP 523 alumnus (patrick.reynolds@kitware.com)
Instead of dealing with 2D images, we have
3D images, etc. The interface will be mostly the same, but challenges
will
include viewing the images and lots of other cool ideas Kitware has for
enhancements.
ibiblio's
Osprey: BitTorrent system
Contact: John Reuning, ibiblio (john@metalab.unc.edu)
ibiblio's [http://osprey.ibiblio.org Osprey] project provides a complete BitTorrent distribution system, combining a user-friendly web interface,
torrent tracker, and permanent seeding (permaseed) function to ensure that content remains available regardless of whether clients continue to
seed.
The project would be twofold:
1) Write and/or integrate a full-text search and browse application into the Osprey web CMS
2) Execute the project using an Agile development methodology, [http://www.controlchaos.com Scrum] or [http://www.extremeprogramming.org Extreme Programming] (XP)
Work on this project will become part of the open source Osprey project as well as be featured on [http://torrent.ibiblio.org ibiblio's public
BitTorrent site]. Osprey was written based on service-oriented architecture principles and has components in PHP, Python, and C++ with
a Mysql database backend.
Students will work with John Reuning, UNC alum, former systems administrator at ibiblio, and current Software Engineering manager at
Lulu.com. Lulu uses Scrum and test-driven development for all of its software development.
MindTouch
Contact:
Aaron Fulkerson, Mindtouch and COMP 145 alumnus (aaronf@mindtouch.com)
MindTouch
is a start-up based in San Diego that produces Deki Wiki.
(Statistics and opinions are those of Mindtouch.)
It's quickly becoming the most popular wiki and is
only surpassed currently by MediaWiki.
Deki Wiki is a RESTful
wiki platform and
web service framework for creating mashups. MindTouch Deki Wiki is
downloaded
1000 times a day. Mozilla is replacing Mediawiki with MindTouch
to power their Developer
Network. MindTouch has many well known customers ranging from
Microsoft, Novell,
Expedia, BP, Fujitsu, City of Los Angeles, Stanford and many other
universities. Deki Wiki has over 100,000 installs and the software has
been public for 1.5 years.
MindTouch is actively hiring and this could be an opportunity to make
yourself known to them. Note that this will entail working with a
remote client. They are proposing a large
number of projects:
- Experts
engine, based on work by John Riedl at
University of Minnesota
- Keyword
and/or tagging based navigation system
- Content
navigation using key-term extraction and
a graphing library
- Desktop
connector checkin/out functionality and
drag/drop text to publish
- Firefox extension for converting webpages to
deki wiki pages
- Thunderbird extension to Deki Wiki
- 3-d
browser of deki wiki content
- Site navigation analysis and optimizer (heavy
on
the graphing algorithms)
- Integration
with Bugzilla or Mantis
- Integration
with buzzmonitor
- Integration
with Wordpress or Lyceum or Wordpress MU
Sonecast Engagement Metrics
Contact: Michael Shoffner, Sonecast (michael.shoffner@gmail.com)
Sonecast is a local startup that provides clients with social media software for attracting and engaging customers. Sonecast's primary product is a community system called Venues.
Engagement Metrics (EM) is an add-on product for Venues that will analyze behavioral data from a venue, determine an "engagement score" for members of the venue, and provide the venue owner with reporting functions. EM is the application to be developed for the 523 project.
EM is excellent real-world experience because it is a real product and the target technologies are all in demand in the commercial world. EM also allows developers to take specialized roles: UI/frontend, mid tier/server-side, and data mining/analytics development. This provides users with the option of getting specialized technology project experience.
The EM technical architecture will be fairly close to the following:
Sonecast will provide a small grant of stock options for good work (so you must be eligible to work in the U.S.) and we will be glad to act as job references.
Presentation
Amazing
Grace Tracking System
Contact: John
Collins, Amazing Grace Foods (johnlcollins5@yahoo.com)
Amazing
Grace Foods is a developing entrepreneurship intended to bring organic,
fresh
produce to the home. Specifically, it is
a coop that will help farmers sell high-quality produce and animal
products
directly to health-conscious consumers over the web and deliver it
through
overnight deliveries. The intent is to
improve the financial situation of North Carolina farmers.
The first project is to track
the produce from seed, through
processing, to delivery. All food is now
mandated to have bar codes and that will be the primary technology
used. More specific detail can be found in the following letter,
specifically under "Small Farmers."
Letter
Amazing
Grace Web Site
Contact: John
Collins, Amazing Grace Foods (johnlcollins5@yahoo.com)
Once Amazing Grace Foods is up and running, they will be
selling their products over the Internet. In order to do so, they
will
need an e-commerce
site to sell the produce and
animal products. More
specific detail can be found in the following letter, specifically
under "Software for Internet Consumer Purchase."
Letter
OWASA
Web
Site
Contact: Dan Przybyl, OWASA
(dprzybyl@owasa.org)
The OWASA web site needs to be
replaced. The current system is not well structured, customers
are not
able to get up-to-date information, and updates are slow because they
need to
go through a single point of control. The current system is
hosted
remotely but the plan is to bring the new system in house and implement
the
necessary infrastructure to do so. OWASA needs four major
functions
accomplished with a new web site: 1) provide a new format and
consistent style
throughout the Web site; 2) an on-line document library that internal
user may
upload documents to and allows external users to search for specific
resources;
3) enable authorized internal users to update dynamic content such as
news releases,
job postings, and bid announcements, and; 4) Allow customers to access
account
information from an existing back-end SQL Server database.
Since any improvement would be better than what currently exists, I
have listed the four major objectives in order of priority. I would
consider it
a success to accomplish just the first two, three would great.
Horizon Research
Electronic Time Sheet
Contact: Alison
Bowes, Horizon Research, Inc (abowes@horizon-research.com)
Horizon Research, Inc. is a
private research firm located in Chapel Hill specializing in work
related to science and
mathematics education. Currrently HRI employees fill out
the time sheet by
hand. We would like to convert to a web-based timesheet.
What we need the electronic timesheet to do:
- User log-in; restricted to valid
users; staff and administrator sections
- Record a user’s time for each day, by
project
- Check daily sums against a criterion
(generally 8 hours) and alert user to discrepant sums, giving the
option to accept or revise.
- Check monthly sum against a criterion
(different each the number of workdays in that month) and alert user to
discrepant sums, giving the option to accept or return to timesheet to
make revisions.
- Administrator functions:
- add/inactivate employees (including
username and password)
- add/inactivate projects
- set holidays (user cannot enter time
on these days, but the time is figured into the monthly total)
- calculate number of days and total
hours for current month
- Reports to generate:
- completed user time sheet
(printable) in common format (e.g., one row for each project, whether
or not an employee has time in the project for that month)
- project report showing hours for
each person who charged the project that month
- report of hours for each project
(not by employee) for a given month or series of months.
IQWST Study
Administration Database
Contact: Alison Bowes, Horizon Research,
Inc (abowes@horizon-research.com)
Horizon Research
is also in need of a system to support one of their research projects.
A collection of middle school science assessments are being
administered to students over three years, with control and treatment
groups each year – likely
different teachers, but same schools & students. Year 1 – 6th grade
only; Year 2 –7th
grade; Year 3 –8th grade. Pre-Tests administered early fall each year,
post-tests late
spring each year. Student names are collected (they write their
name
on their answer
sheet the first time they take the assessment) and assigned unique IDs
to be maintained
across all years (future administrations have the existing student
names pre-printed
onto the answer sheets). Currently this happens outside the data base,
and it may make sense
to leave it so. The data needs to be collected and managed and
the
following actions need to be supported:
- Add/inactivate schools and teachers
- Update school and teacher contact information
- Compose and send an email to school contacts that materials have
been
shipped
- Compose and send a reminder email to teachers whose materials for
a
stage have not yet been received
- Produce reports for
- Packing lists for shipments (packets per teacher, shipped as a
collection, to school contact) (example attached)
- List of teachers whose materials for a stage (pre year 1, post
year
1, pre year 2, …, post year 3) have not yet been received
- List of teachers who need to be sent the incentive check (stage
"okay", check not yet sent)
The information to
capture includes information about schools, teachers and classes.
Schools:
-
contact information
-
control or study group?
-
each year – participating or not?
-
permission slip requirements
-
pre and post ship dates
Teachers:
-
which school?
-
name and contact information
-
each year – participating or not?
-
number of classes per grade/year
-
pre and post received dates
-
pre and post "okay" dates (i.e., date on which we indicate that data
have been received AND are okay)
-
pre and post "transcription complete" date each year
-
notes regarding problems and correspondence
-
(control school teachers only) incentive check sent (date)
Classes:
-
teacher
-
title
-
period
-
unique ID
Move to Music
Contact: Gary Bishop, Computer Science
(gb@cs.unc.edu)
Deborah Thorp in Allied Health Sciences is interested in a game that
would allow any of her patients of any age or ability to enjoy some
version of Free Play DDR. The goal is to make the game as
accessible as possible, possibly including a player in a
wheelchair. Designing the rules and details of the game are part
of the task to be accomplished. There are a wide variety of
options in terms of technologies and game design. The game can
use a DDR mat to track foot movement, Wiimotes to track hand movement,
or a webcam and some image processing to track movement in
general. The sponsor may be able to help with image processing if
it is to be used. Winning the game may be related to any metrics
that you can imagine.
Wiimote and
Rocking Horse Game
Contact: Gary Bishop, Computer Science
(gb@cs.unc.edu)
Put together a
Wiimote and a spring rocking horse
and create a game for children who are visually impaired.
There is no specific game currently designed,
so the team will have full creative freedom. One
drawback of this game is that we can't find an adult-size horse so
developers may not have the opportunity to test ride their game. The
inspiration for this game is a video on Gizmodo
showing a youngster who simply attached Wiimote to the back of
a rocking horse and
created "some sort of crazy horse/motorcycle arcade game" in his own
basement. This project will put some game into the set up.
Audio Sports Game with
Wiimote
Contact: Gary Bishop, Computer Science (gb@cs.unc.edu)
Create an audio
sports game using a Wiimote. You get to choose the sport and
define the way that the player will use audio to play the game.
Assuming that you choose a standard sport, the creativity is less in
the rules of the game and more in the use of audio cueing. If you
want some ideas about the sports played by the visually impaired, look
at web sites such as Blind
Sports Organization or The
Massachusetts Alliance of Visually Impaired Students.
New
Voices
Contact: Andrew Ball, Computer Science
graduate student (adball@cs.unc.edu)
Karen Erickson, from the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies (CLDS)
proposes to develop an innovative internet-based assessment tool
that will support widespread access to appropriate augmentative and
alternative
communication (AAC) technologies for the more than 3.5 million persons
with
significant speech impairments across the United States.
Evaluations are necessary for candidates to be given state funding
for these technologies, but the current processes are very expensive
and involve lots of manual paperwork. The processes have become so
expensive that most evaluation centers have been closed down due to the
high cost of evaluation. While the technologies have improved greatly,
the difficulty of getting timely evaluations is keeping people from
having access to them. The New Voices project consists of this
assessment tool as well a process model and system analysis
project. For more information, you can access the New Voices wiki
using the username friend and password f00f00b8r.
Wireless
Mesh Network Management Software
Contact: Brian Russell, Orange Networking
(brian@orangenetworking.org)
Orange Networking is a
non-profit organization in Orange County working to foster equal access
to the Internet so that all people may benefit from the use of digital
communication tools. Orange Networking needs a software tool to
help a diverse group of volunteers remotely manage wireless mesh
networks. The hardware installations that this software will help
manage will use open source software and modified consumer wireless
hardware using the 802.11(x) spectrum. These mesh networks will provide
Internet access to families inside their homes.
The project is to build a web-based front end to existing open source
wireless mesh network software to allow groups of volunteers to
remotely manage
multiple mesh network hardware installations.
Software requirements include
- A small number of people need to be able to manage large networks
- Browser based interface must be useable by non technical people
- Maintenance actions must be obvious
- Testing of remote routers must be quick
- Remote software config/repair must be simple
- Visualizations of complex log files must be easy to understand
- Security should be testable and fixable remotely if possible
- Must work with a broad range of consumer wifi hardware
- Users must be able to escalate action to another user