Anthropocentric Urban Sensing Unit – ESUM developed for the Chair of Information Architecture ETH Zurich.

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The ESUM project was initiated by Dr. Reinard König at the Chair of Information Architecture ETH Zurich. The idea behind is to create a mobile sensor unit that will measure, analyze and correlate ambient and biometric data from a subject’s itinerary in an urban context, so as to correlate environmental qualities with psychosomatic effects.

The author’s task was to design, develop and document the hardware and software of a stable prototype, to be replicated by research labs around the world.

The software was developed as a Visual Studio C# console application. The ESUM case is made from plywood and partly plexiglas, and can be laser cut and assembled in less than 1 hour. The fabrication plans, software source code and an extended setup and documentation handbook guide will be published soon on public repositories, open to collective further development.

Parts:

  • Barebone PC
  • Battery unit
  • 16 point wireless EEG
  • GPS
  • WiFi sniffer
  • Biometric watch (electrodermal activity, photoplethysmography, peripheral temperature, motion)
  • Atmospheric pressure sensor
  • Temperature sensor
  • Humidity sensor
  • O3 sensor
  • Air pollutants sensor I (C4H10, CH3CH2OH, H2, CO, CH4)
  • Air pollutants sensor II (C6H5CH3, H2S, CH3CH2OH, NH3, H2)
  • CO2 sensor
  • NO2 sensor
  • Sound pressure sensor
  • Luminosity sensor
  • Dust sensor

Prototype design & development, documentation design.

ESUM is currently a joint research project between The Chair of Information Architecture ETH Zurich and Bauhaus-University of Weimar, with ties to other interdisciplinary research groups at ETH Zurich and the Future Cities Lab ETH in Singapore.

ESUM Project site: https://archive.arch.ethz.ch/esum/study.html
ESUM Project repository: https://github.com/vojha-code/ESUM-project

Chair of Information Architecture ETHz 2014-2015 / Prof. Gerhard Schmitt, Dr Reinhard König, Matthias Standfest, Constantinos Miltiadis