Shimmer Research, a leader in wearable wireless sensing is launching a Strain Gauge module to add to its extensive range of wireless sensing capabilities for the Shimmer platform.

The Shimmer Strain Gauge is ideal for all load, weight, force, torque, and pressure measurements through the connection of a user-supplied strain gauge load cell. The Strain Gauge module detects variance in resistance values when force is applied to the load cell. The Strain Gauge expansion module contains a bridge amplifier, excitation source, and connector or wire soldering points enabling force measurement with Shimmer.

Keeping with Shimmer’s focus on wearable sensing, the unit is small (53mmx32mmx23mm), and lightweight (29 grams), allowing for measurements free from wired constraints and enabling the wearer to perform their natural range of motion. With the ability to stream direct to a host device without the need for an intermediate receiving unit, and the option to act as an autonomous data logger, the Shimmer Strain Gauge allows for measurement outside of a dedicated lab setting.

Image illustrates the Shimmer Strain Gauge connected to a Futek Grip and Pinch Load Cell

The Strain Gauge will be particularly useful to customers focusing on Strength Capacity, Rehabilitation, Muscular-skeletal Clinical Research, and Sports Training. Keeping in line with our open source philosophy the Strain Gauge provides raw data, with no proprietary software or predefined analysis parameters to allow the user to interpret and analyse data specific to their application requirements.

The Strain Gauge module is supported in the Shimmer LabVIEW Library and the ShimmerConnect applications. Driver and test application code are available in the TinyOS Sourceforge/Googlecode repositories, with a user manual available to new and existing customers via the download section of the website.

There is a limited number of Strain Gauge modules presently available – and the module can be purchased via our online store. For further information contact us via info@shimmer-research.com

Watch the Strain Gauge Tutorial – or skip to the 4.25 mark to see the Strain Gauge Streaming data in real-time.

Visit the product page:

• Wireless Strain Gauge Module
• Strain Gauge Development Kit

New Shimmer Applications and Solutions

Shimmer Research will soon launch ‘Shimmer Solutions’ via our website and online store. Adding to our current range of Shimmer products, OEM, and consultancy services, Shimmer Research is now developing tools and solutions for specific end user applications.

What to Expect?

We will be adding a ‘Solutions’ tab to our website and online store that will offer tools and solutions to meet specific end user application requirements. The first solutions to be released will focus on the areas of multi-Shimmer management and synchronisation, closely followed by a complete suite of tools for motion analysis and complex motion sensing.

Whilst there will be new application specific solutions, we will still continue to develop generic platform tools and applications that will be made freely available to the Shimmer user’s community. Users can expect the release of a more comprehensive kinematic calibration tools, and support for an ECG feature extraction application in the near future. Work is also being carried out to provide supporting applications for MATLAB and Android.

Know of a Solution that Everyone Needs?

At Shimmer Research we have always looked to our user community to help guide the development of our platform. If you know of a potential solution that there is a real need for we’d be happy to hear from you. From Gait Analysis, Falls Detection, Muscle Fatigue, or Object Usage Tracking, if there is a significant need for a solution we are open to investigating the possibility of development.

Keep track of our website for the upcoming changes or sign up to our RSS feed to keep informed of announcements.

As part of Innovation Dublin 2011, Shimmer Research has collaborated with Dublin City Council’s The LAB Gallery and a number of artists to explore and develop the ‘Quantified Self’.

Working with artists Michelle Brown, Cliona Harmey, Saoirse Higgins and Bea McMahon, films, drawings, and sculptures were developed using the Shimmer’s wearable wireless sensing technology. Quantified Self is a theme that explores how people can capture, monitor, and interpret personal and sensed data to make better decisions and engage with their health, behaviour, environment and personal outcomes.

The exhibition will be held at The LAB Gallery, located on Foley Street, Dublin 1, opening with a reception on Tuesday the 18^th of October from 6pm to 8pm. The reception will include a programme of events and a discussion curated by Rachel O’Dwyer, and is open to the general public. The Exhibition will run until the 3^rd of December, and feature applications including Equine Dressage, Stress Biofeedback, and Heart Rate Monitoring.

For more information – visit the webpage.

About Innovation Dublin

Launched in 2009, Innovation Dublin is a Creative Dublin Alliance Project coordinated by Dublin City Council (Economic Development Unit) and  is partnering with eight cities in the north west of Europe to develop open innovation models through transnational collaboration, to maximise European level synergies and development potential in the knowledge economy.

Shimmer Research was at the Westin Copley Hotel in Boston this year for IEEE EMBC 2011. The event, which took place Tuesday 30^th of August through Saturday 3^rd of September was a roaring success and was full of exciting key notes and workshop demonstrations.

On Wednesday Shimmer hosted its own workshop in the Marriott Hotel inviting all attendees to come and see a full demonstration of the Shimmer platform and to ask any questions they may have. Presenting to a full house the workshop proved to be a very informative session for those in attendance and it gave users and prospective users alike an insight into Shimmer’s full suite of capabilities.

Shimmer team members were available to take questions as were Shimmer commercial partners Biosensics who gave a brief introduction into their Shimmer based PAMSys for activity monitoring and classification.

Alongside the main EMBC 2011 event, the organisers also hosted the first EMBC UnConference. Aimed at bringing people together in an innovative and unique atmosphere, the UnConference focused on the key challenges in the translation of technology from the lab to the field around wearable and ubiquitous technology for health and wellness.

The consensus from the full compliment of attendees was that the UnConference delivered on its promise, and is certainly a format and an event we would love to see again in the future. Shimmer Research was delighted to be involved by sponsoring the UnConference’s Wearable Technology Demo Competition, which attracted some excellent and engaging entries. We would like to extend congratulations all the entrants and to the eventual winners:

‘MusicGlove: A Music-Based Device for Hand Rehabilitation and Quantitative Assessment of Hand Function’ – Friedman, Nizan

‘The SWORD ambulatory rehabilitation system’ – Bento, Virg

The complete list of submitted abstracts can be found by clicking the following link.

Thanks again to all the attendees who dropped by our stand and we hope to see you all again soon.

Shimmer Research will be in Boston at the end of this month for EMBC 2011 at the Boston Marriott Hotel in Copley Place. The conference runs from August 30^th through till September 3^rd and various members of the Shimmer team will be available to meet at Booth 2, the Westin Copley Hotel (beside the poster session) as well as at many of the events taking place throughout the conference. The event itself is brimming with invited sessions, plenary lectures, oral and poster sessions as well as hosted workshop sessions.

Shimmer will be hosting a workshop session on Wednesday the 31^st which will focus on biomechanics, wearable sensing and activity classification. All conference attendees are invited to join us and those attending the workshop will see firsthand the typical applications, capabilities and various ways to work with the platform from a developer’s standpoint. Sharing their real-world experiences on developing a Shimmer based application, Biosensics LLC will close the workshop presentations by discussing the process and challenges they encountered on the road to commericalisation.

Details for the Shimmer hosted workshop session – ‘An Open and Extensible Wireless Research Platform’ can be found by following this link.

Keeping in line with the level of bustling activity at this year’s conference, EMBC will host an Unconference on Wearable Technology at the Westin Hotel, Copley Place which Shimmer Research will be attending. It is concerned with addressing and overhauling the key challenges around the translation of technology from the lab to the field in the area of ubiquitous sensing technology and health and wellness.

The unique real-time nature of the Unconference format is very exciting as well as the Wearable Technology Demo Competition which Shimmer is delighted to be involved with. The video entries for this demo can be seen by clicking this link.

Look forward to seeing you there, and if you wish meet with us during the conference email us – info’at’shimmer-research.com, or send us a direct message via Twitter @ShimmerResearch.

The GPS module will transmit serial GPS NMEA sentences to the docked Shimmer’s external connector UART lines. This data can be used for application synchronization or localization and will provide users with accurate location and global time data in the development of Shimmer based applications.

The Dock also includes the standard features that where associated with USB reader such as programming, charging, and an integrated USB Flash Media Controller.

New Shimmer Dock: Controls, Functions and Indicators

• Power/Reset Button: Power on, reset, or power-off Shimmer unit
• GPS Enable Button: Toggle between GPS and host PC UART connection to Shimmer
• User Button: Application specific signal to Shimmer
• Charge Indicator
• microSD, UART Indicators

For full details visit the Shimmer Dock product page.

The ShimmerConnect software has just been updated, and is now available via the members section of the website.

The application allows users to display and save data received from Shimmer devices streaming over Bluetooth, and provides a range of user functions including the ability to select the sampling rate, which sensors are to be used, enable/disable power monitoring, and change parameters such as the accelerometer’s sensitivity.

Version 0.2 improves on the range of sensors supported by the application and includes a number of bug fixes from the original 0.1 version. The changelog includes:

• Support for the GSR, Strain Gauge and Heart Rate sensors
• Support for receiving 8-bit data channels instead of just 16-bit
• Added MagHeading box when Magnetometer is enabled
• Fixed problem with saving/displaying Magnetometer data
  • Read Mag data as 16-bit signed int, instead of 32-bit/64-bit
• Fixed EMG problem
  • A second EMG channel was being added erroneously
• “AnEx ADC0″ and “AnEx ADC7″ labels in Configure window now change to “VSenseReg” and “VSenseBatt” respectively when voltage monitoring is enabled

The source code for the application (written in C#) has also been updated and is available to current customers and users of the Shimmer platform upon request (Please visit the C# Development webpage).

The Boilerplate image (firmware) that is required to run on Shimmer is constantly updated and can be found in tinyos-2.x-contrib/shimmer/BoilerPlate.

For more information – visit the ShimmerConnect webpage.

Continuing from the recent release of the Shimmer LabVIEW Library and support tools, Shimmer Research is proud to announce the official release of the Shimmer 9DOF Calibration Application.

The application provides an automated procedure for calculating the calibration parameters for Shimmer’s integrated tri-axial accelerometer. The calibration parameters can be stored to the Shimmer memory and recalled by other applications to provide calibrated sensor data.

The application also allows the user to determine, enter and store the offset bias for Shimmer’s tri-axial gyroscope, to enter calibration parameters for a tri-axial gyroscope and magnetometer and store these parameters to the Shimmer memory where they can be recalled by other applications.

Main Features include:

• Automated procedure for determining calibration parameters of tri-axial accelerometer
  • Decide and select which axis will be your x,y,z
  • Save the calculated calibration parameters to the Shimmer unit
  • Indicates if factory default parameters are being used (in the case that no parameters have been stored), or if stored calibrated parameters are being used
  • Indicates if stored values do not correspond to the selected accelerometer range
  • Provides a method to evaluate of the accuracy of the calibrated parameters

• Determine the offset bias for the tri-axial gyroscope
• Enter and store calibration parameters for tri-axial gyroscope and magnetometer to the Shimmer unit
  • Indicates if factory default parameters are being used, or if stored parameters are being used

The application is accompanied by a detailed manual with step by step guidelines, and is support by a demonstration video. The application is available to all members of the Shimmer website. Visit the web-page (http://www.shimmer-research.com/r-d/software/9dof-calibration) for more details.

Shimmer Research is proud to announce the official release of the Shimmer LabVIEW Library. Designed to assist Shimmer users in the development of Shimmer based applications, the library offers an expansive range of support tools from low level instrument driver’s right through to example Shimmer Application VIs.

Whilst allowing developers to be guided through the structure and tools to familiarize and develop applications with the Shimmer platform, the Shimmer LabVIEW Library also incorporates a number of end user functions. The example applications VIs include multi-Shimmer management, feedback on the percentage of data packets successfully received, support for the full range of Shimmer sensing modules, and the streaming of data in both raw and calibrated formats.

The Shimmer LabVIEW Library includes:

• Instrument Driver VIs: Low level Instrument Drivers for a range of different Shimmer operations such as configuring, triggering, and acquiring data
• Integrated Shimmer VIs: VIs that integrate all of the functionality of the lower level Instrument Driver VIs, providing ready made solutions suitable for most applications, greatly reducing development time
• Example Application VIs: LabVIEW application VIs that are designed to demonstrate  the use of the Integrated VIs in application development as well as serving as a basis for the development of user designed applications

Karol O’Donovan, Lead Application Engineer in the development of the Shimmer LabVIEW Library, noted ‘the Library will provide a toolkit for the development of Shimmer based solutions for a wide range of users from academic researchers to industrial developers. The Library exposes the full functionality of the Shimmer platform and is supported by a detailed user manual and appropriate labeling of block diagrams to facilitate greater understanding of the Shimmer LabVIEW Library and fast track the development of new applications’.

Demos, Documentation, and Downloads:

To find out more on the Shimmer LabVIEW Library, visit our LabVIEW webpage which provides a full description, list of main features, and system requirements. The Library package can also be downloaded from our LabVIEW webpage, along with the manual to guide you through the Library, Instrument Drivers, and Example Shimmer Applications.

Finally, you can view a full set of video demonstrations on the Shimmer LabVIEW Library via our YouTube Channel.

The upgraded battery maintains Shimmer’s position as a pioneer in addressing power constraints in wearable wireless sensing. The open source platform, which is highly configurable and flexible, allows researchers, developers, and equipment manufactures to create extremely power efficient applications specific to the end user requirements. The additional battery capacity will facilitate even greater functionality in continuous, remote, and complex monitoring and motion sensing applications.

The new 450mAh rechargeable Li-ion battery can facilitate activity monitoring for up to two weeks on one recharge cycle when recording data locally, and can facility continuous streaming of ECG via Bluetooth for up to 24 hours. Speaking about the development Michael Healy (Lead Application Engineer, Shimmer Research) noted that the 450mAh battery ‘will really open up a new range of possibilities for research and product development. It will allow for better usability in home deployments, remote monitoring, and complex multi sensor applications where, power consumption has been a key constraint to date’.

The new battery will come as standard on all Shimmer units from the first of June 2011. For new customers units can be purchased as part of the development kits available from the company’s website e-store. For existing customers, please email info@Shimmer-Research.com for further information.