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The case for reconfigurable hardware in wearable computing

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Abstract

Wearable computers are embedded into the mobile environment of their users. A design challenge for wearable systems is to combine the high performance required for tasks such as video decoding with the low energy consumption required to maximise battery runtimes and the flexibility demanded by the dynamics of the environment and the applications. In this paper, we demonstrate that reconfigurable hardware technology is able to answer this challenge. We present the concept and the prototype implementation of an autonomous wearable unit with reconfigurable modules (WURM). We discuss experiments that show the uses of reconfigurable hardware in WURM: ASICs-on-demand and adaptive interfaces. Finally, we present an experiment with an operating system layer for WURM.

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Acknowledgements

This work is being carried out in cooperation with the Wearable Computing Laboratory at ETH Zurich and is supported by ETH Zurich (Wearable Computing) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (NCCR MICS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ETH Zentrum Office ETZ-G81, Computer Engineering and Networks Lab (TIK), Gloriastraße 35, 8092 , Zurich, Switzerland

    Christian Plessl, Herbert Walder, Jan Beutel, Marco Platzner & Lothar Thiele

  2. Electronics Laboratory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland

    Rolf Enzler & Gerhard Tröster

Authors
  1. Christian Plessl
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  2. Rolf Enzler
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  3. Herbert Walder
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  4. Jan Beutel
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  5. Marco Platzner
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  6. Lothar Thiele
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  7. Gerhard Tröster
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Correspondence to Christian Plessl.

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Plessl, C., Enzler, R., Walder, H. et al. The case for reconfigurable hardware in wearable computing. Pers Ubiquit Comput 7, 299–308 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-003-0243-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-003-0243-x

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