Future Lab: Smart Not Dark

Description/Abstract

In my talk I will discuss the collaboration between my research group and IBM that has led to a flexible and extendable real-time laboratory monitoring system which is demonstrated by combining automatic environment sensing and experimental data collection with broker based publication-subscribe messaging middleware. Changes in the laboratory environment are encapsulated as simple messages, which are published using an MQTT compliant broker. Clients subscribe to the MQTT stream, and perform a data transformation on the messages; for example to produce user displays or to change the format of the message for republishing to other clients. An MQTT client written for the Java MIDP platform can be run on a smart-phone with a GPRS Internet connection, freeing us from the constraints of the campus network. Feedback from the user can be returned over the same channel to trigger actions in the laboratory. A demonstration model for this will be built using LEGO Mindstorms to automate an Intel QX-3 Microscope; this allows us to test the safety implications in the application of these ideas and technologies when applied to the remote control of instrumentation.