I’m a research assistant at the Computer Engineering and Networks Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich. I like to use the same technology at both prototype and production phases.

What current projects are you working on?
My PhD project is part of the PermaSense project. Here, we strive for collecting geophysical data in the high‐altitude environment of the Swiss Alps with a wireless sensor network. Not only limited to this application, we use a Gumstix computer for remotely accessing and controlling a wireless sensor network on the Matterhorn Mountain at 3.500 meters above sea level.

What is your background?
I received a BSc in Information Technology and MSc in Computer Science from Technische Universitaet Muenchen (Germany) in 2006 and 2008, respectively. Starting with an internship on embedded systems in 2004, my studies focused on embedded systems and hardware architectures in general.

What started your interest in gumstix technology?
Gumstix offers great products for all kinds of both student and professional projects. Not only offering a huge set of features, it is also not common that embedded hardware can be obtained as simple as in the Gumstix web store.

What gumstix products are you using in the project?
Currently, Verdex Pro series motherboards and extension boards represent the standard technology within several of our applications. While our recently finished design of a custom‐built extension board has been designed for Verdex Pro modules, we are already observing and testing the current progress of the new Overo series.

Why is gumstix technology the best solution for the project?
Gumstix technology especially matches with our requirements in terms of interfaces and energy consumption. For instance, many of our applications have an extensive need for programmable GPIO lines and a SPI bus interface. Of course, Gumstix is also offering decent hardware configurations and a convenient environment for software development.

What projects do you have planned for the future?
Right now we are trying to deploy autonomously operating high quality image sensors on high alpine locations. Here, the idea is to use Gumstix technology for controlling the whole capturing and data transmission process.

Will gumstix technology be part of your future plans?
Yes.

Why?
As we are already familiar with Gumstix technology, we attempt to use it whenever our ideas ask for an embedded computer system with a low power profile.