Radu Stoleru

Tian Liu, Liuyi Jin, Radu Stoleru et al.

Current state-of-the-art residential irrigation systems, such as WaterMyYard, rely on rainfall data from nearby weather stations to adjust irrigation amounts. However, the accuracy of rainfall data is compromised by the limited spatial resolution of rain gauges and the significant variability of hyperlocal rainfall, leading to substantial water waste. To improve irrigation efficiency, we developed a cost-effective irrigation system, dubbed ERIC, which employs machine learning models to estimate rainfall from commodity doorbell camera footage and optimizes irrigation schedules without human intervention. Specifically, we: a) designed novel visual and audio features with lightweight neural network models to infer rainfall from the camera at the edge, preserving user privacy; b) built a complete end-to-end irrigation system on Raspberry Pi 4, costing only \$75. We deployed the system across five locations (collecting over 750 hours of video) with varying backgrounds and light conditions. Comprehensive evaluation validates that ERIC achieves state-of-the-art rainfall estimation performance ($\sim$ 5mm/day), saving 9,112 gallons/month of water, translating to \$28.56/month in utility savings. Data and code are available at https://github.com/LENSS/ERIC-BuildSys2024.git

Chenda Liao, Harshavardhan Chenji, Prabir Barooah et al.

In this paper we consider the problem of monitoring detecting separation of agents from a base station in robotic and sensor networks. Such separation can be caused by mobility and/or failure of the agents. While separation/cut detection may be performed by passing messages between a node and the base in static networks, such a solution is impractical for networks with high mobility, since routes are constantly changing. We propose a distributed algorithm to detect separation from the base station. The algorithm consists of an averaging scheme in which every node updates a scalar state by communicating with its current neighbors. We prove that if a node is permanently disconnected from the base station, its state converges to $0$. If a node is connected to the base station in an average sense, even if not connected in any instant, then we show that the expected value of its state converges to a positive number. Therefore, a node can detect if it has been separated from the base station by monitoring its state. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated through simulations, a real system implementation and experiments involving both static as well as mobile networks.

Liuyi Jin, Amran Haroon, Radu Stoleru et al.

Timely and accurate pre-arrival video streaming and analytics are critical for emergency medical services (EMS) to deliver life-saving interventions. Yet, current-generation EMS infrastructure remains constrained by one-to-one video streaming and limited analytics capabilities, leaving dispatchers and EMTs to manually interpret overwhelming, often noisy or redundant information in high-stress environments. We present TeleEMS, a mobile live video analytics system that enables pre-arrival multimodal inference by fusing audio and video into a unified decision-making pipeline before EMTs arrive on scene. TeleEMS comprises two key components: TeleEMS Client and TeleEMS Server. The TeleEMS Client runs across phones, smart glasses, and desktops to support bystanders, EMTs en route, and 911 dispatchers. The TeleEMS Server, deployed at the edge, integrates EMS-Stream, a communication backbone that enables smooth multi-party video streaming. On top of EMSStream, the server hosts three real-time analytics modules: (1) audio-to-symptom analytics via EMSLlama, a domain-specialized LLM for robust symptom extraction and normalization; (2) video-to-vital analytics using state-of-the-art rPPG methods for heart rate estimation; and (3) joint text-vital analytics via PreNet, a multimodal multitask model predicting EMS protocols, medication types, medication quantities, and procedures. Evaluation shows that EMSLlama outperforms GPT-4o (exact-match 0.89 vs. 0.57) and that text-vital fusion improves inference robustness, enabling reliable pre-arrival intervention recommendations. TeleEMS demonstrates the potential of mobile live video analytics to transform EMS operations, bridging the gap between bystanders, dispatchers, and EMTs, and paving the way for next-generation intelligent EMS infrastructure.

Liuyi Jin, Pasan Gunawardena, Amran Haroon et al.

Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) operate in high-pressure environments, making rapid, life-critical decisions under heavy cognitive and operational loads. We present EMSGlass, a smart-glasses system powered by EMSNet, the first multimodal multitask model for Emergency Medical Services (EMS), and EMSServe, a low-latency multimodal serving framework tailored to EMS scenarios. EMSNet integrates text, vital signs, and scene images to construct a unified real-time understanding of EMS incidents. Trained on real-world multimodal EMS datasets, EMSNet simultaneously supports up to five critical EMS tasks with superior accuracy compared to state-of-the-art unimodal baselines. Built on top of PyTorch, EMSServe introduces a modality-aware model splitter and a feature caching mechanism, achieving adaptive and efficient inference across heterogeneous hardware while addressing the challenge of asynchronous modality arrival in the field. By optimizing multimodal inference execution in EMS scenarios, EMSServe achieves 1.9x -- 11.7x speedup over direct PyTorch multimodal inference. A user study evaluation with six professional EMTs demonstrates that EMSGlass enhances real-time situational awareness, decision-making speed, and operational efficiency through intuitive on-glass interaction. In addition, qualitative insights from the user study provide actionable directions for extending EMSGlass toward next-generation AI-enabled EMS systems, bridging multimodal intelligence with real-world emergency response workflows.