Proof of Concept

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Last update: 17-07-2024
^{Development Status & Update History}

This Sci. research presents an innovative method for experimental data acquisition and management of collected data in real time and is compatible with any open environment. The proposed smart DAQ device prototype has the minimum hardware characteristics to handle data measurements collected from sensors locally connected to it, store it on a local CSV or SQLite database file, and finally connect and synchronize data measurements collected with a data repository hosted remotely on a Dataverse.

These Smart DAQ devices are of type "Internet of Everything" (IoE) Smart Devices and are able to connect with each other using swarm intelligence. The main purpose is to increase data integrity and trustworthiness among DAQ devices connected and on all experimental data collected during an experiment or research project.

Experimental data collected is stored in a block format, meaning, a single block stores an individual piece of experimental data written to it, the hash of the previous block, and its own hash.

This is the main principle of operation behind blockchain technologies, to make it really difficult to modify experimental data once it’s written to a block since hashes are interconnected among each other since the beginning of an experiment, experimental campaign, and even since the beginning of a research project. Every block written references the hash of its previous block. This way, for any modification to the data stored in a block, the hash it stores changes forcing the following blocks to also indicate a change (since they must have the hash of the previous block). To modify a block a rewrite is needed on all blocks.

In everyday science at a laboratory these Smart DAQ devices are able to connect among each other, in a swarm-like manner, and when doing so, increase experimental data trustworthiness and authenticity in an experiment part of a research project or experimental campaign. Setting up a Swarm network of smart DAQ devices not only increases the quality of research results, by tagging each individual piece of experimental data collected from each individual sensor, with a unique data fingerprint ID (hash) at the exact same moment of data collection, broadcast it to other nearby smart DAQ devices and finally do data upload to a repository where a new, additional data fingerprint is added to existing ones (generated locally). This way is maintained and guarantees data collection integrity locally, from the laboratory, until the moment is received and stored in a data repository in a cloud server.

^{The very first prototype for a Smart Data Acquisition Device (SDAD) back in 2021}

Summary of advantages of these Smart Data Acquisition Devices (S.D.A.D.)

• Ability to collect sensor measurements in real-time / LIVE and generate a unique fingerprint identification (UFPID) from and for a sensor data record;
• Ability to store sensor measurement records on a dataset (Excel CSV file, SQLite Database) using blockchain technologies;
• Ability to connect with other SDADs on the same experiment using SWARM technology to increase experimental data authenticity and trustworthiness;
• Ability to exchange data with a data repository in real-time / LIVE, for instance www.dataverse.org, autonomously and without any human intervention with the purpose of increasing experimental data authenticity and trustworthiness;
• Ability to upload individual experimental data records to a data repository in real-time / LIVE;
• Ability to connect to other SDADs on other experiments and link experimental data in a Blockchain-like manner with the purpose of increasing experimental data authenticity and trustworthiness on a scientific project or research campaign. For instance, link experimental data measurements from two or more ongoing experiments on the same project;

A document is currently being written, vis-à-vis a "paper", in an open-environment format. See the Index below to access it. Is also available as a preprint draft document at Elsevier's SSRN platform, here: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4210504, and as a MS Word .docX document with embedded 360 videos of both hardware electronics and test specimens. To access it click here.