Abstract:
The present inventors have recognized that proper utilization of reconfigurable event driven hardware may achieve optimum power conservation in energy constrained environments including a low power general purpose primary processor and one or more electronic sensors. Aspects of neurobiology and neuroscience, for example, may be utilized to provide such reconfigurable event driven hardware, thereby achieving energy-efficient continuous sensing and signature reporting in conjunction with the one or more electronic sensors while the primary processor enters a low power consumption mode. Such hardware is event driven and operates with extremely low energy requirements.

Description:
STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT 
       [0001]    This invention was made with government support under 0702272 awarded by the National Science Foundation and HR0011-09-C-0002 awarded by the Department of Defense/DARPA. The government has certain rights in the invention. 
     
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0002]    The present invention relates to sensory stream analysis, and in particular, to detection of trigger signatures from sensory streams in energy constrained environments. 
         [0003]    Many electronic systems today rely on continuous sensing of real world information to guide in data collection, storage, analysis, computation, communication, decision making and/or actuation. The sensors and the first tier of the sensory processing systems are often deployed in energy constrained environments. Typically, the raw data stream must be in analyzed by a low power, general purpose primary processor or central processing unit (“CPU”) for temporal and spatial trigger signatures that either identify that an event of interest has occurred, or, conversely, rule out such an event. Trigger signatures can be detected flexibly in software executing on the primary processor by analyzing the raw data stream as it arrives, but this often requires a significant energy budget due to the ongoing use of the primary processor, particularly for continuous and/or high volume data streams. 
         [0004]    Such continuous sensing applications are becoming increasingly commonplace for medical, health, and safety monitoring of critical sensory data streams, such as human electrocardiograph (“EKG”), electroencephalograph (“EEG”), pulse, blood pressure, and patient activity levels. For example, human sleep characteristics may be monitored via an EEG monitoring slow wave activity of the brain, including as described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,029,431, “Method and Apparatus for Promoting Restorative Sleep” to Giulio Tononi, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference. 
         [0005]    Continuous sensing applications are also becoming increasingly commonplace for environmental monitoring, such as emission levels, pollutant concentrations, or seismic data, and in the mobile space, including smart phones, tablets and other mobile computers. Such sensing may be used to trigger context and location aware computation and/or communication. For example, information sent from a 3-axis accelerometer in a mobile phone may be used to infer the type and level of activity of the user, either independently or in conjunction with other sensors. For example, entering the driver&#39;s seat of an automobile could generate an identifiable accelerometer signature which could be used to disable text messaging while driving. The ability to continuously deploy flexible sensing and processing for these and other applications has the potential to revolutionize these fields. However, energy constraints often limit the development of such applications. 
         [0006]    Typically, within the context of energy constrained battery-operated systems, the primary processor that interfaces with and controls various sensors is designed to operate mainly for bursts of user activity. To optimize power dissipation and to improve the battery life of the system, such processors compute aggressively for short durations, which consume a significant amount of power, then enter a sleep/idle or low power consumption mode to save energy. Such designs rely on the assumption that periods of sleep will be significantly longer as compared to the periods of aggressive processing. This assumption does not hold true, however, for many continuous sensing applications. Since continuous sensing applications require the primary processor to continuously monitor the sensory streams, these applications expect the processor to be in the processing mode all the time, thereby causing the processor to continuously dissipate significant energy. Furthermore, the requirement of continuously or periodic sampling prevents the primary processor from going into the low power consumption mode which prevents the opportunity for saving further energy. This often drains battery-operated processing systems faster than would otherwise be the case. 
         [0007]    Some designs have advocated using a low-power microcontroller interfaced with the primary processor to allow continuous sensing, which may be a separate physical chip or a separate core within the primary processor. Though helpful, such low-power implementations typically include a dedicated CPU and various memories and data paths, which still require far more energy, physical space and compute resources than necessary for continuously analyzing sensory stream data with the least amount of energy consumed. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0008]    The present inventors have recognized that proper utilization of reconfigurable event driven hardware which consumes very low power relative to the system, including with respect to the electronic sensor, without the overhead of a low-power microcontroller, may achieve optimum power conservation in such energy constrained environments. Accordingly, the present inventors have found that aspects of neurobiology and neuroscience may be utilized to provide reconfigurable event driven hardware achieving such energy-efficient continuous sensing and signature reporting in conjunction with one or more sensors and a primary processor. Such hardware is event driven and operates with extremely low energy requirements. 
         [0009]    As described above, continuous sensing applications may include, but are not limited to, EKG, EEG, pulse, blood pressure, patient activity, environmental monitoring, emission levels, pollutant concentrations, seismic data, military and healthcare, safety monitoring and mobile consumer devices. Devices deployed in such domains have access to sensors including, but not limited to, accelerometers, ambient light sensors, temperature sensors, humidity sensors, pressure sensors, microphones, imagers, optical proximity, touch sensors, low-power radio devices, gyroscopes, orientation sensors, EEG/EKG sensors, blood pressure sensors, pulse sensors, chemical sensors, breathalyzers, contaminant sensors, smoke/carbon monoxide sensors, radiation sensors, proximity sensors, and many more. 
         [0010]    Reservoir computing is a known framework for computation like a neural network. Typically an input signal is fed into a fixed (random) dynamical system called reservoir and the dynamics of the reservoir map the input to a higher dimension. Then a simple readout mechanism is trained to read the state of the reservoir and map it to the desired output. The main benefit is that the training is performed only at the readout stage and the reservoir is fixed. “Liquid State Machines” and “Echo State Networks” are two major types of reservoir computing. Such networks may be composed of digitally implemented leaky “integrate-and-fire” neurons operating in a clocked manner. In an embodiment, reconfigurable event driven hardware may be implemented, at least in part, using a neural network. 
         [0011]    The proposed reconfigurable event driven hardware enables extremely low-power continuous monitoring of the aforementioned sensors within different applications by offloading the sampling and signature detection tasks from the primary processor within a device having access to one or more sensors. This reconfigurable hardware interfaces and interacts with the available sensors and continuously monitors their states and invokes the primary processor when a trigger signature is detected and further processing is necessary. This saves a significant amount of energy because, first, the primary processor can spend little to no power sampling the sensors, second, the primary processor may frequently enter a sleep/idle or low power consumption mode, and third, since the reconfigurable hardware is event driven, it will dissipate power primarily when it receives a sample of data from the available sensors. 
         [0012]    In an embodiment, sensors are interfaced with a fully reconfigurable event driven hardware that continuously monitors the state of the sensors and only invokes the primary processor when a trigger signature is identified. The reconfigurable event driven hardware can be implemented as a separate integrated circuit chip or as a low-power compute resource within the primary processor. The energy constrained primary processor or a separate processor can configure the event driven hardware to monitor any number of sensors and any kind of spatial or temporal trigger signatures. The event driven hardware can also be reconfigured to detect trigger signatures that meet the demands of any user level application. Furthermore, if any application demands change, the hardware can be reconfigured during runtime to account for those changes. The event driven hardware can also be configured to concurrently monitor multiple sensors which allow the hardware to identify trigger signatures across a wide variety of sensory modalities. 
         [0013]    These particular objects and advantages may apply to only some embodiments falling within the claims and thus do not define the scope of the invention. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0014]    Embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: 
           [0015]      FIG. 1  is a logical diagram of a system with reconfigurable event driven hardware that continuously monitors the state of a plurality of sensors and invokes a primary processor when a trigger signature is identified thereby maximizing energy efficiency in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; 
           [0016]      FIG. 2  is an architectural diagram of the system of  FIG. 1 , including power distribution and communication with software and related modules, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; 
           [0017]      FIG. 3  is a logical diagram illustrating reconfigurable event driven hardware implemented using a reservoir computing, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; 
           [0018]      FIG. 4  is a logical diagram illustrating an exemplary embodiment of the present invention in which the primary processor, the electronic sensor and the reconfigurable event driven hardware are integrated within the same enclosure; 
           [0019]      FIG. 5  is a logical diagram illustrating an exemplary embodiment of the present invention in which the primary processor and the reconfigurable event driven hardware are integrated within the same enclosure, and the electronic sensor is in a separate, external enclosure; and 
           [0020]      FIG. 6  is a logical diagram illustrating an exemplary embodiment of the present invention in which the reconfigurable event driven hardware and the electronic sensor are integrated within the same enclosure, and the primary processor is in a separate, external enclosure. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
       [0021]    Referring to  FIG. 1 , the present invention shall be described in the context of an electronic system  10  comprising a primary processor  12  coupled to a reconfigurable event driven hardware  14 . The primary processor  12  may be low power, general purpose processor or CPU adapted to execute software. The primary processor  12  and the reconfigurable event driven hardware  14  are each coupled, in turn, to one or more digital sensors  16  and to one or more analog to digital converters (“ADC”)  18 . The ADC  18  is, in turn, coupled to one or more analog sensors  20 . 
         [0022]    The digital sensors  16  may include, for example, an accelerometer, compass, pressure sensor, temperature sensor or any other sensor amenable to digital sensing and sampling a condition as understood in the art. The analog sensors  20  may include, for example, a gyroscope, an EKG, an EEG or any other sensor amenable to analog sensing and sampling of a condition as understood in the art. Upon sensing real world information, the digital sensors  16  outputs a raw digital data stream  30  to the primary processor  12  and a raw digital data stream  32  to the reconfigurable event driven hardware  14 . Similarly, upon sensing real world information, the analog sensors  20  output a raw analog data stream  40  to the ADC  18 , which, in turn, digitally samples the raw analog data stream and produces a sampled digital data stream  42  coupled the primary processor  12  and a sampled digital data stream  44  coupled to the reconfigurable event driven hardware  14 . 
         [0023]    The digital sensors  16  and/or the analog sensors  20  may be adapted to continuously provide an output that reflects presently sensed conditions from each. The primary processor  12  may, in turn, continuously monitor the output data streams from each sensor, and may identify predetermined sensed conditions, or trigger signatures, from either. Trigger signatures may be spatial and/or temporal in nature as understood in the art, such as triggering upon reaching a particular acceleration and/or a particular period of time. Upon a trigger signature occurring, the primary processor  12  may invoke appropriate software routines to initiate any actions required in response to the identified trigger signatures. 
         [0024]    The primary processor  12  can configure the reconfigurable event driven hardware  14  via a reconfiguration data path  50  to similarly continuously monitor the output data streams from the digital sensors  16  and/or the analog sensors  20  and similarly identify trigger signatures from either. Once configured, the reconfigurable event driven hardware  14  continuously monitors the output data streams and looks for trigger signatures. If the reconfigurable event driven hardware  14  detects a trigger signature, it invokes primary processor  12  through the control data path  52  and communicates the trigger signature details via a trigger data path  54  to the primary processor  12 . At this point the processor  12  can invoke appropriate software routines to initiate any actions required in response to the identified trigger signature. Accordingly, the primary processor  12  may enter a sleep/idle or low power consumption mode, thereby saving overall energy in the system, while the reconfigurable event driven hardware  14  continues to monitor the sensors for trigger signatures. 
         [0025]    In an alternative embodiment, data streams to the primary processor  12  and/or the reconfigurable event driven hardware  14  may be combined or otherwise partitioned. In addition, data paths between the primary processor  12  and the reconfigurable event driven hardware  14  may be similarly combined or otherwise partitioned. 
         [0026]    Referring now to  FIG. 2 , a detailed architectural diagram of the system of  FIG. 1 , including power distribution and communication with software and related modules, is shown in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. A power source  201  coupled to a power distribution module  202  provides power to various modules in the system, including the primary processor  204 , the reconfigurable event driven hardware  206 , the analog sensors  208  and the digital sensors  210 . 
         [0027]    The reconfigurable event driven hardware  206  interacts with the primary processor  204  through the processor power management module  212  and the processor reconfigurable hardware interface module  214 . An application module  216  in need of continuous sensing capability makes a request to the operating system (“OS”) module  218  and provides details about the sensors to be monitored and signatures to be identified. This information is in turn communicated to the primary processor  204  which configures the reconfigurable event driven hardware  206  with appropriate parameters via the processor reconfigurable hardware interface module  214 . 
         [0028]    At this point, the primary processor  204  can go into sleep/idle or a low power consumption mode to conserve power while the reconfigurable event driven hardware  206  sets up links with the appropriate sensors and continuously monitors for the trigger signatures. In the case when the reconfigurable event driven hardware  206  identifies a trigger signature, it communicates with the processor power management module  212  to determine the present state of the primary processor  204 . If the primary processor  204  is in a sleep/idle or a low power consumption mode, the reconfigurable event driven hardware  206  requests the processor power management module  212  to bring the primary processor  204  into an active state, then details of the identified trigger signatures are communicated to the primary processor  204  via the processor reconfigurable hardware interface module  214 . 
         [0029]    Upon receiving the details of the trigger signature, the primary processor  204  sends an interrupt to the OS module  218  communicating the present trigger signature occurrence, then invokes the continuous sensing application module  216 . The application module  216  can then dynamically invoke software routines to respond to the specific signature. Based on the behavior coded in the invoked software routines, the application module  216  may request an action in to the trigger signature. This action may be realized, for example, via interaction with a user an actuation module  220 , such as producing a sound, or user interface module  222 , such a displaying to a screen. 
         [0030]    Referring now to  FIG. 3 , a logical diagram illustrating reconfigurable event driven hardware  302  implemented using reservoir computing, is shown in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The reconfigurable event driven hardware  302  is coupled to a primary processor  304 , and each of which are coupled to an electronic sensor  306 , which may be one or more analog and/or digital sensors, as described above. In the mobile phone space, the electronic sensor  306  may include common sensors available such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, microphones, cameras, etc. For energy constrained medical applications, the electronic sensor  306  may include temperature sensors, pressure sensors, EEG sensors, EKG sensors, etc. 
         [0031]    To achieve continuous sensing and trigger signature detection in the energy constrained environment, it is important that the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302  operate in an event driven manner. In other words, the occurrence of a particular spatial and/or temporal signature, sensed by the electronic sensor  306 , subsequently drives a particular trigger. 
         [0032]    It is also important that a capturing element  308  of the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302  has direct inputs from the electronic sensor  306 , without requiring input from or the operation of the primary processor  304 . Energy savings are achieved by the low power event driven operation of the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302  paired with the fact that primary processor  304  can operate in a sleep/idle or low power consumption mode until awoken by the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302 . 
         [0033]    The reconfigurable event driven hardware  302  may comprise the capturing element  308  and a detecting and/or classifying element  310 . To achieve optimum power conservation in the energy constrained environment, in a preferred embodiment, the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302  may be implemented as a neural network, without the overhead of a low-power microcontroller, for example. Accordingly, a portion of the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302 , such as capturing element  308 , may be configured as an implementation of an “Echo State Network,” or “Liquid State Machine,” to capture the temporal behavior of the electronic sensor  306 . Echo State Networks are described, for example, in “Real-Time Computing Without Stable States: A New Framework for Neural Computation Based on Perturbations,” Maass, Wolfgang; Natschläger, Thomas; Markram, Henry (November 2002), and “Computational Models for Generic Cortical Microcircuits,” Maass, Wolfgang; Natschläger, Thomas (2003), the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference. In alternative embodiments, shift registers and/or finite state machines may be used in addition to or in substitution of an Echo State Network and/or Liquid State Machine. 
         [0034]    Another portion of the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302 , such as the detecting and/or classifying element  310 , may be configured as a “Multi-Layered Perception Network” for detecting and/or classifying particular trigger signatures. Multi-Layered Perception Networks are described, for example, in “Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach,” 2nd ed., Russell, Stuart J. and Norvig, Peter, Upper Saddle River, N.J., Prentice Hall (2003), the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference. 
         [0035]    Both the Echo State Network and the Multi-Layered Perceptron Network may be composed of digitally implemented “leaky integrate-and-fire neurons” operating in a clocked manner. The leaky integrate-and-fire neuron contains an internal state variable known as the membrane potential. On any particular cycle, each of the leaky integrate-and-fire neurons sums its inputs, adds them to the current membrane potential of the neuron, and subtracts a leakiness factor. If the membrane potential exceeds a threshold value, the neuron fires, and the firing becomes the input to other neurons in the following cycle. Afterwards, the membrane potential value is set to a reset value. 
         [0036]    The neurons may utilize a small set of configurable parameters in order to achieve the desired leaky integrate-and-fire behavior. These include the membrane threshold value parameter, a positive (excitatory) connectivity strength parameter, a negative (inhibitory) connectivity strength parameter and a membrane leak value parameter. In one embodiment, for example, the threshold value may be an 8-bit value, the positive (excitatory) connectivity strength may be a 6-bit value, the negative (inhibitory) connectivity strength may be a 6-bit value and the membrane leak may be a 6-bit value. 
         [0037]    The Echo State Network may be composed of a variable number of leaky integrate-and-fire neurons. These leaky integrate-and-fire neurons communicate with each other utilizing a random and sparse connectivity scheme. 
         [0038]    As described above, the outputs of the electronic sensor  306  serve as the inputs to the capturing element  308  which may be an Echo State Network. In alternative embodiments, the outputs of the electronic sensor  306  could be buffered, applied to threshold and/or connected directly to a small subset of the leaky integrate-and-fire neurons in the Echo State Network, such as an input layer of neurons  312  of the capturing element  308 . The random sparse connectivity of the Echo State Network embodied in the capturing element  308  allows these activations to propagate among the recurrently connected leaky integrate-and-fire neurons over time. As new inputs from the electronic sensor  306  activate the input layer of neurons  312 , the state of the Echo State Network embodied in the capturing element  308  captures both the present sensory inputs as well as the sensory inputs of the recent past. This behavior is where the Echo State Network derives its name. That is, a snapshot of the Echo State Network describes the present input as well as the “echoes” remaining from previous sensory inputs. The input layer of neurons  312  may feed forward to an intermediate layer of neurons  314 , which may, in turn, feed forward to an output layer of neurons  316 , which may, in turn, couple to the detecting and/or classifying element  310 . 
         [0039]    The Multi-Layered Perceptron Network embodied in the detecting and/or classifying element  310  may also be composed of a variable number of leaky integrate-and-fire neurons. The Multi-Layered Perceptron Network is used to characterize and classify the trigger signatures that have been captured by the Echo State Network embodied in the capturing element  308 . That is, the temporal activity of the electronic sensor  306  is first captured by the Echo State Network embodied in the capturing element  308 , and then the Multi-Layered Perceptron Network embodied in detecting and/or classifying element  310  detects trigger signatures by classifying the behavior of the Echo State Network. 
         [0040]    The connectivity of the Multi-Layered Perceptron Network embodied in the detecting and/or classifying element  310  must be configured for the particular trigger signatures of interest. This connectivity may first be configured in software based on prototype trigger signatures provided by the user. The Multi-Layered Perceptron Network may comprise an input layer of neurons  318 , which may, in turn, feed forward to an intermediate layer of neurons  320 , which may, in turn, feed forward to an output layer of neurons  322 , which may, in turn, couple to the primary processor  304 . 
         [0041]    The output layer of neurons  322  may then determine the handling and power mode of the overall energy constrained system. For example, a particular neuron in the output layer of neurons  322  may detect a trigger signature based on accelerometer data that indicates a user has entered the driver seat of the car. The output layer of neurons  322  may then can wake up the primary processor  304  and indicate that this event has occurred, and the primary processor  304  may, in turn, take the appropriate actions associated with this trigger signature. 
         [0042]    As described above, the computation the leaky integrate-and-fire neuron performs is based on its parameterized membrane leak, the electronic sensor  306  and other connected leaky integrate-and-fire neurons. A reconfigurable event driven interconnect  330  embodied in the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302  allows these leaky integrate-and-fire neurons to be configured into the various structures, including the Echo State Network embodied in the capturing element  308  and the Multi-Layered Perceptron Network embodied in the detecting and/or classifying element  310 , and defines the leaky integrate-and-fire neuron parameters. 
         [0043]    In preferred embodiment, the Echo State Network embodied in the capturing element  308  may utilize a sparse connectivity which can be defined for a particular trigger signature sensing application of interest. Within the Echo State Network, the reconfigurable event driven interconnect  330  uses a sparse and random connectivity, with the probability of connection proportional to the physical distance between the leaky integrate-and-fire neurons from which it is composed. The connectivity of the Multi-Layered Perceptron Network embodied in the detecting and/or classifying element  310  can be derived based on prototype trigger signature examples input to the Echo State Network. 
         [0044]    Finally, the reconfigurable event driven interconnect  330  can be configured so the leaky integrate-and-fire neurons of the Echo State Network embodied in the capturing element  308  serve as the inputs to the Multi-Layered Perceptron Network embodied in the detecting and/or classifying element  310 . In an embodiment, the Echo State Network may comprise, for example, about  216  leaky integrate-and-fire neurons, with six input layer neurons connected to  36  neurons, operating in a clocked manner. 
         [0045]    A software development environment may be used to allow the configuration of the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302  for various trigger signature detections. The software development environment may run on the primary processor  304 , or from another general purpose processor or CPU capable of running the software development tools that can be interfaced with the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302 . The software may be used to configure the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302  as a number of leaky integrate-and-fire neurons, and via the reconfigurable event driven interconnect  330 , with a topology necessary to implement an Echo State Network and Multi-Layered Perceptron Network. 
         [0046]    The software may also be used to set the values for the various parameters of the leaky integrate-and-fire neurons and the connectivity structures as described above. 
         [0047]    The software may also utilize trigger signatures to automatically configure the reconfigurable event driven interconnect  330  and the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302 . For example, detecting a person entering the driver seat of an automobile based on accelerometer data may be of high importance. A developer could collect a number of predetermined trigger signatures based on collected accelerometer data which may be used in conjunction with the software development environment to configure the reconfigurable event driven interconnect  330  and the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302 . Here, a software model of the Echo State Network and Multi-Layered Perceptron Network may be initialized, but the configuration of the reconfigurable event driven interconnect  330  may not yet be known. The predetermined trigger signatures may be used as inputs to the software model of the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302 , and the connectivity of the Multi-Layered Perceptron is learned using back-propagation, a training method common to software neural network implementations. Once the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302  has been properly trained for the necessary set of trigger signatures, the software development environment may be used to configure the actual hardware. 
         [0048]    An example of how the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302  can provide energy efficient continuous sensing is in the context of detecting gestures based on mobile phone accelerometer data. Here, the electronic sensor  306  may be a 3-axis accelerometer common in many mobile phone devices. Using the software development environment described above, an Echo State Network composed, for example, of about 216 leaky integrate-and-fire neurons may be used to capture the current and previous sensory data from the 3-axis accelerometer. In one embodiment, for example, a Multi-Layered Perceptron Network may be configured of about 227 leaky integrate-and-fire neurons, with three of these neurons being dedicated as output layer neurons. Using the software development environment along with prototype trigger signatures, the Multi-Layered Perceptron Network may be trained via back-propagation to distinguish between three particular gestures. 
         [0049]    Using this general approach, the reconfigurable event driven hardware  302  could be further configured to recognize any number of distinct gestures based on accelerometer data. Accordingly, the rest of the mobile phone could be powered down into a sleep/idle or low power consumption mode, until a particular trigger signature gesture was detected to reactivate the device. 
         [0050]    Referring now to  FIG. 4 , a logical diagram illustrating an exemplary embodiment of the present invention is shown. A reconfigurable event driven hardware  402  is coupled to a primary processor  404 , each of which is coupled to an electronic sensor  406 . Here, the reconfigurable event driven hardware  402 , the primary processor  404  and the electronic sensor  406  are integrated within a single enclosure  408 , which is the energy constrained device. 
         [0051]    Referring now to  FIG. 5 , a logical diagram illustrating another exemplary embodiment of the present invention is shown. Similarly, a reconfigurable event driven hardware  502  is coupled to a primary processor  504 , and each of which is coupled to an electronic sensor  506 . However, here the reconfigurable event driven hardware  502  and the primary processor  504  are integrated within a single enclosure  508 , and the electronic sensor  506  is in a separate, external enclosure  510 . 
         [0052]    Referring now to  FIG. 6 , a logical diagram illustrating yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention is shown. Similarly, a reconfigurable event driven hardware  602  is coupled to a primary processor  604 , each of which is coupled to an electronic sensor  606 . However, here the reconfigurable event driven hardware  602  and the electronic sensor  606  are integrated within a single enclosure  610 , and the primary processor  604  is in a separate, external enclosure  608 . It may now be appreciated that there are many integration possibilities for interfacing reconfigurable event driven hardware with a primary processor and available sensors that enable low-power continuous sensing. 
         [0053]    One or more specific embodiments of the present invention have been described above. It is specifically intended that the present invention not be limited to the embodiments and/or illustrations contained herein, but include modified forms of those embodiments including portions of the embodiments and combinations of elements of different embodiments as come within the scope of the following claims. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers&#39; specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure. Nothing in this application is considered critical or essential to the present invention unless explicitly indicated as being “critical” or “essential.” 
         [0054]    Certain terminology is used herein for purposes of reference only, and thus is not intended to be limiting. For example, terms such as “upper,” “lower,” “above,” and “below” refer to directions in the drawings to which reference is made. Terms such as “front,” “back,” “rear,” “bottom,” “side,” “left” and “right” describe the orientation of portions of the component within a consistent but arbitrary frame of reference which is made clear by reference to the text and the associated drawings describing the component under discussion. Such terminology may include the words specifically mentioned above, derivatives thereof, and words of similar import. Similarly, the terms “first,” “second” and other such numerical terms referring to structures do not imply a sequence or order unless clearly indicated by the context. 
         [0055]    When introducing elements or features of the present disclosure and the exemplary embodiments, the articles “a,” “an,” “the” and “said” are intended to mean that there are one or more of such elements or features. The terms “comprising,” “including” and “having” are intended to be inclusive and mean that there may be additional elements or features other than those specifically noted. It is further to be understood that the method steps, processes, and operations described herein are not to be construed as necessarily requiring their performance in the particular order discussed or illustrated, unless specifically identified as an order of performance. It is also to be understood that additional or alternative steps may be employed. 
         [0056]    References to “a microprocessor” and “a processor” or “the microprocessor” and “the processor” can be understood to include one or more microprocessors that can communicate in a stand-alone and/or a distributed environment(s), and can thus be configured to communicate via wired or wireless communications with other processors, where such one or more processor can be configured to operate on one or more processor-controlled devices that can be similar or different devices. Furthermore, references to memory, unless otherwise specified, can include one or more processor-readable and accessible memory elements and/or components that can be internal to the processor-controlled device, external to the processor-controlled device, and can be accessed via a wired or wireless network. 
         [0057]    All of the publications described herein including patents and non-patent publications are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.