Trailblazer Profile: Ashlee Boyer

Name: Ashlee Boyer

School: Rose-Hulman

Major: Software Engineering

Status: Junior

The way technology can connect us from all across the planet to one another is something that has only developed within the last couple generations, and it has definitely changed the world.

A big part of these technological advances has been the implementation of Bluetooth devices. One of our Trailblazer intern, Ashlee Boyer, is spending her summer assisting a company with research and compatibility with a new service of Bluetooth Low Energy devices.

Bluetooth is something that connects two devices in order the sync them together. For example, a Bluetooth device connects a meter and phone, so the information can be interchangeable from one device to another.

Classic Bluetooth devices are constantly advertising data from one device to another whether the data changes or not. This, in a way, wastes energy and battery life since unchanged data is being read and processed more than necessary. Bluetooth low energy devices that Ashlee is researching recognize when data has changed and only advertise the data to the separate device when information is new. This helps improve battery life sustainability.

Ashlee is currently working to figure out how to use Bluetooth low energy devices and not only to make them compatible with Apple products, but also so doctors around the world can use these medical devices in order to be more efficient with their patients. She is discovering the characteristics and services that make up Bluetooth Low Energy technology in order to modify and make the front end more user friendly for the end user.

The medical device will run its test and then send the resulting data to the Bluetooth module to be processed and arranged in a way that can be interpreted by a PC, Apple, or Android device. Most of these end devices have an application created by the customer who purchased the Bluetooth accessory from her company. While the company does not sell any sort of applications, Ashlee is researching Android App Development to aid her understanding of Bluetooth Low Energy. At the end of the summer, she hopes to have a demo Android application and a functional Bluetooth accessory to present.

Unfortunately, this is just a brief overview of what Ashlee is doing this summer because so much of her work is confidential to the company for which she is working. However, Ashlee’s work will make a huge impact on her company once she has completed her project.