Sensor Webs Unwire Ecology

jonbrewer writes "Pioneered by CENS, Sensor Networks are rapidly becoming a mainstream environmental monitoring tool. The NY Times has an article today with a quick tech overview and info on RiverNet, EarthScope, NEON, and Neptune. The Times reports 'scientists want to deploy millions of these kinds of devices over large tracts for long periods, opening new windows on nature.'"

Impact?

[BigZaphod]

Wouldn't having tons of sensors all over the place somehow contaminate the very environment they are trying to test? I mean.. animals aren't all oblivious to foreign objects in their world and are prone to changing behavior in response to them. I've seen documentaries about herds that move differently thanks to things like the Alaskan pipeline, roads across wild places in Africa, and the like. Lots of little sensors in the rivers, forests, plains, etc. would likely have some kind of impact. Plus, if there's millions of them, they are going to go clean them up someday, right.... right?

The US military has been interested since Vietnam.

[Captain Sensible]

Sensor Webs and Smart Dust and related tecnologies will prove valuable in ecological studies and environmental monitoring, but that's not the drive behind them.

In Vietnam the US military attempted to install networks of sensors - seismographs, detectors for urine and sweat, detectors for nitrogen compunds (explosives), movement detectors, proximity detectors - along known NLF supply lines and for perimeter defence. They were put in place by Special Forces teams and transmitted their data to overflying aircraft for targetting. Often they were woeful failures or could be spoofed by the NLF.

Here is the new generation, just ready for "assymetric warfare".

Challenges facing researchers

[Guanine]

Having participtated in small scale ecology studies, I would guess that these senors will raise many more questions (which would be a good definition of the "new windows") than answers. Population ecology and the evolutionary biology that ties into it is a field with many more 'big' questions than most people realize.

In most of the primary literature I cover, for every possible cause of a behavior (such as migratory routes) that is eliminated, another 2 consistently appear (seriously). I think we will see some very interesting questions, rather than any definite answers (at least in the short term). I would definitely like to see this used with the arctic tern [enchantedlearning.com].

Re:Sensor Network work

[zenslug]

I've been working with motes for a short time now, and the way I look at them has changed since I first started. At first I was really focused on the futuristic properties of the devices and at how small they could get, what they could monitor, etc. Then having become fairly well aquainted with them and how they operate I now look at them a lot more like routers. Routers aren't as sexy, but wireless routers that can also read sensor data is still pretty cool.

Essentially, the motes are simply what is necessary to make full-time sensor reading wireless. They are enablers. You need something extremely low power, able to read sensors, and able to *efficiently* route that sensor data out of the network.

With motes, nearly any data that you can currently read using a sensor (large or small) can now be constantly gathered. Things that used to be WAY too expensive to monitor are now within reach (think HVAC: vent openings with actuators communicating over a mote network with thermometers == energy savings due to greater efficiency). Over half of the cost of any large-scale monitoring system comes from the cost to purchase, install, and maintain the wires/cables. Motes greatly minimize that cost.

Niven

[rossdee]

Didn't Larry Niven invent sensor webs in the Ringworld series?

Re:Sensor nets

[Vengie]

If you combine sensor nets with any localization algorithm and GHTs, you have a combined storage/detection network. If you add power-aware routing, you basically create a long-lasting (self-detecting) event-storage monitor. The DHT/GHT stuff is fun -- but more importantly -- the projects are producing side research like optimizing DMAC protocols (and even a few at omnidirectional) and breaking TCP/IP assumptions.