Scott’s Weblog

Research Challenges in Environmental Observation and Forecasting Systems

January 19th, 2006

http://www.wand.net.nz/~smr26/sensor/papers/mobicom-00.pdf

David Steere, Antonio Baptista, Dylan McNamee, Calton Pu, Jonathan Walpole, Proceedings of MOBICOMM 2000, pages 292-299

This paper describes an Environmental Observation and Forcasting System (EOFS), CORIE. CORIE is a network of sensors in the Columbia river that monitors salinity, flow, etc. However, it is not a sensor network as such, and this paper is a “call for help” to the sensor network research community. Each node in the network is manually configured (!), runs a full 586 in a box (!), and communicates via a 900 MHz radio link using TCP (!). Routing is completely static in this multi-hop network and some of the nodes that act as repeaters are battery powered (!). This paper describes a situation that would be suitable for a low-power wireless sensor network, and describes the challenges involved in operating the EOFS as a traditional network. One good quote:

Reconfiguring the network in response to a station failure is as expensive as replacing the failing unit

Overall, this paper is more an example of why we should be developing sensor network technology, rather than how.

Entry Filed under: Sensor Network Papers