The Sensor Web: A Macro-Instrument for Coordinated Sensing

Abstract

Abstract:The Sensor Web is a macro-instrument concept that allows for the spatiotemporal understanding of an environment through coordinated efforts between multiple numbers and types of sensing platforms, including both orbital and terrestrial and both fixed and mobile. Each of these platforms, or pods, communicates within their local neighborhood and thus distributes information to the instrument as a whole. Much as intelligence in the brain is a result of the myriad of connections between dendrites, it is anticipated that the Sensor Web will develop a macro-intelligence as a result of its distributed information with the pods reacting and adapting to their environment in a way that is much more than their individual sum. The sharing of data among individual pods will allow for a global perception and purpose of the instrument as a whole. The Sensor Web is to sensors what the Internet is to computers, with different platforms and operating systems communicating via a set of shared, robust protocols. This paper will outline the potential of the Sensor Web concept and describe the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Sensor Webs Project (http://sensorwebs.jpl.nasa.gov/). In particular, various fielded Sensor Webs will be discussed.

The Sensor Web: systems of sensor systems

“…The lack of context results from limited collaboration between sensor resources. A sensor resource is able to give feedback on the state of a portion of the observed phenomenon but not on the dynamics of the observed phenomenon as a whole (Delin 2002). Isolated sensor resources present a robustness problem.…”

“…Isolated sensor resources present a robustness problem. If a sensor resource should fail, observations with respect to the phenomenon would be curtailed or lost (Delin 2002). A need for a more robust and dynamic approach to observations can be noticed.…”

“…A single sensor failing in its purpose does not mean that all observation ceases; instead the observation can be offloaded to other sensors in the network. The increased robustness of observation is a distinct advantage of the sensor network approach (Delin 2002).…”

“…Wireless and wired bandwidth is available in greater quantity, an enabler for the increased levels of communications that characterise a Sensor Web. The effect is the emergence of virtual macroinstruments, or put differently, a single, distributed sensing instrument (Delin 2002, Delin et al 2005, Liang and Tao 2005, Moodley and Simonis 2006.…”

istSOS, a new sensor observation management system: software architecture and a real-case application for flood protection

“…Therefore, the accessibility for monitoring data without the need of tedious, error-prone and costly operations of data integration is certainly a goal to be pursued. In the early 2000s Delin and Jackson (2001) and Delin (2002) have proposed the "sensor Web" that aims at developing a standard integration layer capable to harmonize sensor protocols and interfaces in order to drastically reduce the high and extensive effort of manual bridging between sensor resources and applications. In this context, a series of initiatives like the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (Zyl et al 2009), the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations, the European Earth observation programme Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (Brachet 2004) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement Working Group (Botts et al 2008) have been launched.…”