Advancing the Sensor Web

June 1, 2005 By: Sam Bacharach

A diverse group of experts convened in Washington, D.C., in Aprilto discuss the advantages of uniting sensor technologies with geospatial solutions.

What will a global tsunami-warning system look like? It will be a Sensor Web, a collection of sensors on buoys in the world's ocean earthquake zones, wirelessly connected to a network. The sensors will continuously report their three-dimensional location as well as vertical motion and vibration. The network connecting the sensors will almost surely be the Internet, so that the sensors' real-time and stored outputs will be discoverable and accessible via Web browsers and other tools that use standard Web technologies.

In what other domains do people need to be sure that sensors and sensor data can be easily discovered, accessed, and used in geospatial applications? The Emerging Technology Summit III (ETS III) — known as "Advancing the Sensor Web" — that took place April 14-15, 2005 at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., proved that there exists a hot point where sensor and geospatial technologies converge. And Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement standards and IEEE 1451 smart-sensor standards provide the technical framework for that convergence.

Those who attended the summit included technology leaders working in homeland security, health, industrial control, facilities management, utilities, environmental monitoring and response, law enforcement, and other application areas. Robert W. Corell, senior fellow of the American Meteorological Society and recently of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, gave the first talk.

Corell's recent travels in the Arctic included visits with Inuit people and Laplanders whose experiences corroborate researchers' data and analysis — the Arctic is undergoing dramatic warming and ecological change. Corell spoke about the benefits that sensors — especially imaging satellites — have brought to the study of the Arctic, and the benefits that the Internet and Web have brought to the global-science enterprise. Standards-based Sensor Web technologies will further extend the ability to monitor and understand the Earth's system changes (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. NOAA employs a wide variety of sensors in monitoring the oceans and atmosphere.

John (Jack) J. Kelly, Jr., deputy undersecretary for Oceans and Atmosphere, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said that "Science is the world's integrator. Weather, water, and climate know no boundaries. A robust, reliable, sustainable system to measure environmental phenomena and convert data into useful information is key to understanding and predicting environmental processes." His talk focused on the emerging GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems), and he called for participation to help make GEOSS a success (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. The Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) is a U.S.-initiated effort involving almost 60 countries and more than 30 international organizations to link the worlds individual networks of surface-based, airborne, and space-based Earth-observing instruments.

Panelists also described the application and integration of sensors to address the provision of critical government services and business applications (see Figure 3). Benga Erinle, vice-president, Special Projects at 3E Technologies International (3eTI), talked about developing sensor networks to support the management and protection of military facilities.

Figure 3. Spatial integration of diverse information systems is becoming a necessity in managing and securing military bases, airports, campuses, and other large facilities.