Collaborative Research: NeTS-NOSS: Towards a Theory of In-Network Computation for Surveillance and Monitoring in Wireless Sensor Networks

本计画的目标是发展第二代感测器网路的理论基础。传感器网络有两个显著的核心特征。一个显著的特征是传感器网络是由传感器数据驱动的，这些数据不像数据网络中那样在节点之间独立，而是在空间和时间上相关。因此，该项目的目标之一是研究如何有效地利用这种相关性来操作这种网络。传感器网络的第二个显著特征是，人们通常对将一个节点产生的所有传感数据传输到另一个节点不感兴趣。相反，传感器网络的目的是从数据（例如，报警网络）中进行推断或从数据（例如，平均温度）中进行估计。更一般地说，传感器网络的目的是计算数据的适当函数，包括时间和空间，并根据数据做出决策。因此，研究的另一个重点是传感器网络的架构，利用所有的分布式计算资源和无线通信介质来组织网络内的计算和通信，同时尊重它们在能量、带宽、内存等方面的可能限制。用于进行研究的工具包括用于分布式函数计算的网络编码、路由和数据存储、分布式压缩和密码学。该项目的结果将通过主要会议和期刊的出版物以及在项目结束时通过数据流的示范进行传播，以便监测和发现目标。

The goal of this project is to develop a theoretical foundation for second generation sensor networks. There are two distinguishing features that are central to sensor networks. One distinguishing feature is that sensor networks are driven by sensor data, data which are not independent from node to node as in a data network, but which are correlated spatially as well as temporally. Thus one of the goals of the project is to investigate how to operate such networks efficiently taking full advantage of such correlations. A second distinguishing feature of sensor networks is that one is not generally interested in transporting all the sensory data generated at a node to another node. Rather, the purpose of a sensor network is to perform inference from the data (e.g., alarm networks) or make estimates from the data (e.g., mean temperature). More generally, the purpose of a sensor network is to compute an appropriate function of the data, both temporal as well as spatial, and make decisions based on the data. Thus the another focus of the research is an architecture for sensor networks to organize the in-network computation and communication taking advantage of all the distributed computational resources as well as the wireless communication medium, while respecting their possible limitations on energy, bandwidth, memory, etc. The tools used for conducting the research include network coding for distributed function computation, routing and data storage, distributed compression and cryptography. The results of the project will be disseminated through publications in major conferences and journals, and through a demonstration of data streaming for target monitoring and detection towards the end of the project.