CSR:Small:Collaborative Research:EDS: Systems and Algorithmic Support for Managing Complexity in Sensorized Distributed Systems

商业建筑、能源网和运输系统是新兴的分布式系统的例子，这些分布式系统开始配备大量的传感器和致动器，用于感测周围环境条件、用户占用、能源使用状态等。这种仪器的目标是提高安全性、实用性和降低成本。这是一个很难的问题，由于人，设备和网络在操作环境中的相互作用与传感器数据的准确性，及时性，意义和价值的不确定性。大量的传感器必须由系统运营商提供、监控和维护。目前这是一项手动且容易出错的任务。大规模部署、管理和调整传感系统几乎是不可能的。在该项目所使用的联网建筑物的微电网测试平台中，观察到的前50栋建筑物每天发出超过10万次警报。实际上，尽管有数千种传感器，但只有几百种不同类型的传感器。关键是使用自动化或半自动化方法来表征传感器，根据传感器数据流确定其类型，并以最小的操作员工作量推断传感器数据的质量，从而降低传感器化分布式系统的复杂性。该项目将应用无监督机器学习方法的进步，在空间上和时间上组合，聚合和解释感官数据，以便为应用程序和用户提供语义上有用的感官信息，从而实现更好地利用和强大的系统。该项目的智力价值在于建立一个信息流模型，系统地捕获和使用传感器元数据，使算法方法能够进行数据合成和建立推理。使用所提出的基于学习的自动化方法，沿着编程和运行时支持，该项目将设计一个数据决策流的分布式系统跨时间和可靠性的限制。该项目概述了智能建筑作为一个应用驱动程序的设想传感器分布式系统与工作的现实生活中的测试平台。这项研究将直接有助于发现远程连接的方法，例如各种传感数据流之间的依赖关系和因果关系，这些数据流对于设计连接到这些分布式系统的设备的有效控制至关重要。该项目的更广泛影响包括设计，部署，管理和编程方法的一类新的分布式计算系统，可以处理不断变化的特点和拓扑结构的基础传感器网络。该试验台将展示这些方法如何为居住者创造节能，可持续和舒适的建筑。已计划开展一系列教育和推广活动，为数据驱动的物联网这一新兴领域培养下一代人才。对于更广泛的研究社区，该项目将提供SensorDepot，这是一个开源的可扩展架构，用于实现传感器化分布式系统的应用程序。

Commercial buildings, the energy grid and transportation systems are examples of emerging distributed systems that are beginning to be instrumented with a large number of sensors and actuators for sensing ambient environmental conditions, user occupancy, state of energy use etc. The goal of such instrumentation is to improve safety, utility and reduce costs. This is a hard problem due to interaction of humans, devices and networks in an operating environment with uncertainties regarding veracity, timeliness, meaning and value of sensor data. A large number of sensors must be provisioned, monitored and maintained by system operators. This is currently a manual and error prone task. Deploying, managing and adapting a sensorized system at scale become nearly impossible. In the micro-grid testbed of networked buildings used by this project, there are over a hundred thousand alarms raised per day by the first fifty buildings under observation. In reality, despite thousands of reported sensors there are only a few hundred distinct types of sensors. The key is to reduce the complexity of sensorized distributed systems using automated or semi-automated methods to characterize sensors, determine their type based on the sensor data streams and make inferences about the quality of sensor data with minimal operator effort. This project will apply advances in unsupervised machine learning methods to compose, aggregate and interpret sensory data spatially and over time in order to enable robust derivation of semantically useful sensory information for applications and users resulting in better-utilized and robust systems. The intellectual merit of the project lies in building an information flow model, with a systematic capture and use of sensor meta-data that enables algorithmic approaches to data composition and building inferences. Using the proposed learning based automation approach along with programming and runtime support, the project will devise a data-to-decision flow for distributed systems operating across timing and reliability constraints. The project outlines smart buildings as an application driver for the envisioned sensorized distributed system with a working real-life testbed. This research will directly contribute to methods for discovery of tele-connections, such as dependence and causal relationships, between various sensory data streams which are crucial for devising effective control of devices connected to these distributed systems.The broader impacts of the project include advances in the design, deployment, management and programming methodologies for a new class of distributed computing systems that can deal with changing characteristics and topologies of the underlying sensor network. The particular testbed will demonstrate, how such methods can create energy-efficient, sustainable, and comfortable buildings for occupants. A number of educational and outreach activities have been planned to train the next generation talent for the emerging area of a data-driven internet of things. For the broader research community, the project will make available, SensorDepot, an open-source extensible architecture for implementing applications for sensorized distributed systems.