Miniature Wireless Ecological Networks, Scalable - MWENS

该奖项支持一个计划中的4年项目的初始阶段，该项目寻求调查、开发和报告大规模设计和部署超小型综合环境监测系统的技术和科学价值。这些将由集成的数字无线电、传感器和电力系统组成，这些系统能够连接到互联网进行双向数据流，并连接到计划中的国家生态观测网(NEON)等计划的研究网络。整个项目的目标是开发一种全新的、可扩展的无许可证网络无线连接范例。最初的工作将由该奖项提供资金，将需要为集成了网络协议、小型化可配置处理器、可互换传感器和高级电源的超小型无线电开发设计参数。这项工作的一个重要组成部分将是对在各种生态系统和自然环境中工作的实地研究人员的需求进行第一手评估。由于电磁波传播的最新进展和无许可证使用数字无线电的不断发展的规则，该项目成为可能，有可能使主要研究人员、合作者、学生和普通公众能够访问原始以及处理和存储的现场数据-以数字、音频和视频的形式。它还将向大量的人介绍先进的无线技术用于科学的潜力。

This award supports the intial phase of a planned 4 year project that seeks to investigate, develop, and report on the technical and scientific merit of designing and deploying, at scale, very small integrated environmental monitoring systems. These will consist of integrated digital radios, sensors, and power systems that are able to link to the internet for bi-directional data flow, and to link to such projected research networks as the planned national ecological observatory network (NEON). This entire project has as its goal the development of an entirely new scalable paradigm of no-license networked wireless connectivity. The initial work, to be funded through this award, will entail developing design parameters for classes of very small radios integrated with networking protocols, miniaturized configurable processors, interchangeable sensors, and advanced power supplies. An important component of the effort will be a first-hand assessment of the needs of field researchers working in a variety of ecosystems and physical environments. This project,which is made possible by recent advances in electromagnetic wave propagation and evolving rules for no-license use of digital radios, has the potential to give access to principal researchers, collaborators, students, and the general public to raw, as well as processed and stored, field data - in the form of numbers, audio, and video. It will also introduce large numbers of people to the potential of advanced wireless technology for science.