LTER ASM Meeting, Workshop on Sensor Networks;
NSF Workshop Report on Environmental
Cyberinfrastructure Needs for Distributed Sensor
Wireless Sensor Networks and Their
Applications in the Environment
Thursday 29 January 2004
Peter Arzberger

• LTER Network is a collaborative effort
– More than 1100 scientists and students involved investigating
– Ecological processes over long temporal and broad spatial scales.
• The Network promotes synthesis and comparative research across sites and ecosystems and among other related national and international research programs.
• The NSF established the LTER program in 1980 to
– Support research on long-term ecological phenomena in the United
States.
– Provide information for the identification and solution of ecological problems
• The 24 LTER Sites represent diverse ecosystems and research emphases
• The LTER Network Office coordinates communication, network publications, and research-planning activities.
http://www.lternet.edu

1. Andrews LTER (AND)
2. Arctic LTER (ARC)
3. Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES)
4. Bonanza Creek LTER (BNZ)
5. Central Arizona - Phoenix (CAP)
6. Cedar Creek LTER (CDR)
7. Coweeta LTER (CWT)
8. Harvard Forest (HFR)
9. Hubbard Brook LTER (HBR)
10.Jornada Basin (JRN)
11.Kellogg Biological Station (KBS)
12.Konza LTER (KNZ)
13.Luquillo LTER (LUQ)
14.McMurdo Dry Valleys (MCM)
15.Niwot Ridge LTER (NWT)
16.North Temperate Lakes (NTL)
17.Palmer Station (PAL)
18.Plum Island Ecosystem (PIE)
19.Sevilleta LTER (SEV)
20.Shortgrass Steppe (SGS)
21.Virginia Coast Reserve (VCR)
22.Florida Coastal Everglades (FCE)
23.Georgia Coastal Ecosystems (GCE)
24.Santa Barbara Coastal (SBC)

Launched in 1993
http://www.ilternet.edu
Current Chair, ILTER: Hen-Biau King, TFRI

• September 2003 All Scientist Meeting of the Long
Term Ecological Research
• Participants
– Tim Kratz, Paul Hanson: North Temperate Lakes
– Stuart Gage: Kellogg Biological Field Station
– Hen-biau King, TERN; and Fang-Pang Lin, NCHC
– John Porter: Virginia Coast Region
– Bill Michener: LTER Network Office

• To identify scientific research opportunities and areas enabled and opened up by wireless sensor networks
– New Science
– Cross-Site or Synthetic Research
– Impact of working at new spatial or temporal scales
• To exchange information on capabilities, techniques and technologies, and experiences for wireless sensor networks
– Lessons Learned
– Biggest Challenges
• Develop products that help achieve the goals above

John Porter, Tom
Williams, Dave Smith
• The VCR/LTER uses a hybrid network with both proprietary 900 MHz and standard WiFi 802.11b 2.4
GHz wireless Ethernet connections.
• Areas within line of sight of our two towers are tinted in yellow http://www.lternet.edu/sites/vcr/
Source: John Porter, Virginia Coast Reserve
802.11b
11 Mb/s
900 MHz
2 Mb/s
= VCR/LTER Lab

• Real-time
Meteorological &
Tide data
• Web Cameras (6 currently deployed)
• Access to networked data resources (e.g., the web) in the field
Integrated camera/ web server/radio/power
Source: John Porter, Virginia Coast Reserve

• Capture time series
• Education
• Non-obtrusive observation
• Observe rare events
“A picture is worth a thousand words”
Source: John Porter, Virginia Coast Reserve

Source: John Porter, Virginia Coast Reserve

Source: John Porter, Virginia Coast Reserve

M ax wind speed
12
6
4
2
10
8
0
Observation Number
“Sensors can be where it is too dangerous for humans”
Source: John Porter, Virginia Coast Reserve
MaxWin

• Power supplies, not radios, are the most difficult component
– Most consumer-grade DC-DC voltage converters are power hogs
– Use cheap inverters, not expensive ones
• The cheap ones reset automatically if batteries are drawn down, expensive ones don’t….
– Use digital, not analog timers to cut down on hours of operation to save power
• Cheap inverters have poor frequency control
Source: John Porter VCR

North Temperate
Lakes LTER Study
Lakes
*
Source Paul Hanson, NTL
Freshwater important for human survival; habitat important of other species
Crystal Lake is in foreground and Trout Lake is in background http://www.lternet.edu/sites/ntl/

North Temperate Lakes
University of Wisconsin
Portable Lake Metabolism Buoys
Picture of
Lab Freewave
Automated Sampling Buoys
Source: Paul Hanson, Tim Kratz, NTL
Sensors
Picture of
Buoy Freewave
Communication

Trout Bog, Wisconsin
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
189.0000
Temperature
190.0000
Oxygen
191.0000
Day of year
192.0000
193.0000
Continuous monitoring provides opportunity for pattern discovery
And understanding relationships between variable
Source: Paul Hanson, Tim Kratz, NTL
22
21.5
21
20.5
20
19.5
19
18.5
18
17.5
17
194.0000

Better power sources
More radio range
Communication among sensors
Adaptive Sampling run by intelligent agents
Scalable systems
Source: Paul Hanson, Tim Kratz, NTL

Stuart Gage
Computational Ecology and
Visualization Laboratory
Michigan State University http://www.lternet.edu/sites/kbs/
Source: Stuart Gage, KBS

As an Ecological Indicator-
The integrity and dynamics of an ecosystem may be correlated to the complexity of that ecosystem’s soundscape.
As a Stressor -
Organisms require communication for their survival. Organism population may be inversely proportional to the degree of acoustic disruption.
Diurnal Curve of Total Activity in an
Agricultural/Forested Landscape
Diurnal Curve of Total Activity in an Urban/Human
Dominated Landscape
4
30
3
20
2
1
0
10
0 500 1000 1500
Time (24 Hour)
2000 2500
Cooper Ranch 2002/08/24
0
0 500 1000 1500
Time (24 Hour)
2000 2500
Ferris State 2002/05/23

NCHC-HQ
1
2
MOE
NDHU
4
5
NCHC-SOUTH
6
7
NPUST
Fushan
Source: Fang-Pang Lin http://ecogrid.nchc.org.tw/ Yuan Yang Lake

HPWREN connected topology agenda
May 2002
Santa Margarita
Ecological Reserve
Palomar
Observatory
Pala
Indian Res.
Pauma
Indian Res.
Rincon
Indian
Res.
La Jolla
Indian Res.
San Pasqual
Indian Res.
Mesa Grande
Indian Res.
Los Coyotes
Indian Res.
Santa Ysabel
Indian Res.
Backbone/relay node
Science site
Researcher location
Education site
Incident mgmt. site
UCSD/SDSC
SIO
Scripps Pier
Mt. Laguna
Observatory http://hpwren.ucsd.edu/
Courtesy Hans-Werner Braun

Mt. Woodson area to North Peak to UCSD to Indian
Reservations to Dan Cayan
Doug Bartlett
Hans-Werner Braun
Courtesy Hans-Werner Braun

• Ecology:
– Stream Sensors,
– Behavioral Ecology
• Oceanography
• Astronomy
• Earthquake Engineering
• Geophysics
• Crisis Management
• Distance Education
Multiple applications on same wireless backbone

Instrumenting the Environment
Courtesy NSF Brochure

This model can be replicated and scaled to meet the challenges of global environmental observing, analysis, and action http://www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ods/ getpub.cfm?nsf04549

Participants:Deborah Estrin,
Bill Michener,Greg Bonito
Total: more than 85
AP Community:
Masayuki Hirafuji (NARO),
Fang-Pang Lin (NCHC),
Shinji Shimojo (Osaka) http://lternet.edu/ sensor_report/ cyberRforWeb.pdf

• Revolutionary Tool for Studying the
Environment
• Enables Scientists to Reveal Previously
Unobservable Phenomena
• New Cyberinfrastructure Capabilities and Infrastructure, Methodology,
Middleware, People Needed
These will lead to paradigm shift in science

•
SCALE: Pervasive in situ sensing of the broad array of environmental and ecological phenomena across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales.
• INFRASTRUCTURE: Sensor networks should be robust and autonomous, be inexpensive and longlived, have minimal infrastructure requirements, and be flexible (expandable and programmable) and easily deployed and managed
• DATA: Sensor network data should be maximally self-documenting and of known quality, readily integrated with other sensor data, and easily assimilated.

• Sensing Technology
• Deployed Sensor Arrays
• Cyberinfrastructure for Sensor Networks
• Error Resiliency
• Security
• Data Management
• Metadata
• Analysis and visualization
• Education
• Outreach
• Collaboration and Partnerships

• What are the most urgent needs in relation to deploying sensor arrays in the field to achieve the overarching vision of the report?
• Recommendations
– Invest in prototyping and end-to-end testbeds
• Tested in large-scale natural environments across range of applications
• Validation, comparison with traditional monitoring systems
• Sensor networks include sensors, network security, information technologies
• Automated system layout and coverage estimation; composition and configuration of synthetic and simple sesnors; validation and calibration of sensor systems

• Support new genre of cyberinfrastructure research and development for scalable sensor arrays
– Middleware and services (time synchronization, localization, in situ calibration, adaptive duty cycling, programmable tasking, triggered imagine) needed for hyper-scalability, sustainability, and heterogeneity
• Build the requisite Grid and Web services
– To convert raw environmental data into information and knowledge

• Build Partnerships
– Universities, research labs, industry, standards organizations
• Sustain long term deployment
– To keep facilities alive, evolving, and non-obsolescent
– Need funding for staffing for stewardship and management
• Promote open source solutions and repositories
– Need incentives for and ease of contributing to open source toolsets, models and testbeds
• Allow for developing reusable system components and enhancing interoperability

• CUAHSI: Consortium of Universities for the
Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc.
• GEON – the Geosciences Network
• SpecNet – Spectral Network
• Embedded Networked Sensing
• NSF CLEANER Initiative – Collaborative Largescale Engineering Analysis Network for
Environmental Research
• Fixed Ocean Observatories (Neptune)
• NEON – National Ecological Observatory
Network
• North Temperate Lakes Monitoring
• Observing the Acoustic Landscape (KBS)

• Forum for discussion
– Topics
• Sensor technology
• Grid and web services
• Networking needs
• Application drivers
– Communities
• Grid working group and current/ future partners ApGrid,
PRAGMA, …
• Natural Resources working group and current/future partners
• Networking working with partners
• Catalyst for testing sensor nets
– Place where new technologies are tested in a diverse set of environmental conditions