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NASA's Sensor Web
ddtstudio writes "PC Mag has a story about the Sensor Web: 'a cutting-edge application of networked sensor technology currently on the fast track at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).' Not only a new way to test tech, but also perhaps a pervasive and inexpensive way to explore remote places such as Antarctica -- or Mars."
i was thinking you could set up a network of these at traffic intersections to determine the optimal stoplight pattern. but has anything already solved that?
We can already track weather patterns all over the planet. The trouble is that this does not really solve the problem of predicting what will happen in the future - there are simply too many unkown factors affecting weather patterns for us to understand how and why they do what they do at this point. This isn't to say that a worldwide network of these semsors wouldn't be helpful, I just don't think they would solve the problems we have - satellites already give us a lot of worldwide data, but our weather forecasts beyond a few days out are still pretty unreliable (and often over much shorter time periods). If we want better weather forecasting we need to put more effort into figuring out all the factors that affect weather, which will probably require huge leaps in processing power over what is currently available - many of the world's most powerful supercomputers are already used for atmospheric modelling.
These things should have Internet presense, of course. Otherwise what are they really good for? Given the sort of things they might be used for, I can see 4 billion IP addresses being used up real quick! And putting them on the Internet seems like a really small step from what is described in the article (I didn't follow the rest of the links... maybe they are already doing this?).
If this sort of thing becomes ubiquitous, they could be really useful for a lot of things that we don't tend to like: e.g. surveillance.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Let's face it though, pleasing the public and sparking it's interest makes you money, and makes it more likely that people will approve your funding "just because". When you are dealing with things that are obscure to the public but are in reality highly critical, winning public approval should be a top priority. Just hire a few really good PR people, that's all.
Wow, that's the first post I ever read that was anti-insightful. Whew.
Sensor webs are not used so much for predicting weather as they are for inexpensively recording a fairly wide range of environmental conditions at a resolution (temporal, geographic, etc.) far greater than can be achieved by satellite monitoring.
For instance, a sensor web could be spread over a 100 square mile area around a waste dump to help determine the regional impact of high carbon dioxide concentrations and other gasses leaching into the surrounding environment on a seasonal basis.
Or, another type of sensor web could be setup in a metropolitan area to measure the impact of environmental pollution laws and programs before and after they are implemented. For instance, in the San Francisco Bay Area, does a "spare the air" marketing campaign have a material impact on air quality within a few hours of being broadcast? Or, would other types of campaigns to achieve the same goals be more effective. It seems that an appropriately configured sensor web could provide firm data to answer such difficult questions.
Predicting rain next week is a very small aspect to the overall benefit of developing low-cost, commodity sensors that can be deployed in the manner described in the article. The exciting part is the technology is standardized, inexpensive, redundant, and easy to configure to continuously measure the specific aspects of an environment at whatever resolution is required.
The biggest current bar to giving a bigger warning lead time to tornadoes is the lack of raw data on the vortex and the variables affecting it. This could prove very handy in studying that, and much better than the current system of chasing storms and praying to get close at the right time.
"Part of the problem with searching for life on Mars," Delin continues, "is that the conditions for life aren't always present. We know from earth that sometimes the air temperature gets just right and you go into the sunlight, liquid water forms, and all of a sudden things bloom very quickly. It's hard to be there for that kind of event unless you put in place a sort of continual virtual presence. That's what the Sensor Web on Mars will be."
Ok, to me this quote seems to not make sense. Do they expect life on Mars to suddenly appear at some moment and have their sensors catch it and then it dies? If you believe in evolution, it takes LOTS of time for life to appear and many, many years of ideal conditions. Yes, there might be life on mars (some bacteria can survive extreme temperatures and conditions. we know that) but if it exists it should have been because the conditions were just right for many years not because all of a sudden it was the perfect temperature and conditions for bacteria to grow. IMOHO, This article makes it sound like life on Mars is going to suddenly appear and we want to catch it. It's not like the Mars climate has changed in thousands (millions?) of years.
On the other hand, this technology does have great potential for use on Earth. Maybe we should focus on that first.
- Mod the drunk guy up!
I doubt that this would make any sense, since you couldn't use it in any decent way. When you collect data, you need to make it comparable. You usually achieve this by making sure that the environmental parameters of sensors are either the same or have a known offset from each other, so that you can correct the measurements of those. Take the example of measuring temperature with a web of sensors. You wouldn't know where all the people installed theirs - over concrete ground, in the shadow, inside or outside of the house, in the woods, next to an airconditioning air outlet and so on. With other measurements it's even more complicated.
Not only a new way to test tech, but also perhaps a pervasive and inexpensive way to explore remote places such as Antarctica -- or Mars.
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Like many others, you seem to reverse the implementation of this technology in your head. It's primary purpose is not to "test tech", and the possibility of exploring remote places is above just a simple "perhaps". If you read the article you would realise that:
One of our first applications for a Sensor Web has been to put one in remote regions of Antarctica.
You, like many others, are continually making the mistake that all this new and grand technology is made for "tech", computing, and advances in video hardware so you can get a couple more FPS's out of your favorite first-person-shooter.... You need to see the real importance behind the technology.
Scientist: We just developed a communication system that will allow us to instantly transfer data to and from satellites no matter what their distance is, with no data loss! Now we'll be able to control robots on Mars and even planets in other solar systems in real-time!
Computer Geek: Woah! Imagine the ping rates I'll get when playing Unreal online!