Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Cambridge's Streetlamp-Powered Wireless Network

Posted by Zonk on from the streetlamps-for-science dept.

Serpentegena writes "A joint research project by scientists at Harvard University and BBn Technologies may have spawned a new breed of Metronet. The wireless network, code-named CitySense, which will consist of 100 streetlamp-mounted nodes by 2011, will draw power off the Cambridge, Mass. public grid and be used at first for weather and pollution monitoring. The intention is to also allow 'academic researchers worldwide [...] to submit their own research programs to run on the network.' Sounds remarkably similar to the beginning of the ARPANET, except the network hosts will be running Linux."

7 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Programs? by QBasicer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why would there needed to be programs run on the network, if all the nodes are is data collecting points? Wouldn't it be easier to just store the data and replicate it for later analysis?

    --
    x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
    1. Re:Programs? by moderatorrater · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Wouldn't data collection itself require a program? Since it's got a processor, might as well lend the extra cycles to something ;)

  2. It's been done. by HaeMaker · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone from SF bay area, Denver or Washington DC remember Ricochet? http://www.ricochet.net/

    1. Re:It's been done. by sunspot55 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I used to work at Metricom and I can say that your 56k speed was VERY conservative. I believe they advertised 128k and we would routinely get 192k in the lab. It was faster than ISDN, which was your main option for high speed internet at home at the time (DSL was just starting to be released). Oftentimes the serial speed was limited by the RS232 data speed (I think the RS232 port speeds defaulted to 56k often). Both USB and RS232 were options on the Gen 2 modem and I recommended using the USB to anyone I knew who used the modems. They even worked USB with Linux as far back as 1999; Metricom was an early adopter and user of Linux and the modem enumerated via USB via some standard serial making it easy (well, Linux easy) to get the driver working. This was at a time when USB on Linux was pretty painful too. I must say I did enjoy working there; the technology was pretty exciting to work on.

  3. Been done before... by ZeldorBlat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How is this any different than any other municipal wireless project? I suppose it's different because it isn't intended to actually provide public wireless internet access (in the short-term, anyway).

    Oakland County, MI is currently implementing a wireless network across over 900 sq. miles. Granted the free service is pretty slow (128 kbps), but the for-fee service being offered is competitive with cable offerings in the area.

  4. !wireless network, but a wireless sensor network by Tetravus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The author of the article doesn't emphasize that the interesting thing about this network (besides it being associated with Haaaavard and therefore news-worthy to certain people) is that it's a distributed sensor network. It doesn't just pass data between nodes, each node is capable of creating and sharing data with the rest of the network. In fact, that's the only thing that's interesting about this at all. I mean, did Google force Mountain View to install new wireless node poles when they put in their WiFi or did they just piggyback on existing infrastructure? And, as someone else has mentioned, Ricochet networks did the whole city-wide data network thing in the late 90's.

    So, if you've been looking for a place to test out your predictive models of chemical dispersion under real-world conditions, it sounds like Cambridge is the place to go.

  5. Re:!wireless network, but a wireless sensor networ by Myself · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually, Ricochet poletops can be used to infer certain environmental conditions too, specifically the propagation of 900MHz and 2.4GHz signals. You can do this indirectly, by watching packet headers and tracking the paths that packets take between radios (longer hops if conditions are good), which has been done in at least one area for some time now. It's fascinating data; I hope to have pretty animated graphs of it some time soon. You could also do it directly, by interrogating each radio's node table periodically, to see the SNR and RSSI to each other radio it knows about.

    Prior to Ricochet, Metricom built Utilinet, designed to replace leased-line telephone circuits for control of utility switch and pump stations. Utilinet nodes could read their own power supply's input voltage, as well as temperature and a few other parameters. If anyone ever did cool stuff with this data, I'd like to hear from them.