GeoSensor Networks

GeoSensor Networks EDITED BY Anthony Stefanidis Silvia Nittel CRC PRESS Boca Raton London New York Washington, D.C. Copyright © 2004 CRC Press, LLC GeoSensor Networks Copyright © 2004 CRC Press, LLC Preface Advances in sensor technology and deployment strategies are revolutionizing the way that geospatial information is collected and analyzed. For example, cameras and GPS sensors on-board static or mobile platforms have the ability to provide continuous streams of geospatially-rich information. Furthermore, with the advent of nano-technology it becomes feasible and economically viable to develop and deploy low-cost, low-power devices that are general-purpose computing platforms with multi-purpose on-board sensing and wireless communications capabilities. All these types of sensors may act collaboratively as nodes within broader network configurations. Such configurations may range in scale from few cameras monitoring traffic to thousands of nodes monitoring an ecosystem. When drafting the call for papers that resulted in this book we left on purpose the term “geosensor network” somewhat undefined, as we wanted it to be determined by the research communities that are providing the pieces of its puzzle. However, despite this lack of a formal definition there is a very clear inherent understanding of what a geosensor network is. In geosensor networks the geospatial content of the information collected by a sensor network is fundamental for the analysis of feeds. Thus, a geosensor network may be loosely defined as a sensor network that monitors phenomena in a geographic space. This space may range in scale from the confined environment of a room to the highly complex dynamics of a large ecosystem. With this emerging sensor deployment reality we are faced with substantial research challenges related to the collection, management, analysis, and delivery of real-time geospatial information using distributed geosensor networks. This book offers a collection of papers that address some of these issues. The papers included here were presented at the first GeoSensor Networks workshop, held in Portland, Maine, in October 2003. This fully refereed workshop brought together thirty-two researchers from diverse research domains, including spatial databases and spatial information modeling, robotics and digital image analysis, mobile computing, operating systems, database management, and environmental applications. Our objective was to provide a forum for experts from these overlapping communities to exchange ideas and share knowledge, and we hope that this book will showcase this spirit of collaboration. The papers in this volume have been grouped in four categories, reflecting major aspects of geosensor networks, namely databases, image processing, computer networks, and some application examples. Combined, these papers offer an excellent snapshot of the state-of-the-art in these areas, and support a fair evaluation of the current capabilities and emerging challenges for geosensor networks. Additional Copyright © 2004 CRC Press, LLC information on our workshop, including program and presentation material, may be found at the corresponding web site www.spatial.maine.edu/~gsn03/. We would like to thank the authors of the papers included in this volume, and additional invited presenters at the workshop for their valuable contributions, the program committee members for their input, and Working Group V/5 of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. We would also like to thank our students and colleagues at the University of Maine who assisted in the organization of the workshop in many ways, and especially Mr. Charalampos Georgiadis who assisted in the preparation of this volume. We would like to particularly acknowledge the help and guidance of Professor Max Egenhofer, who was instrumental in the realization of this event. Lastly, we would like to acknowledge the National Science Foundation for supporting the workshop through grant EIA-9876707. February 2004 Anthony Stefanidis and Silvia Nittel Copyright © 2004 CRC Press, LLC Workshop Organization Co-Organizers: Silvia Nittel and Anthony Stefanidis National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis University of Maine Workshop Steering Committee: Chaitan Baru, San Diego Supercomputer Center Deborah Estrin, University of California, Los Angeles Mike Franklin, University of California, Berkeley Johannes Gehrke, Cornell University Mike Goodchild, University of California, Santa Barbara Nick Koudas, AT&T Research Richard Muntz, University of California, Los Angeles Silvia Nittel, University of Maine (Workshop co-chair) Anthony Stefanidis, University of Maine (Workshop co-chair) Seth Teller, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Mubarak Shah, University of Central Florida Copyright © 2004 CRC Press, LLC ... - tailieumienphi.vn