Building an Intelligent, Uncertainty-Resilient Detection and Tracking Sensor Network

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Research Areas: Prevention, Detection and Response

Principal Investigator: David Yau

Detection, identification, and tracking problems that arise in applications such as the protection of people and the environment against chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive (CBNRE) plumes, can be solved by combining the modalities of sensor and cyber networks. The sensor network provides information about physical space activities, such as the locations and movements of plume sources and targets. The cyber network provides storage and computational resources to analyze and infer, based on realistic dispersion models of plumes with respect to physical phenomena (e.g., terrain and weather effects), where the plume originated, the trajectory of its movement, and the prediction of its future movement. The cyber network also makes decisions about where to task and activate sensors regarding their sensing and communication activities.

The federal SensorNet initiative has carried out initial deployments of detection, identification, and tracking sensor-cyber network (DITSCN) in Washington D.C. and Memphis Port areas. While the deployments show initial success, we have also identified three grand systems challenges: (i) the need to achieve a convergence between the physical space sensing and cyber space computation; (ii) the need to recognize uncertainties due to measurement and modeling errors and uncaptured environmental effects early in the design process; and (iii) the need to support deeply embedded operations of a DITSCN in its total environment, and accommodate a wide range of sensor modalities, computation modules, and communication modules in an open system platform.

 

To address the above challenges, we will carry out research in (i) network formation by sensor selection, placement, and coverage; (ii) mobile sensor scheduling and coverage; and (iii) sensor tasking protocols with management of temporal and spatial uncertainty.

 

Personnel

Students: Wenchang Zhou Yifei Sun

Keywords: CBNRE threats, plume detection and tracking, sensor-cyber networks