Multitier Multiscale Sensing: A new paradigm for actuated sensing

Diane Budzik
Advisor: William Kaiser

Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 3:00pm-5:00pm
Engr IV Room 57-124

Abstract:
A broad class of applications including environmental monitoring, public health monitoring, precision agriculture, and security require the ability to sense highly dynamic spatiotemporal phenomena. We focus on environmental monitoring and more specifically - solar light radiation, i.e., varying sunlit patterns on a forest floor. These environmental monitoring applications, both terrestrial and aquatic, often require observing phenomena characterized by spatial and temporal dynamics that cover large spatial domains. Several sensing techniques exist and are often used for environmental monitoring such as using a static sensor networks and adaptive sensing. However, these techniques are inadequate for sensing complex spatial and temporal dynamics over large areas.

We introduce Multitier Multiscale Sensing, which is a new paradigm for actuated sensing for efficiently observing dynamic spatiotemporal phenomena with high fidelity. This approach introduces a hierarchy of sensors according to sensing fidelity, spatial coverage, and mobility characteristics. The application of solar light radiation was chosen to illustrate how the general multitier multiscale paradigm can be implemented as a two-tier multiscale sensing technique. Experiments were performed both in simulation and using a physical robotic system, NIMS-PL.