Distributed, intelligent sensor networks that can collect and analyze data are essential to scientists seeking to understand the impacts of global urbanization, natural disasters such as flooding and wildfires, and climate change on natural ecosystems and city infrastructure. Sage is a pilot project that assembles sensor nodes to support machine learning frameworks and deploy them for rigorous testing in environmental testbeds in California, Colorado, and Kansas and in urban environments in Illinois and Texas. The reusable cyberinfrastructure running on these testbeds will give climate, traffic, and ecosystem scientists new data for building models to study these coupled systems. The software components developed in Sage are open source and provide an open architecture that will enable scientists from a wide range of fields to build their own intelligent sensor networks. The toolkit also extends the current educational curriculum used in Chicago and will inspire young people - with an emphasis on women and minorities -- to pursue science, technology, and mathematics careers by providing a platform for students to explore measurement-based science questions related to the natural and built environments.
The Sage project designs and builds new reusable software components and cyberinfrastructure services to enable deployment of intelligent environmental sensors. Geographically distributed sensor systems that include cameras, microphones, and weather and air quality stations can generate such large volumes of data that fast and efficient analysis is best performed by an embedded computer connected directly to the sensor. This project explores new techniques for applying machine learning algorithms to data from such intelligent sensors and builds reusable software that can run programs within the embedded computer and transmit the results over the network to central computer servers. The Sage project maintains links to computer source code, open hardware design documents, and sensor specifications, as well as both the raw and calibrated sensor data collected from all the testbed nodes at the website http://wa8.gl. The data is also be hosted in the cloud to facilitate easy data analysis. All project data is maintained for five years after the project ends.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
