Aggregations of massively deployed sensors are expected to create sophisticated sensing, computation, communication and control platforms called Networked Sensor Systems (NSS) that will pervade society, revolutionizing the way in which we live and work. In order to scale, these systems must be largely autonomous, decentralized entities whose corporate resources can be made available to authorized users. Such autonomous, geographically-dispersed NSS are increasingly recognized as key to numerous applications ranging from healthcare to smart homes and homeland security. For example, autonomous NSS can assist first responders, often in inhospitable environments, by locating survivors, identifying danger areas and enhancing user awareness of the situation The resource-constrained sensors, the wireless communication medium, the large-scale deployment, combined with the mobility of users, the close interaction with the physical environment and the highly sensitive nature of mission-critical operations pose formidable challenges to autonomous NSS design. The key inter-related technical contributions of this project are: (1) Dynamic task-based networking supporting application-level tasks and queries while hiding resource-level details; (2) Smart AFN mobility subject to changing application requirements and network conditions; and (3) providing secure ANSWER operation and multi-level secure interactions with in-situ mobile users. ANSWER prototype can serve as a tool to explore mobile user behavior in ubiquitous networks under varying environmental and network conditions. This project will leverage programs at VT, UMBC, and ODU to actively recruit and involve under-represented groups in innovative multi-disciplinary hands-on experiments in ubiquitous networking, security and sensor systems. The research results will be disseminated via the project's Web site (www.nve.vt.edu/cias/cycarenet/ANSWER).
