Networked Sensing Systems (NSSs) interact with the physical world by tightly integrating sensing, computation, networking, and physical processes. NSS systems are being deployed for numerous critical applications such as security, civil infrastructure, healthcare, manufacturing, and transportation. These applications often impose stringent performance requirements. Many computation and communication tasks of NSS systems must be finished within certain timing constraints to avoid undesirable or even catastrophic consequences -- a property known as real-time assurance. In addition, mission-critical NSS systems must maintain their performance at an acceptable level even when noises and errors occur in input and/or internal system components -- a property known as fidelity. This research is to design a novel NSS control framework that integrates data fusion, calibration, and real-time performance control into a solution that balances requirements for fidelity and real-time assurance. The expected outcomes include: 1) a unified multi-tier performance control framework for both fidelity and real-time assurance; 2) improvements in fidelity assurance through novel model and fusion calibration algorithms; 3) a fidelity-aware real-time performance control mechanism; and 4) integrated fidelity and real-time assurance for several mission-critical domains including real-time volcano monitoring and tomography, and high-fidelity ad hoc surveillance.
This project has broad implications for future NSS systems in multiple application domains that require high-fidelity processing of dynamic and complex physical information within stringent timeliness constraints. Educational and outreach activities include introduction of NSS systems into two new graduate courses with software, testbed, and labs developed in the course of this project, and recruitment of women and minority students for participation in the project.
