Date of Award

2013

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Environmental Science

First Advisor

Esterline, Albert

Abstract

Sensor webs are the most recent generation of data acquisition systems. The research presented looks at the concept of sensor webs from three perspectives: node, user, and data. These perspectives are different but are nicely complementary, and all extend an enhanced, usually wireless, sensor network. From the node perspective, sensor nodes collaborate in response to environmental phenomena in intelligent ways; this is referred to as the collaborative aspect. From the user perspective, a sensor web makes its sensor nodes and resources accessible via the WWW (World Wide Web); this is referred to as the accessible aspect. From the data perspective, sensor data is annotated with metadata to produce contextual information; this is referred to as the semantic aspect. A prototype that is a sensor web in all three senses has been developed. The prototype demonstrates the ability of managing information in different knowledge domains. From the low-level weather data, information about higher-level weather concepts can be inferred and transferred to other knowledge domains, such as specific human activities. This produces an interesting viewpoint of situation awareness in the scope of traditional weather data.

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