Environmental Cyber-Infrastructure Needs for Distributed Sensor Networks

Please notice these last minute details.

1) Continental breakfast will be served at 8:00 am outside Hubbs Hall, where the workshop will begin at 8:30 am Tuesday morning.

2) If you are driving to Scripps, be forewarned that parking is very bad. You are advised to take a shuttle (see below), but if you intend to drive directions can be found at: http://www.sio.ucsd.edu/about/directory/

Parking permits can be bought ($6 day) by contacting Jill Hammon (858) 534- 3948, but there is NO guarantee that you will find a parking spot.

3) Shuttles: We will have 3 vans to shuttle participants between the hotel and Scripps starting around 7:30 am. Meet in the lobby of La Jolla. Hotel La Jolla also will provide a complimentary shuttle for attendees, and other hotels may also provide this service.

If you are not staying at Hotel La Jolla and would like transportation to the workshop, please send Greg Bonito an email with (gbonito@LTERnet.edu) your hotel name, or just meet us at Hotel La Jolla in the morning.

4) If you are bringing a laptop, there will be a wireless connection for Hubbs Hall.

We will soon have this update posted on the workshop website: http://www.lternet.edu/informatics/sensor_workshop/

If you have additional questions, please email Greg Bonito <gbonita(at)lternet(dot)edu>.

See you all in a few days,
Deborah Estrin and Bill Michener

This workshop will be a two-day NSF-sponsored event aimed at identifying Environmental Cyber-Infrastructure Needs for Distributed Sensor Networks. This workshop will include approximately 75 participants from various disciplines including environmental science, engineering, computer science, statistics, and mathematics. Representatives from NSF as well as several existing or proposed large research programs (CUAHSI, NEON, CLEANER, LTER) will also attend. The workshop will produce a report for the broader research community that will include recommendations to NSF on how the Foundation should proceed to ensure that cyber-infrastructure needs related to distributed, networked observing systems are met. The workshop will focus on several specific themes:

1. Sensing technologies: state of the art and where there is most need for sensor component development for the different communities
2. Data collection/acquisition/fielded sensor arrays
3. Data management
4. Analysis and visualization
5. Error resiliency
6. Metadata
7. System security integrity

Given the increasing number of distributed, networked, observing systems being proposed by various research communities, and ongoing computer science research in related topics, the time seems ripe for an interdisciplinary workshop to discuss the cyber-infrastructure issues associated with such systems. The widespread proliferation of the Internet and other communication technologies, especially wireless and acoustic transmission from remote sensors, coupled with the decreasing cost, size, and weight of a variety of sensors is resulting in a major paradigm shift in both environmental science and engineering. Increasingly, spatially extended, intelligent networks, of multi-variable intelligent sensor arrays are seen as the appropriate tools for studying complex real-world systems. An attractive feature for researchers is the potential for remote manipulation of experiments or observing networks in near real-time based on the incoming data.

The increasing demand of the environmental science and engineering communities for systems such as these raises a number of cyber-infrastructure issues including: how to effectively collect, manage, archive and distribute data from such systems; mechanisms and protocols for rapid data transmission; protocols for two-way communication with sensors and dynamic control of sensor networks; access to remote computing resources for processing and visualization of the data collected; how to manage heterogeneous physical, chemical and biological data streams that include high-bandwidth streams, such as video data and broad-band seismic data, and low-bandwidth streams such as those from temperature sensors; how to dynamically manage sampling schemes at nodes with limited power budgets when multiple sensors share the same power source; software tools for the analysis of the multidisciplinary, spatially extended, intermittent datasets that will emerge from such observing systems; knowledge representation software to ensure that these data are easily accessible and effortlessly shared across disciplines; the integrity of the communications and control systems for such observing networks together with the integrity of the data management and archiving systems; automation of quality control of the data.

The establishment of a cyber-infrastructure that can accomplish these tasks will be critical to ensure the broadest use of the data collected from these sensing networks. It is through this capability that the power of this new paradigm will be most evident. For example, in environmental science, the ability to compare data from multiple, potentially unrelated disciplines will enable researchers to decipher unanticipated interactions between systems to advance our understanding of Earth's environment. Concerns related to cyber-security, and in some cases, intellectual property, will significantly impact networked sensor systems. Solutions must be sought that will not hinder free and open exchange of most data but that will also protect the network and its sensors as well as provide the ability to restrict access to highly sensitive data when needed. Finally, the integration of GRID-based systems to convert the raw environmental data into information and, finally, knowledge will become an increasingly important issue as sensor networks become ubiquitous.

The workshop will be held Tuesday August 12th and Wednesday August 13th 2003. The Steering Committee plus a limited number of volunteers will stay an extra day (Thursday August 14th) to participate in writing the report.

For all invited participants, excluding NSF employees, we will cover costs associated with registration, travel, lodging, and food. Air travel arrangements should be made ASAP through Rio Grande Travel (see below). Additional travel and lodging details are listed below.

All participants must bring a $ 75 (U.S.) check or money order made out to "The University of New Mexico." The registration fee covers snacks, continental breakfasts, lunches and other incidental expenses. All non-NSF employees WILL BE REIMBURSED for the registration fee after the meeting. We cannot reimburse costs associated with rental cars and taxis; various companies provide inexpensive shuttles from the airport to the hotel and vans will transport participants to and from the meeting each day from the motel.

The workshop will be held at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO). SIO's main campus, part of the University of California, San Diego, consists of 180 acres in coastal La Jolla, California. Scripps is one of the oldest and largest centers for global science research in the world and has been a leader and innovator in oceanography and marine technology for 100 years. Scripps Institution of Oceanography includes a number of state-of-the-art research and education facilities including the Birch Aquarium. The Birch Aquarium is a public education center that showcases Scripps research, provides ocean science education and promotes ocean conservation and is the largest oceanographic museum in the country.

Please do everything possible to minimize travel costs as we are on a very tight budget.

If you are driving to the workshop, the University of New Mexico will reimburse you at the approved rate of $0.25 per mile. Please record your beginning and ending mileage. Also, note that we cannot reimburse driving costs that exceed the cost of round trip airfare. (In other words, if you drive to San Diego from Boston, we can only cover the amount equivalent to a round trip airline ticket.)

Air travel reservations can be made through Rio Grande Travel. Please call Rio Grande Travel 1-800-778-6861 or 505/768-7999 as soon as possible and ask for a UNM Representative. You may also contact the following representatives directly for assistance: Rita Ortiz at RitaO@RGTravel.com, Tracey Fria at TraceyF@RGTravel.com or Johanna Stackpole at Jstackpole@RGTravel.com .

Tell the agent that the LTER Network Office at UNM (contact: Pam Griego) is paying for your ticket. If you have any other problems, please e-mail the manager, Doris Phillips, DorisP@RGTravel.com with a copy to pgriego@LTERnet.edu. Once you have made and approved your reservation, Rio Grande will forward the itinerary to the Network Office, which will pay for the ticket.

International participants, please note that U.S. carriers or airlines that code-share with U.S. airlines must be used if available. Rio Grande will assist you with this.

If you wish to purchase the airline ticket yourself, please e-mail Pam Griego (pgriego@LTERnet.edu) your arrival/departure dates/times, flight number and the amount of the ticket. Reimbursement for the ticket will be made after the meeting.

NOTE: Any airline reservations made within 21 days of the initiation of travel will have to be paid for by the traveler and will be reimbursed at the APEX 21-day advance purchase rate. Failure to make reservations in a timely fashion may therefore have serious personal financial implications.

We have signed a group booking agreement for lodging at the Hotel La Jolla at the Shores (http://www.hotellajolla.com/), and have provided them with your name.

Reservations can be made by calling 1-800-666-0261. PLEASE mention that you are with the Scripps NSF Cyber Workshop Group to receive the group rate. You must register by July 10th, 2003 to get the group rate, so please do so ASAP! You may also e-mail reservations to: reservations@hotellajolla.com.

The best transportation means from the airport to the hotel are the CLOUD 9 SHUTTLES. Shuttles can be found outside the airport baggage claim area in the transportation area. Just tell the attendant you are with a conference and want the CLOUD 9 SHUTTLE to Hotel La Jolla in the town of La Jolla. The cost should be less than $15 and the driver will provide you with a receipt when asked (for reimbursement).

Contact Greg Bonito (gbonito@LTERnet.edu) if you experience any difficulties in making hotel reservations.