SGER: New Off-Grid Networks in Rural and Wild Environments

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

The proposal is for an exploratory project to investigate deployment of sensor networks in areas with little to no existing physical infrastructure (power or communications) for the purpose of monitoring the ecosystem. Island areas, such as the Bay Islands of Honduras, are the target environments. Crisis areas will also be explored for pilot and test zones. This proposal attacks an area of advanced cyberinfrastructure applied to environmental problems. The goal of the project is two-fold. The first goal of the project is to assess possible field sites and to create one or two small pilot tests to explore unsolved problems in sensor networking. Second is to create a taxonomy of challenging networking-in-the field problems - to answer the questions: what are the existing commercial technologies, what are the emerging technologies (research prototypes), and where the gaps are in the capability.