PLASMA – a high-performing and open platform for the integration of heterogeneous sensor networks

Abstract

The use of sensors to capture disparate types of information from the environment has been increasing and they cover a wide range of applications, such as climate monitoring (e.g., seismic activity and climate), water quality monitoring, area surveillance, intelligent buildings, energy management, automotive industry and scientific purposes. Additionally, the Information Age has provided rapid and ubiquitous access to information produced by heterogeneous sources. Thus, the development of sensor networks has emerged as a way to exploit the Information Age capabilities into sensor applications. A major outcome of this combination is the capability to remotely receive and process sensor data (covering large areas) in real-time therefore allowing the development of new studies and algorithms aiming at anticipating and predicting (with high- reliability) events, such as storms (already state-of-the-art) and earthquakes (not yet possible). The developments in the scientific and industry communities were proficient in creating a large number of sensor networks that, nonetheless, (i) were designed to fit specific needs, (ii) were usually deployed in closed networks (not accessible to external parties), and/or (iii) do not interoperate with each-other, thus not leveraging possible synergistic effects of combining multiple sensor networks. To solve these issues, we initiated the project PLASMA.