A Sensor/Actuator Network for Distributed Ecological Experiments
Event details
| Date | 19.11.2012 |
| Hour | 11:15 › 12:15 |
| Speaker | Prof. Paul G. Flikkema, EECS Department, Northern Arizona University |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Abstract
New applications are motivating and informing the design of sensor/actuator networks, and, more broadly, research in cyber-physical systems (CPS). One CPS application domain of growing interest is ecological systems, motivated by the need to understand plant survival and growth as a function of genetics, environment, and climate change. For this effort to be successful, we will need cyber-eco systems to infer data-driven predictive models of plant growth dynamics in response to climate drivers that allow incorporation of uncertainty. I will present the architecture of a cyber-eco system for precise fine-scale control of irrigation in an array of geographically-distributed outdoor gardens on an elevational gradient of over 1500 m, allowing design of experiments that combine control of temperature and water availability. The distributed in situ infrastructure is based on a modular, parallel-processing node hardware design allowing real-time processing and heterogeneous nodes, energy-aware hardware/software design, and a networking protocol that builds in trade-offs between energy conservation and latency. Throughout, we emphasize the changes in system architecture required as missions evolve from sensing-only to sensing, inference, and control. We also describe our developmental implementation of the architecture and its planned deployment. Future extensions will likely add negative control of precipitation using active rain-out shelters and additional plant-level control of air or soil temperature.
Biography
Paul G. Flikkema is a Professor of Electrical Engineering in the EECS Department at Northern Arizona University. He received the Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park. His research and education interests include wireless networking, sensor/actuator networks, embedded systems, inference of model structure, parameters, and state in complex systems, and the design of engineered systems for understanding these systems.
New applications are motivating and informing the design of sensor/actuator networks, and, more broadly, research in cyber-physical systems (CPS). One CPS application domain of growing interest is ecological systems, motivated by the need to understand plant survival and growth as a function of genetics, environment, and climate change. For this effort to be successful, we will need cyber-eco systems to infer data-driven predictive models of plant growth dynamics in response to climate drivers that allow incorporation of uncertainty. I will present the architecture of a cyber-eco system for precise fine-scale control of irrigation in an array of geographically-distributed outdoor gardens on an elevational gradient of over 1500 m, allowing design of experiments that combine control of temperature and water availability. The distributed in situ infrastructure is based on a modular, parallel-processing node hardware design allowing real-time processing and heterogeneous nodes, energy-aware hardware/software design, and a networking protocol that builds in trade-offs between energy conservation and latency. Throughout, we emphasize the changes in system architecture required as missions evolve from sensing-only to sensing, inference, and control. We also describe our developmental implementation of the architecture and its planned deployment. Future extensions will likely add negative control of precipitation using active rain-out shelters and additional plant-level control of air or soil temperature.
Biography
Paul G. Flikkema is a Professor of Electrical Engineering in the EECS Department at Northern Arizona University. He received the Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park. His research and education interests include wireless networking, sensor/actuator networks, embedded systems, inference of model structure, parameters, and state in complex systems, and the design of engineered systems for understanding these systems.
Links
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Organizer
- Prof. Alcherio Martinoli (DISAL)
Contact
- Milos Vasic (DISAL)