Scanning the Issue Special Issue on Sensor Networks and Applications

Microsensor network technology will have a significant impact on our lives in the 21st century. Microsensor devices, ranging in size from cubic inches to cubic millimeters, will each have multiple on board miniaturized sensors (such as for light, temperature, humidity, acoustics, imaging, etc.), with considerable processing power, in each geographic position ability through global positioning systems (GPSs) or local positioning methods, and short range radio or optical communication links. These devices, which will be cheap and smart, can be deployed in small or very large numbers to instrument homes and highways, buildings and bodies, cities and infrastructures, as well as for monitoring and controlling defense applications. The technology evolution and convergence of microelectromechanical sensors (MEMS) processing and communication will march toward hardware miniaturization and integrated sensing, computing, and communication chips. The daunting research task, however, is to develop algorithms, network protocols, and software that will enable the design of useful, long-lasting, reliable, survivable, and programmable systems out of such microsensor network devices. This research agenda requires creating new frameworks that bring together in innovative ways many disciplines, including distributed computing, networking, signal and information processing, reliability, and robust system design. In this regard, the design of microsensor networks needs to address some key technical challenges: 1) efficient networking methods that enable rapid, ad hoc networking of any number of such devices, either fixed in location or mobile; 2) methods for collaborative signal and information processing within the network to detect, classify, and track events and patterns of events occurring in the geographic area; 3) design of distributed microdatabases of information about events of interest over a spatio-temporal interval, stored in the devices, which can be queried by multiple users; 4) methods for programmability of the network; and 5) methods for security and information assurance within the network that enables intrusion detection, intrusion tolerance, and survivable operation in the face of failure and compromise. In addition, all these methods and designs must be power efficient to ensure the maximum operational