Self-Organising Collegiate Sensor Networks
(The SECOAS Project)
This project was funded by the DTI and was part of the Next Wave Technologies and Markets (NWTM) programme. It was associated with the Envisense research centre, and led by Prof. Ian Marshall, then at the University of Kent. The project partners were BT exact plc, Intelisys Ltd, Plextek Ltd, University of Essex, University College London, and the University of East Anglia. The project started in 2003 and finished in 2006.
Objectives
  • To discover and demonstrate decentralized algorithms that enable automated adaptation to failures, upgrades and requirement changes in a distributed network of micro-controllers (smart sensors)
  • To investigate and demonstrate novel cooperative adaptive data handling techniques
  • Design lightweight, low power, ad-hoc wireless communication protocols that can adapt to a wide range of physical layer media, and support a range of end to end guarantees for network services
  • To explore methods for implementing locally intelligent sensors capable of dynamic self-configuration
  • To develop and test an appropriate control interface for scientific user communities
  • To demonstrate and prove the new technologies in a realistic application context
  • To undertake a major re-evaluation of environmental sensing field methodologies, and design new approaches that fully exploit the new technology
 
The deployment area was the Scroby Sands Wind Farm shown in the picture below. We completed an initial technology trial in Oct 2004, and a further trial in Feb 2006.
A view of the scroby sands windfarm