When Sensor and Actuator Networks Cover the World

The technologies for wireless communication, sensing, and computation are each progressing at faster and faster rates. Notably, they are also being combined for an amazingly large multiplicative effect. It can be envisioned that the world will eventually be covered by networks of networks of smart sensors and actuators. This fact will give rise to revolutionary applications. However, to make this vision a reality, many research challenges must be overcome. This paper describes a representative set of new applications and identifies several key research challenges.