Sensing, tracking and reasoning with relations

Suppose we have a set of sensor nodes spread over a geographical area. Assume that these nodes are able to perform processing as well as sensing and are additionally capable of communicating with each other by means of a wireless network. Though each node is an independent hardware device, they need to coordinate their sensing, computation and communication to acquire relevant information about their environment so as to accomplish some high-level task. The integration of processing makes such nodes more autonomous and the entire system, which we call a sensor net, becomes a novel type of sensing, processing, and communication engine. The sensor net architecture presented in this article starts from a high-level description of the mission or task to be accomplished and then commands individual nodes to sense and communicate in a manner that accomplishes the desired result with attention to minimizing the computational, communication, and sensing resources required. Much work remains to be done to refine and implement the relational sensing ideas presented here and validate their performance. We believe, however, that the potential pay-off for the relation-based sensing and tracking we have proposed can be large, both in terms of developing rich theories on the design and complexity of sensing algorithms, as well as in terms of the eventual impact of the deployed sensor systems.