Building Networked Ecological Sensor Arrays using Spread-spectrum Radios

A workshop at the Ecological Society of America, Portland, OR, 1 August 2004

John H. Porter, Paul Hanson and Thomas W. Williams, organizers

Presentations are available as Portable Document Format (PDF) files.

Workshop Agenda
Example: North Temperate Lakes Wireless Network
Example: Virginia Coast Wireless Network
Overview of Wireless and additional information on amplification
Serial-to-Ethernet Conversion (as PDF, no notes) and HTML (with notes)
Designing Wireless Networks
The future of wireless

Description:

New avenues of ecological research are opened by recent developments in wireless networking. Wireless sensor networks have the potential to collect temporally-intensive and spatially-distributed data, thus allowing ecologists to "observe the unobservable." The workshop will introduce participants to approaches for building wireless sensor networks for the study of ecological phenomena using both serial and Internet Protocol (IP)-based systems. We will also discuss the challenges, from power supplies to using low-powered systems in densely vegetated habitats. The workshop format will include introductory presentations on the capabilities and limitations of spread-spectrum radios for the transmission of numerical, video, and audio data from field sensors. It will also showcase operational systems used for data collection in real-world ecological systems. Following the initial presentations, the workshop will have some exercises and activities, from configuring "in the room" wireless connections to discussions of the best strategies for meeting specific needs. The workshop will also help document areas where off-the-shelf equipment is lacking and new development efforts need to be focused.

Special Thanks to David Hughes and his Biological Sciences by Wireless project in getting this work started.