Dissertation Defense WHAT: Constantine K. (Dean) Christakos: "Distributed-in/Distributed-out Sensor Networks" WHEN: Thursday, August 25, 2005, 4:00 PM EST WHERE: Bartos Theatre, MIT Media Lab (E15) DISSERTATION COMMITTEE: Andrew Lippman Senior Research Scientist MIT Media Laboratory Joseph Paradiso Sony Corporation Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences MIT Media Laboratory Samuel Madden ITT Career Development Professor MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory ABSTRACT: With a new way of thinking about organizing sensor networks, we demonstrate that we can more easily deploy and program these networks to solve a variety of different problems. We describe sensor networks that can analyze and actuate distributed phenomena without a central coordinator. Previous implementations of sensor networks have approached the problem from the perspective of centralized reporting of distributed events. By contrast, we create a system that allows users to infer the global state from within the sensor network itself, rather than by accessing an outside, central middleware layer. This is accomplished via dynamic creation of clusters of nodes based on application or intent, rather than proximity. The data collected and returned by these clusters is returned directly to the inquirer at his current location. By creating this Distributed-in/Distributed-out (DiDo) system that bypasses a middleware layer, our networks have the principal advantage of being easily configurable and deployable. We show that a system with this structure can solve path problems in a random graph and that these graph problems are directly applicable to real-life applications such discovering escape routes for people in a building with changing pathways. The system is scalable, as reconfiguration requires only local communication. To test our assumptions, we build a suite of applications to create different deployment scenarios that model the physical world and set up simulations that allow us to measure performance. The instructions provided by the sensors result in tangible performance improvements when the sensors' instructions are directed to agents within a simulated physical world. MIT Media Laboratory Home Page | Events Main Index