Sensors are taking off. No, they really are. In 2007, a team from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center tasked an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to fly over one of the damaging wildfires racing through Southern California. The data collected for its sensors—which included crucial thermal-infrared imagery at much higher detail than available satellites—was instantly visualized using a software platform called Sensor Web 2.0.
Essentially, this system marks the latest in a steady progression of three developing technologies: robust interactive sensors, autonomous aerial vehicles, and sophisticated data management software. Sensor Web 2.0 happens to be polished enough to have played a crucial role in modern emergency response scenario, which possibly helped it earn a 2008 R&D 100 Award from R&D Magazine’s panel of judges.
What’s really interesting about the technology is that it is giving rise to the “Internet” of sensors. In addition to the existing Internet populated by human- or software-controlled computer “entities”, we will soon see a highly complex network of sensors, including thermal imagers, temperature gauges, cameras—from the simplest motion detectors to pricey space-based spectroradiometers.
Yeah, I admit to thinking this sounds a little like Skynet. But for fun let’s extend the sci-fi—what if Skynet were patched in to that swarm of insect-like robots that achieved a sort of decision-making sentience in Michael Crichton’s novel “Prey”. It doesn’t take too much of a stretch to envision the results. Aerial sensor-laden nanorobots assembled by engineered microbes which able to access the resources of the mythical Skynet would probably make quick work of any Terminator James Cameron might have to offer.
The stuff of sci-fi often pales before stranger truths, however, and who knows what biotechnology will bring us in the near future. “Sensor Internet” has a long ways to go before true global interconnectivity occurs, but for now, it’s heartening to see disparate areas of R&D coming together to deliver a tool that can truly help us respond quickly to a natural world that even less forgiving of slow response times than a swarm of nanorobots.
