Potential applications for distributed networks of sensors are numerous and varied. Concern for the environment is one of the driving forces behind extensive research into all aspects of sensor networks (communication protocols, energy harvesting, and microelectronic device fabrication, to name a few), and motivation to explore this many-faceted world is high.

Optical wireless communication (OWC) must contend with phenomena resulting from the interaction of the propagating light beam (the optic carrier) with the transmission medium, such as scattering of light by particles in the channel. However, this very scattering, considered an obstacle for achieving high-performance OWC, can also be exploited as a sensing mechanism, as is familiar from lidar (light detection and ranging) probing. We have proposed a sensor system for atmospheric investigation based on the principle of lidar and using orthogonally coded data signals to overcome multiaccess interference problems. We now pose the question, Can the same principle be applied for underwater contaminant detection and monitoring?

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The first Annual IEEE International Workshop “From Theory To Practice in Wireless Sensor Networks” (t2pWSN’2007) will be co-located with the IEEE International Symposium on a World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks in Helsinki.

T2PWSN 2007 is devoted to the central question on how the abundance of results in algorithms, theory and modeling in the context of wireless sensor networks can be put into pratctical use and real experiences.

T2PWSN is intended to be a lively meeting, covering many experiences for the application of theoritical results of the algorithmic aspects of this field ranging from optimization, computational geometry, spatial stochastic models for wireless communications, graph, random graphs, spatial point processes and stochastic geometry, discrete and continuum percolation, theory combinatorics and approximation algorithms.

The workshop is intended to foster discussion, cooperation among researchers in mobile computing and researchers in discrete and distributed algorithms and offer an opportunity to discuss and express their views on the application of theoritical results, and on a critical review of additionally required resarch activities.

Complete information can be found here.