As new fabrication and integration technologies reduce the cost and size of wireless sensors, the observation and control of our physical world will expand dramatically using the temporally and spatially dense monitoring afforded by wireless sensor networks technology. Several applications such as habitat monitoring, counter-sniper system, environment sampling, and structure monitoring, have been launched, showing the promising future of wide range of applications of networked sensor systems.

Their success is nonetheless determined by whether the sensor networks can provide a high quality stream of data over a long period. The inherent feature of unattended and untethered deployment of networked sensors in a malicious environment, however, imposes challenges to the underlying systems. These challenges are further complicated by the fact that sensor systems are usually seriously energy-constrained. Most previous efforts focus on devising techniques to save the sensor node energy and thus extend the lifetime of the whole sensor network. However, with more deployments of real sensor systems, in which the main function is to collect interesting data and to share with peers, data quality has been becoming a more important issue in the design of sensor systems. Consistency, accuracy, reliability, and survivability concerns have to be addressed in sensor data collection, storage, and processing.

The goal of the special issue is to publish the most recent results in the data quality management aspects of wireless sensor networks research. Researchers and practitioners working in this area are expected to take this opportunity to discuss and express their views on the current trends, challenges, and state of the art solutions addressing various issues in sensor networks.

The full call for papers is here.

From 7.5th floor:

This week’s LBS360.net podcast “You are a Sensor” discusses volunteer geographic information and “taking advantage of people doing what they do” to detect diseases, natural disasters, traffic jams, and zones of social activities.

Researchers have determined that you, even without a portable device can be an effective geographic sensor. This week we explore examples of how individuals, sometimes along with their electronic gadgets, can act as effective sensors for disease or natural disaster. Our editors share some proven techniques and explore how this type of data collection might play out in the future.