Heterogeneous networks of sensors and unmanned vehicles open avenues for a class of novel applications. Tasks ranging from environmental monitoring to user support within emergency-response scenarios require fundamental and multidisciplinary research, typically spanning Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering topics in robotics, control, communication, and middleware. While the first two summer schools of this series concentrated on research problems within these different domains, this year the focus is on the combination of all involved areas in the context of real-world scenarios. This is tackled by an array of devices ranging from inexpensive, tiny, low power sensor nodes, through unmanned autonomous vehicles to resource rich and powerful command stations. Such a heterogeneity in communication mechanisms, processing capabilities, and inherent mobility of the different devices constitutes a so-called Mixed-Mode Environment.
Goals
This international summer school surveys research areas in the domain of Mixed-Mode Environments and targets to identify novel opportunities and research directions. The lectures will be held by renowned speakers from academia and industry.
The summer school will also provide an excellent opportunity to get in contact with known researchers working in this field, to meet distinguished scholars, and to establish contacts that may lead to research collaborations in the future.
As a special novelty, this year’s program will include a “Mixed-Mode-Challenge” across the school attendees. During the week, all participants will have the opportunity to work together in small groups and develop solutions for an interdisciplinary task involving mobile robots and stationary sensors nodes. First, the groups will validate their approaches in simulation and finally transfer them to real hardware. It is intended to use TurtleBots for the evaluation. The group with the best performing approach will be awarded a special prize.
Participation
The intended audience are young researchers and PhD students from universities and industrial laboratories around the world. As the number of attendees is limited, prospective participants should apply online providing a brief description of their research.
The summer school registration fee is 450 Euro. All rooms are shared between two people.
The summer school will take place in the historical Castle Ebernburg. The registration fee includes accommodation at Castle Ebernburg, all meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee breaks), several social events and all study materials.
Organization
The summer school is organized by the Research Training Group Cooperative, Adaptive and Responsive Monitoring in Mixed Mode Environments, funded by the German Research Foundation, DFG, under grant GRK 1362.
Important Dates
Application deadline: June 25, 2012
Summer school: July 22-27, 2012
More info here.
This presentation covers various characteristics of a wireless sensor network in monitoring an unattended area. Results of how wireless sensor network topologies can be effectively used for physically accessible areas are presented. Minimizing packet traffic by collecting data using a mobile Base Station is discussed, along with energy consumption. An innovative technique of distributing keys for shared secret key based communications is described, and various characteristics including resiliency, and monitoring a battle-field using wireless sensor networks are outlined. Analytical model is introduced and compared with simulation results. The need for layered sensing in secured communications is investigated.
