And What the Heck is a Sensor Web Anyway?

Dr. Kevin Delin, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Because it's easy to slap a radio on a sensor these days, everyone is suddenly an expert on wireless networks of sensors. Of course, when everybody is a somebody, then nobody is anybody. So, is this new technology a revolution or a fad? What is a network of sensors good for anyway? (This question isn't so easy, there are at least 4 companies still trying to define a good answer for it!) And what the heck is a Sensor Web anyway? Is it just another name for a sensor network? Does it require the World Wide Web to work? Can you deploy these things in any place interesting? Say at the Kennedy Space Center? Or Antarctica? So many questions. I might even be able to answer a few.

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Dr. Kevin Delin is the founder and leader of the NASA's Sensor Webs Project. He wrote the NASA New Technology Report on the Sensor Web and is a recognized leader in this field. His work on Sensor Webs has garnered attention from the Los Angeles Times, the BBC, Wired, PC Magazine, Technology Review, and National Public Radio. His interests include defining the emerging discipline of Sensor Webs, from applications to technological issues. Previous activities include work in electromechanics, sensors, and superconductivity and he is a co-inventor of the superconducting NMR probe for chemical analysis. In addition to well-cited journal papers on superconducting devices, Dr. Delin is co-author of the textbook, Foundations of Applied Superconductivity (Addison-Wesley, 1991).