Current best practices for building ROADNet sensor network infrastructure

Hansen, T., S. Foley, K.G. Lindquist, G. Davis, F.L. Vernon, J. Orcutt

The Real-time Observatories, Applications, and Data management Network (ROADNet) project, http://roadnet.ucsd.edu, is a multidisciplinary collaboration between computer scientists researching sensor/grid networks and domain scientists seeking to solve a research problem in their field of study (e.g. seismology, meteorology). ROADNet’s network is centered in San Diego County, but reaches throughout the world. The network comprises a large number of sensors and data repositories that are running custom software built on Boulder Real Time Technologies’ Antelope middleware application.

Since the project’s inception, four years ago, the team and its collaborators have deployed an operational network of over 120 stations and 20 ROADNet data buffers/repositories. Deploying and managing this infrastructure has presented challenges in configuration, hardware and software compatibility, network management, scalability and mass deployment logistics. The experiences learned in this project can be used to assist others in avoiding the general problems that arise when operating a large-scale sensor network.

This poster will address challenges faced throughout the life of this project, the solutions that have been implemented, the reasons behind those solutions, and directions for the future growth of the network. The foci will be on node deployment, scaling of the network, interactive sensor control, and automated problem detection of the deployed nodes.