Modeling sensor web autonomy

The research developed an architecture and experimental system for autonomously operating a web of Earth sensing devices. Example sensing devices include orbiting spacecraft, ground surface sensors, ocean surface sensors, ocean subsurface sensors, wheeled vehicles, fixed ground systems, weather balloons, and aircraft. A wide variety of sensors, sensor platforms, and operational characteristics (e.g., fixed versus mobile) required a common language for specifying and sharing data, information, and knowledge of the “sensor web”. An ontology was developed and used for collaboration between multiple sensor systems. The ontology is used by distributed agents to autonomously operate a sensor web in a distributed testbed. The system was also deployed and demonstrated on an orbiting satellite. The ontology models the application domain and the agent-based control system for the sensor web. The ontology was also used to implement the distributed agent system and to guide the design and development of the sensor web control system. The result is comprehensive model not only of the application domain, but also the control system for the application domain.