Sensors on patrol (SOP): using mobile sensors to detect potential airborne nuclear, biological, and chemical attacks

Sensors have been developed for environmental monitoring including detecting potential airborne nuclear, biological, and chemical attacks, monitoring air pollutions, and road and traffic conditions. Many cities in the U.S. are deploying or considering the deployment of sensors for environmental monitoring. Today, a typical approach is to use fixed sensors. This usually requires a large number of sensors with large and complex network infrastructures to connect sensors to data processing centers. This paper proposes and evaluates a new approach-Sensors on Patrol (SOP)-which uses sensors mounted on vehicles (e.g., buses, taxis, police cars) and people (e.g., policemen) to monitor the environment. This could reduce the number of required sensors and the size and the complexity of the network infrastructure required to connect the sensors. This paper also presents a method for estimating the number of mobile sensors required to cover a region of interest and analyze the volume of information reporting.