An innovative interactive Web-enabled learning space for exploring intelligent mobile sensor networks and their business applications

In this paper we describe a physical and virtual space for conducting research into intelligent mobile sensor networks. Intelligent mobile sensor networks present a number of difficult theoretical and practical research challenges. We design an imaginative environment that can be used to explore, test, analyse and compare theoretical and practical approaches to representing and grounding knowledge derived from the sensor data of an intelligent mobile sensor network. Mobile sensor networks not only capture information from the environment, but they also need to model their physical environment in order to move around it safely and effectively. As an intelligent mobile sensor roams a physical space it is bombarded with sensory information from which it tries to construct an abstract and compact world model. Intelligent mobile sensors like robots can develop a rich world model through interaction with both physical objects and the rich information resources accessible on the semantic Web. We have designed an interactive learning space, which is made up of both physical objects and information resources on the Web. It allows the study of intelligent mobile sensor networks, their grounding, knowledge representation, reasoning, communication, collaboration, interactive learning capabilities, and potential business applications.