We explore wireless networking,
middleware, and data management technologies for realizing this
application, and describe challenges arising from ad hoc
distributed structure, unreliable sensing, large scale/density, and
novel sensor data types that are characteristic of such deeply
instrumented environments with inter-networked physical objects.
1. INTRODUCTION
The focus and application of wireless information technology so
far has largely been on using low power, portable computers,
enhanced with multimedia I/O peripherals, for richer “person to
computer” and “person to person” interactions. However, the
interaction of users with computers and peripherals is quite
different from their interaction with objects in physical
environments. This requires that users and their applications adapt
to information technology, rather than the other way round,
thereby limiting the application of information technology in
many cases (e.g. children, people with disabilities). However, the
relentless march of microelectronics technology is coming to the
rescue in the form of (a) cheaper and tinier processors and
memories, (b) cheaper and tinier communication systems, and (c)
cheaper and tinier MEMS sensors and actuators. Indeed, in a not
too distant future, a single chip would integrate processor,
memory, radio, and sensors, all in a die of few square millimeters,
costing a few dollars, and consuming a few milliwatts (e.g.
SmartDust project at Berkeley [1]). Such technology would allow
processing, communication, sensing, and perhaps even actuation
capabilities to be unobtrusively embedded in familiar physical
objects that the users interact within their environments, and lead
to systems where these familiar physical objects are tetherless
peripherals with capabilities of reacting to external stimuli, and
wirelessly communicating with each other and with background
servers. In the not too distant future, such technology will bring
interaction and intelligence to commonplace inanimate objects in
our environment.
The emerging ability of computing infrastructures to sense and act
on the physical environment suggests a future where the primary
role of wireless technology would become one of enhancing
“person to physical world” interaction, rather than the
conventional “person to computer” and “person to person”
communication. Smart environments instrumented with sensorand-
wireless-enhanced objects would be able to sense events and
conditions about people and objects in the environment, and act
upon the sensed information or use it as context when responding
to queries and commands.
An interesting application of such deeply instrumented physical
environments with inter-networked physical objects that we are
exploring is a Smart Kindergarten. Children learn by exploring
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