Herself’s Artificial Intelligence

Self building wireless technology has lots of promise and more than a few companies working on it. These networks would allow us to go into a disaster area or a war zone, release our wireless sensors or transmitters and blanket the affected area. Once that is done we could communicate with each other; something that was a large problem during the 9/11 attacks for rescue personal. Or we could deploy sensors that could send back images, test air quality or broadcast information to those in the area. Most phones now allow wireless access to any network so civilians in the area could communicate with rescue personal or each other.

. . . Networks of mobile sensors and other small electronic devices have huge potential. Applications include emergency management, security, helping vulnerable people to live independently, traffic control, warehouse management, and environmental monitoring.

One scenario investigated by European researchers was a road-tunnel fire. With fixed communications destroyed and the tunnel full of smoke, emergency crews would normally struggle to locate the seat of the blaze and people trapped in the tunnel.

Wireless sensors could cut through the chaos by providing the incident control room with information on visibility, temperatures, and the locations of vehicles and people. Firefighters inside the tunnel could then receive maps and instructions through handheld terminals or helmet-mounted displays.

For this vision to become reality, mobile devices have to be capable of forming self-organising wireless networks spanning a wide variety of communications technologies. Developing software tools to make this possible was the task of the RUNES project. . . .[ read more Wireless Networks that Build Themselves ]

More information:
RUNES

Papers:
The RUNES Middleware: A Reconfigurable Component-based Approach to Networked Embedded Systems ( pdf )
ASCENT: Adaptive Self-Configuring sEnsor Networks Topologies ( pdf) ( different company same idea - this is a self deploying sensor network that communicate wirelessly )