Our Central Nervous System

Here was the vision - - tiny digital sensors, strewn around the globe, gathering all sorts of information and communicating with powerful computer networks to monitor, measure, and understand the physical world in new ways. A computer is a brain that is blind, deaf, and dumb to its surroundings - - the sensor revolution was about closing that gap. But computer energy consumption was always the issue with sensors and networks - - the little sensors needed batteries. But change is coming - - and the thing about a technological revolution is they always take longer than predicted, but arrive faster than anticipated.

Hewlett-Packard began last year what it calls “Central Nervous System for the Earth” - - a 10-year initiative to embed up to a trillion push-pin-size sensors around the globe. H.P. researchers, combining electronics and nanotechnology expertise, announced in November that they had developed sensors with accelerometers that were up to 1,000 times more sensitive than the commercial motion detectors used in Nintendo Wii video game controllers and some smart phones. Intel is doing sensor research that builds on commercial RFID technology and adds an accelerometer and a programmable chip - - in a package measured in millimeters. Its power can come from either a radio-frequency reader, as in RFID, or the ambient radio power from television, FM radio, and WiFi networks - - the ability to eliminate batteries for these types of sensors brings the vision of smart and small sensors closer to reality.

Others researchers are thinking in different directions - - the human as sensor. Researchers at UCLA’s Center for Embedded Networking Sensing have designed several projects that use cell phones and people in data-gathering and analysis. The initial focus has been on collecting environmental data - - for example, in association with the National Park Service. Twitter has similar applications - - mainly related to personal heath and habits data tracking.

As we get better performance, reliability, and cost attributes from our sensors and networks - - look for the “Labor versus Technology Curve” to come into play. Sensor applications geared toward energy management of buildings, bridges that sense motion and metal fatigue, cars that track traffic patterns and report potholes, and fruit and vegetable shipments that tell grocers when they ripen and begin to spoil - - will become highly competitive in terms of cost and performance versus human inspection and observation.