From Soil to the Clouds – Networking in the Extremes: Underground and Airborne Sensor Networks

The recent developments in low-power wireless communication, distributed sensing, and networking allow sensor networks to be deployed in places where no computer has gone before. Two of these extreme scenarios will be presented in this talk: underground and airborne applications. Wireless underground sensor networks are an emerging type of sensor networks, where sensors are located under the ground and communicate through soil. Their applications involve precision agriculture, environment monitoring, and border patrol. Due to the significant impacts of the soil dynamics on communication, unique challenges exist for the development of networking solutions in this media. The recent developments in antenna design, channel modeling, underground networking, and data harvesting will be described. Nebraska Underground Sensing and Precision Agriculture Testbed at UNL and recent experiments with center pivot irrigation system deployments in this testbed will be discussed.

In the second part of the talk, the CraneTracker "“ an embedded multi-modal mobile sensing platform for real-time migratory bird monitoring "“ will be described. CraneTracker integrates energy harvesting, cellular and short-range communication technologies, and a multi-modal sensor suite to provide real-time location and behavioral information of Whooping Cranes "“ one of the endangered species in the world. Recent developments in testing and validation will be described for the design of embedded software that will operate for years in air. The challenges and experiences in the design, implementation, and evaluation of the CraneTracker will be discussed. The talk will be concluded with a presentation of our ongoing experiment results with cranes that migrate between Wisconsin and Florida and Wisconsin and Indiana.

Mehmet Can (Jon) Vuran received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey in 2002. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Broadband and Wireless Networking Laboratory, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA. in 2004 and 2007, respectively, under the guidance of Prof. Ian F. Akyildiz.

Currently, he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the director of the Cyber-Physical Networking Laboratory. Dr. Vuran is the recipient of the NSF CAREER award in 2010 for "Bringing Wireless Sensor Networks Underground" and a 2012 NSF I-Corps member. He received the Maude Hammond Fling Faculty Research Fellowship from University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2008 and 2010 and the 2007 ECE Graduate Research Assistant Excellence Award from School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Vuran is the co-author of the Wireless Sensor Networks book, published by Wiley in 2010. He serves as an associate editor in Computer Networks Journal (Elsevier) and Journal of Sensors (Hindawi). His current research interests are in wireless sensor networks, underground communication and networking, cognitive radio networks, and cyber-physical networks.