An internet overlay architecture for global scale wireless sensor networks

The problems, such as environmental monitoring for global warming, currently under research by scientists and engineers are complex, inter-related worldwide phenomena that require global scale sensor networks to study and understand. Cost and resource constraints prohibit organizations, even national governments, and industrial and academic consortiums from deploying sensor networks on a global scale. Therefore, it is increasingly necessary for research groups to provide access to their non-proprietary, unclassified sensor networks so that the data may be analyzed without compromising its integrity, and at times repurposed by scientists and engineers studying other aspects of inter-related phenomena. This paper proposes a global scale wireless sensor network (GSWSN) architectural framework with the Internet providing backbone connectivity among geographically disperse sensor network sites, and discusses the challenges inherent to this undertaking.