Design of trustworthy fielded sensor networks

Sensor networks hold great promise as tools in the study of complex natural systems, in a broad range of areas from terrestrial ecology through to seismology. The primary goal in a scientific experiment is computation of some inference from the observations and available models. From this basic problem flows a broad set of practical and theoretical issues, among them assurance of data integrity, sufficiency of data to support the inferences made concerning models/hypotheses, and what tools and hardware are required not just to take observations but enable a community of non-engineers to participate in and adapt a sequence of experiments as new observations are obtained. The resulting constraints for designing systems for such purposes are quite different from those commonly assumed in the infancy of sensor network research, and even now in much ongoing systems research. We describe these constraints in light of experience in deploying sensor networks in support of scientific study at the center for embedded networked sensors (CENS).