Sensor modeling and simulation: can it pass the Turing test?

The VIMS workshop encompasses both virtual instruments and “virtual sensors”, but historically the latter are hardly represented in the program. This paper is not so much a research report as a friendly challenge to the VIMS community to begin thinking actively and creatively about this complementary aspect of our theme. In particular, it raises the question of what and how much we need to build into a virtual sensor agent for it to pass something analogous to the Turing test, i.e., for a virtual sensor, as a “black-box”, to be indistinguishable from a real sensor