From “Sensor Networks” to “Sensor Networks”

In this position paper, we argue that the mainstream view in our community of what makes for problems in sensor networks that are worthy of attention is very lopsided, focusing much more on pure networking and other classical computer systems issues, than on the equally important but often neglected tasks of modeling of distributed signal fields, and on their acquisition, processing, synthesis and control. We show concrete examples of how these are essential aspects that need to be dealt with in any good system design, and we survey experimental work along these lines currently under way in our lab.