BLOSSOMS: Building Lightweight Optimized Sensor Systems on a Massive Scale

As a joint effort between the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the BLOSSOMS sensor network project aims to identify research issues at all levels from practical applications down to the design of sensor nodes. In this project, a heterogeneous sensor array including different types of application-dependent sensors as well as monitoring sensors and intruding sensors are being developed. Application-dependent power-aware communication protocols are also being studied for communications among sensor nodes. An ontology-based middleware is built to relieve the burden of application developers from collecting, classifying and processing messy sensing contexts. This project is also developing a set of tools allowing researchers to model, simulate/emulate, analyze, and monitor various functions of sensor networks.