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| March 2009 MICS NEWSLETTER
PemSense n Ntsell
Computer scientists, electronicsengineers, and geoscientists alike,prot rom this interdisciplinaryproject. Stephan Gruber, Senior As-sistant at the Department o Geog-raphy at the University o Zurich,and head geoscientist o the Per-maSense project has been study-ing permarost at high altitudes oryears.In order to get a reliable model o the permarost, authentic data isneeded, something the researchersare aiming to get rom their newmeasuring system. The researchershave already come up with somepromising rst ndings, but an ex-act analysis will only be possibleater a ew months o continuouscollection o data. Results are ex-pected to show as rom mid-June.ment, research, system integrationand test to a phase o operations,maintenance, data managementand exploitation. This is signi-cantly dierent rom shorter termexperiments, be it in or out o thelab, and posing real challenges thatare calling or innovative solutions.Apart rom pretty “standard” 24/7uptime o relevant inrastructure,e.g. servers, network trunks andsensor nodes, gathering data overa period o multiple years means alot o logistics around equipment,data and congurations.
a coMPLEX ProcESS
A simple exchange o a sensor nodenot only requires a climbing trip(possibly with an helicopter fight),trained personnel and avorableweather, but also a slurry o actionsand conguration changes in doc-umentation data bases and serverinrastructure. Remember that theactual goal would be to “just” click on a simple query hidden behinda colorul icon in a web browser todisplay a set o data captured in theeld, ready to be analyzed. This data should automatically in-clude the appropriate correctionunctions, calibration parameters,origin, type, circumstances, date o the sensor installation and muchmore that is today primarily kepton paper, emails and whiteboardsketches. Thus, the meaning o meta-data is extended beyond justauxiliary inormation about themeasurement site and methods toa complete documentation o theinstrumentation history to allow atraceable and reproducible conver-sion o measured “digital” numbersto relevant inormation. So clearly,the list o todo’s or the PermaSenseproject is not done yet, now thatsensor nodes have been deployedand data is streaming o the moun-tain in minute intervals.For PermaSense the next steps havealready begun that will allow turn-ing data into relevant inormationand so acilitating geo-science re-search. Joining orces with Karl Ab-erer’s team and also with the SwissExperiment on questions o datamanagement, procedures and theintegration o the necessary inra-structure is expected to allow ob-taining both a critical mass and thenecessary expertise or the tasksahead. An improved ability to doc-ument and process sensor network data streams is urgently needednow: With six months o near-con-tinuous data gathered to date, thethorough geo-science exploitationo results is about to begin.Meanwhile, measurements mustcontinue because environmen-tal research oten requires severalyears o data, and likewise, uturewarning systems will have to dem-onstrate their quality by long-termreliable operation – the quest oruptime in the mountains.
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Pjet webpge:ttp://www.pemsense.onlne dt ess:ttp://t42x.ee.etz.:22001
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