Artificial Neural Networks for Organizing Sensor Webs

A scheme for organizing and controlling sensor webs is based on artificial neural networks. [Sensor webs were described in “Sensor Webs” (NPO-20616), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 23, No. 10 (October 1999), page 80. To recapitulate: Sensor webs are collections of sensor pods that could be scattered over land or water areas or other regions of interest to gather data on spatial and temporal patterns of relatively slowly changing physical, chemical, or biological phenomena in those regions. Each sensor pod is a node in a data-gathering/ data-communication network that spans a region of interest.] The present scheme would exploit communication and information-processing concepts that have enabled biological neural networks to organize and control large numbers of biological sensors, as proven in nature during the last billion years or longer.