Networking the Hudson River
IBM and the Beacon Institute will work with several other research institutions to develop an environmental-monitoring system for all 315 miles of the Hudson River. The project entails deploying a network of sensors that will collect biological, physical, and chemical information and transmitting it to a central location. Some sensors will be suspended from buoys or fixed in place on the riverbed, but a few will be mounted on robotic underwater vehicles developed by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, both contributors to the project. “In terms of having an integrated network of sensors, and given the magnitude of it for the Hudson River, this project is without a doubt a huge advancement and on a much larger scale than anything that has been done before,” says Sandra Nierzwicki-Bauer, a member of the Beacon Institute and director of the Darrin Fresh Water Institute at RPI. The massive amount of data collected by the extensive network will be analyzed by a new data acquisition and analysis system developed by IBM. The system contains both distributed-processing hardware and analytical software, and is designed to receive heterogeneous data from multiple sources and process it in real time. The software is capable of learning and recognizing patterns and can prioritize processing power for useful data. If a data stream consists of minor variations, the system automatically redirects resources to that stream. The system also has visualization technologies to create a virtual model of the river and simulate its ecosystem in real time.
Technology Review (08/29/07) Sauser, Brittany
