The National Weather Sensor Grid: a large-scale cyber-sensor infrastructure for environmental monitoring

Abstract

A sensor grid integrates sensor networks with grid infrastructures to enable the real-time collection of sensor data, and the sharing of computational and storage resources for sensor data processing and management. We have developed a sensor grid architecture framework, called the Scalable Proxy-based aRchItecture for seNsor Grid (SPRING). Based on the SPRING framework, we designed the National Weather Sensor Grid (NWSG), a large-scale cyber-sensor infrastructure for environmental monitoring. The NWSG integrates mini weather stations deployed geographically across Singapore for weather data collection, processing and management. We have designed and implemented core sensor grid middleware components and services such as resource discovery, meta scheduling, job migration and security. The NWSG is designed to support long-term weather monitoring. The performance of the NWSG has been demonstrated in terms of reduction in latency for end-user response, significant improvement in overall system throughput, and even load balance across the sensor grid infrastructure.