A Central Nervous System for Earth: HP's Ambitious Sensor Network
HP Labs has joined the race to build an infrastructure for the emerging Internet of Things. The giant computing and IT services company has announced a project that aims to be a "Central Nervous System for the Earth" (CeNSE). It's a research and development program to build a planetwide sensing network, using billions of "tiny, cheap, tough and exquisitely sensitive detectors."
The technology behind this is based on nano-sensing research done by HP Labs. The sensors are similar to RFID chips, but in this case they are tiny accelerometers which detect motion and vibrations.
The first CeNSE sensor to be put into the field by HP Labs is, according to the company, "about 1,000 times more sensitive than accelerometers used in a Wii, an iPhone or an automobile's airbag system." Other sensors planned in future include ones for light, temperature, barometric pressure, airflow and humidity.
Use Cases
Peter Hartwell, senior researcher and project team lead, listed some example use cases for these sensing nodes. The nodes could be "stuck to bridges and buildings to warn of structural strains or weather conditions [and] they might be scattered along roadsides to monitor traffic, weather and road conditions." A bridge like the San Francisco Golden Gate might take 10,000 nodes, said Hartwell.
Other uses include embedding the CeNSE nodes in everyday electronics, tracking hospital equipment, sniffing out pesticides and pathogens in food. Ultimately they may even "recognize" the person using them and adapt.
According to HP Labs, CeNSE sensors will enable real-time data collection, analysis and better decision making.
Potential Issues
This is an ambitious project by HP Labs and there are other large IT companies, such as IBM, building out similar platforms for sensor data and services.
HP senior fellow Stan Williams noted that for CeNSE to work, "we have to make sensors that are vastly more sensitive than anything else that have ever existed before, while being absolutely dirt cheap so that we can deploy them in very large numbers."
RFID technology has had numerous cost and technology issues over the past decade, so HP Labs will surely run into similar real-world obstacles in this project. HP Labs admits that existing sensitive detectors are expensive; but it hopes to make them much cheaper.
The Race to Build a Worldwide Sensor Network
HP Labs' ultimate aim is to have a worldwide network of these CeNSE sensors. A trillion of them "should do the trick," says HP. The company is hoping that at that scale, sensor nodes will cost "next to nothing, yet measure everything." HP is also positioning this, boldly, as a technology that could "save the planet" by enabling it to be monitored.
These are big claims and the proof will be in the pudding. One thing is for certain: sensor technology will become as pervasive as HP Labs says it will, in due course. The questions that remain unanswered though are: how long will it take, and which company (or companies) will gain the biggest footholds in this network?
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There is another question too. Since these sensors are bound to become obsolete at some point in the future, and since billions and billions of them will be produced and deployed, what is going to be their ultimate impact on the environment? I assume that this problem is being addressed, at a time when we have finally learned that thinking way ahead can be a good thing. Any pointers?
Jean-Michel, that is a fantastic question. I'm sure the HP Labs team working on CeNSE has entertained this exact thought, so I'll see what their take is and get back to this thread as soon as I can!
(In fact, Pete Hartwell just gave a talk about CeNSE at the California Academy of Sciences earlier this evening, so if he's still around maybe we'll get an answer tonight ;-)
FYI as Richard mentioned in his tweet about this post, we just launched @HPLabs on Twitter. We'll be adding more voices from the researchers in the coming weeks...hope to see you there!
Best regards,
Ethan
HP Corporate Communications
ethan.bauley@hp.com
Jean-Michel,
We were able to get a hold of Pete, here's his response to your question about the environmental sustainability of the CeNSE technolgy:
1. the sensors themselves are recyclable
2. because we know exactly where the sensors are, they're straightforward to locate and then recycle or deploy elsewhere, depending on the circumstance.
Pretty interesting! Hope this answers your question.
Best,
Ethan
HP Corporate Communications
@HPLabs
Ethan, thanks for getting the answers directly from the source. I really like to hear that these sensors were designed with recyclability in mind. Cheers!
I think this is a fantastic idea, but I would encourage HP to tackle this from a socialist perspective rather than a capitalist one. This is too big a project -- and too important a project -- to be controlled by one company whose aim, let's face it, is to please shareholders. Maybe this should be run like an open source project with the U.N. taking the lead.
OK, so I'm the only one thus far to see where this could be a very bad idea?
Nearly unlimited vibration, thermal & optical sensors covering everything? How long until it's required that DHS or some other branch of the government makes it required that this data be accessible to them for 'terrorist threat analysis' or just plain spying on the public?
Granted, the feeds will be nice to see just so that we can actually monitor the planet. But the way the US Gov't is, it would be kinda freaky letting them have access to all this data.
Just saying.
David makes an excellent point about the capitalist vs. socialist perspective. The notion that the old business paradigm of non-collaborative trade-secret exclusivity is going to win out is not viable for something this far reaching. (See:'Free - The Future of a Radical Price' by Chris Anderson)
The money in all this is if HP builds a platform that is the easiest one for all the other tech-geeks to build their projects off of. And that requires way more engagement than a giant corporation's hierarchy of non-disclosure-based development is likely to be comfortable with.
As someone who grew up just blocks away from HP's world headquarters: I cheered them on as the home team in the 1980's computer world. But that was 30 years ago and now I honestly can't imagine how they can pull it off in any other way than buying out a bunch of start-ups with the potential to pull it off. Or maybe the HP underdog will surprise us with a whole new corporate way of supporting tech-geeks first, making money second?
I'm just wondering why my comment was edited out.. Is RWW sensoring non-affirming comments for HP's sake?
A billion - which is what the project goal is - of these sensors would take vast amounts of processed minerals to produce.
Just because they are " recyclable " - meaning they would resuse the non-biodegradable components - would not make the project a sustainable one..
Im not trying to define what HP considers sustainability; yet "Just because we can" lacks coporate responsbility and the true essence of coporate sustanability.
I think coporation could take a page from the Tim Hortons work [ http://www.timhortons.com/ca/en/goodwill/coffee-partnership.html ]
'Save the planet'? George Carlin?
Hey Idiots, your bus leaves..!