TY - JOUR
T1 - A virtual sensor system for user-generated, real-time environmental data products
AU - Hill, David J.
AU - Liu, Yong
AU - Marini, Luigi
AU - Kooper, Rob
AU - Rodriguez, Alejandro
AU - Futrelle, Joe
AU - Minsker, Barbara S.
AU - Myers, James
AU - McLaren, Terry
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to acknowledge the Office of Naval Research, which supports this work as part of the Technology Research, Education, and Commercialization Center (TRECC) (Research Grant N00014-04-1-0437 ), and the TRECC team working on the Digital Synthesis Framework for Virtual Observatories at NCSA. We also thank the UIUC/NCSA Adaptive Environmental Sensing and Information Systems initiative for partially supporting this project. The authors would like to thank Dr. Thomas Over and Mr. David Fazio (USGS Illinois Water Science Center) and Ms. Catherine O’Connor (Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago) for contributing data and support used to develop the case studies. The authors also acknowledge Dr. Dennis Miller (NWS Office of Hydrologic Development) for his suggestions and insight regarding precipitation observation. We also thank Sam Cornwell at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for his assistance in implementation of the virtual sensor system.
PY - 2011/12
Y1 - 2011/12
N2 - With the advent of new instrumentation and sensors, more diverse types and increasing amounts of data are becoming available to environmental researchers and practitioners. However, accessing and integrating these data into forms usable for environmental analysis and modeling can be highly time-consuming and challenging, particularly in real time. For example, radar-rainfall data are a valuable resource for hydrologic modeling because of their high resolution and pervasive coverage. However, radar-rainfall data from the Next Generation Radar (NEXRAD) system continue to be underutilized outside of the operational environment because of limitations in access and availability of research-quality data products, especially in real time. This paper addresses these issues through the development of a prototype Web-based virtual sensor system at NCSA that creates real-time customized data streams from raw sensor data. These data streams are supported by metadata, including provenance information. The system uses workflow composition and publishing tools to facilitate creation and publication (as Web services) of user-created virtual sensors. To demonstrate the system, two case studies are presented. In the first case study, a network of point-based virtual precipitation sensors is deployed to analyze the relationship between radar-rainfall measurements, and in the second case study, a network of polygon-based virtual precipitation sensors is deployed to be used as input to urban flooding models. These case studies illustrate how, with the addition of some application-specific information, this general-purpose system can be utilized to provide customized real-time access to significant data resources such as the NEXRAD system. Additionally, the creation of new types of virtual sensors is discussed, using the example of virtual temperature sensors.
AB - With the advent of new instrumentation and sensors, more diverse types and increasing amounts of data are becoming available to environmental researchers and practitioners. However, accessing and integrating these data into forms usable for environmental analysis and modeling can be highly time-consuming and challenging, particularly in real time. For example, radar-rainfall data are a valuable resource for hydrologic modeling because of their high resolution and pervasive coverage. However, radar-rainfall data from the Next Generation Radar (NEXRAD) system continue to be underutilized outside of the operational environment because of limitations in access and availability of research-quality data products, especially in real time. This paper addresses these issues through the development of a prototype Web-based virtual sensor system at NCSA that creates real-time customized data streams from raw sensor data. These data streams are supported by metadata, including provenance information. The system uses workflow composition and publishing tools to facilitate creation and publication (as Web services) of user-created virtual sensors. To demonstrate the system, two case studies are presented. In the first case study, a network of point-based virtual precipitation sensors is deployed to analyze the relationship between radar-rainfall measurements, and in the second case study, a network of polygon-based virtual precipitation sensors is deployed to be used as input to urban flooding models. These case studies illustrate how, with the addition of some application-specific information, this general-purpose system can be utilized to provide customized real-time access to significant data resources such as the NEXRAD system. Additionally, the creation of new types of virtual sensors is discussed, using the example of virtual temperature sensors.
KW - Collaborative technology
KW - Cyberinfrastructure
KW - Data integration
KW - Environmental sensors
KW - NEXRAD
KW - Real-time sensing
KW - Virtual sensor
KW - Workflow
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U2 - 10.1016/j.envsoft.2011.09.001
DO - 10.1016/j.envsoft.2011.09.001
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84855488281
SN - 1364-8152
VL - 26
SP - 1710
EP - 1724
JO - Environmental Modelling and Software
JF - Environmental Modelling and Software
IS - 12
ER -