Ambient spatial intelligence for sustainable cities
Matt Duckham, Richard H. Bennett · University of Twente Research Information · 2009
Emerging wireless sensor network (WSN) technologies are opening up many important new opportunities for applications to the built environment, like traffic management, emergency response, and pollution monitoring. However, today’s WSNs have little or no spatial capabilities, and are primarily treated as simply a new data source for integration with other conventional spatial information systems. In contrast, this paper explores the potential for augmenting such networks with the capabilities to not only capture, but also process, query, and even use spatial data in the network itself. The objective is to embed spatial intelligence within the built environment using wireless sensor networks. This “ambient spatial intelligence” (AmSI) presents new fundamental research challenges to many established areas of geomatics and spatial information science. This paper identifies key research problems across geomatics, in the domains of positioning, geographic information science, spatial cognition and geovisualization, spatial data infrastructures, and integration with established data sources like remote sensing and photogrammetry. Using the example of monitoring native vegetation change, the paper indicates how each of these topics is required to contribute to a complete AmSI application to sustainable cities.