The Columbian | Serving Clark County, Washington

WenZhan Song, an assistant professor at Washington State University Vancouver, has been awarded $422,955 to build the next generation of sensor networks for relaying information in harsh environments.

Song received a five-year National Science Foundation CAREER award, through its Faculty Early Career Development program. It recognizes junior faculty members who show potential of becoming leaders in their research areas.

Song is an assistant professor in the School of Engineering and Computer Science at WSU Vancouver and director of the Sensorweb Research Laboratory.

The five-year project will advance work now being done with a volcano monitoring system on Mount St. Helens.

In partnership with NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey’s volcano observatory in Vancouver, Song has been working on a network of sensors.

The wireless network transmits data from “spiders” — instrument packages mounted on three-legged metal frames that are delivered by helicopter into and around Mount St. Helens.

“The next step is to tackle problems,” Song said Tuesday afternoon in his office.

Those problems develop when instruments are left on their own for long periods of time in harsh operating conditions.

“We found intermittent connectivity. People assume a network is connected,” Song said.

But when those connections fail, “We need a new way to store data and have the stations collaborate,” Song said.

“If you have a computer and your network goes out, you can restart the computer. But in harsh environments, that’s not possible.’’

Song’s research team will work on a new design for sensor networks that require no maintenance and are extremely robust.

One goal is to make individual nodes of a network smarter, so they can cooperate on data storage and delivery: When one node stops working, the others will know they should pick up the slack.

Tom Vogt: 360-735-4558 or tom.vogt@columbian.com.

Print this article