Nodes To Watch City Weather

Harvard researchers and a local technology company are developing a network of weather sensors that will make the Cambridge climate one of the most closely studied in the country.

CitySense, a project headed by Assistant Professor of Computer Science Matt Welsh, brings Harvard researchers and BBN Technologies engineers together to create a unique wireless network that can be used for research ranging from high school projects to doctoral theses.

Cambridge will be the first city to install the sensor nodes, which will be placed on or inside small boxes, on its street-light poles next year.

“CitySense will be the information backbone, the wireless network that allows [any sensors] to talk to each other,” Welsh said.

Depending on researchers’ needs, sensors that monitor different environmental aspects, such as radiation, could be interfaced to fit the generic system, he said.

Welsh works with a team of five undergraduate and graduate students on developing the software that will enable the collection and systematization of data.

“There is lots of work being done on sensors, but nobody has built a spread- out network for them yet,” said Kevin M. Bombino ’08, who is one of three undergraduates working onthe project.

The sensors will communicate to other locations via antennae, and BBN Technologies is working with Harvard researchers to improve this infrastructure for the more than 100 sensors that will adorn Cambridge in the next four years.

The network is still being tested, and the size of the boxes being cut down. The researchers have so far only placed sensors on the rooftops of BBN Technologies.

“We are perfecting the packaging of the sensor nodes so they can be mounted by the city, aesthetically and safety-wise,” said Joshua Bers, a BBN software engineer. Until the sensor nodes are ready to be mounted in the city, they will only be mounted on BBN and Harvard property.

The team has also placed five sensors inside laboratories at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in order to conduct research for improvement. Bers added that the researchers are working with the city electrician to meet city regulations and concerns.

Only two of the sensor nodes currently mounted collect weather data, while the rest are relay nodes that transmit the data, according to Bers.

Welsh said that in the project’s early stages, the idea responded to a homeland security concern: monitoring levels of toxic waste. The researchers decided to pitch the project to the National Science Foundation, where the project was a “natural fit,” he said. The project began to receive funding from the National Science Foundation last August.

According to Majid Ezzati, one of the project’s principal investigators, CitySense could give scientists more data and better accuracy in their measurements, alleviating some of the major problems of environmental science. Ezzati is an assistant professor of international health at the Harvard School of Public Health.

The current sensors that the CitySense team is looking at are weather monitors and air particulate sensors.

In the next three to six months, CitySense researchers will be improving sensor nodes on rooftops and preparing them to be mounted on the street, Welsh said.

—Staff writer Daniela Nemerenco can be reached at dnemeren@fas.harvard.edu.